Matthias Bamert and the LMP have dusted off some treats in their 'Contemporaries of Mozart' series for Chandos. This latest release, featuring premiere recordings of six symphonies by the Bohemian-born Josef Myslivecek, is one of the best. None of these works, dating back to the 1770s is much more than 10 minutes long, yet each is delightfully imaginative, and benefitting from the LMP's sprightly playing.

The musicians of Les Ombres pay tribute to Luigi Boccherini. The free and audacious composer was an insatiable traveler and the inventor of the string quartet whose belatedly acknowledged genius has now earned him a major place in the history of music.

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to the Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), Tübingen, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team. For the first time, the listener and interested reader can follow Schubert’s textual alterations and can appreciate the importance the written word had for the composer.

This disc, suitably and finely recorded with depth in 1985, is a very fine rendition of Vaughan Williams' seventh symphony, subtitled Antarctica, reflecting the source of its inspiration. The film depicts Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole and Vaughan Williams was commissioned to write the music. While doing so, he became so engrossed by the subject that he reworked much of the material into his next symphony. The degree of reworking combined with fresh material took the music out of the realm of a film score suite and more properly into a symphonic conception.

The Wiener Philharmoniker, or Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, has attained a kind of exalted status among symphonic ensembles of the German-speaking world. In fact, it may be so exalted that it only occasionally, when properly motivated, bestirs itself to creativity. From this perspective, this cycle of Beethoven symphonies, with Andris Nelsons conducting the venerable Viennese, is a success worthy of the shelf and hard drive space among all the other hundreds of Beethoven symphony cycles. Nelsons generally makes his Beethoven brisk enough to put the players into a bit of a state of tension, and when they execute, the results are thrilling indeed, in a way that brings the entire weight of the Vienna tradition alive.

Dominic Miller has been called “a great, serene storyteller” by Peter Ruedi in the Swiss weekly Weltwoche, and Vagabond, the guitarist’s third recording for ECM, might prove his most poetic tale to date, as he creates striking melancholy textures fronting a quartet with Ziv Ravitz on drums, long-time associate Nicolas Fiszman on bass and pianist Jacob Karlzon.

Bebel Gilberto releases her new album via [PIAS] Recordings. Entitled Joao, the album is a collection of songs made famous by her father João Gilberto, widely regarded as the “father of Bossa Nova music. João Gilberto passed away in 2019 after a 70 year career in music. Bebel began singing with him as a small child and the songs she sings on this new album have been with her all her life. Says Bebel- "João" is a love letter to my father. Since my first album I've never really covered any of my Dad's music. Now it's time to present to the public the songs from João Gilberto that have influenced me since I was born- and even before”.

Iconic ground-breaking Brazilian artist Bebel Gilberto releases Agora (“Now”). This is Gilberto’s first new studio album in six years and was produced by Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent).

Alice Cooper wasted little time following up the breakthrough success of Love It to Death with another album released the same year, Killer. Again, producer Bob Ezrin was on board and helps the group solidify their heavy rock (yet wide-ranging) style even further. The band's stage show dealt with the macabre, and such disturbing tracks as "Dead Babies" and the title track fit in perfectly. Other songs were even more exceptional, such as the perennial barnstorming concert standard "Under My Wheels," the melodic yet gritty "Be My Lover," and the tribute to their fallen friend Jim Morrison, "Desperado." The long and winding "Halo of Flies" correctly hinted that the band would be tackling more complex song structures on future albums, while "You Drive Me Nervous" and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" showed that Alice Cooper hadn't completely abandoned their early garage rock direction…

The mysterious Seasick Steve does indeed offer a brand of "cheap" juke joint blues on this album. Not that it's badly recorded at all; it's just rather skeletal and rough, Steve fronting a core trio of himself on electric guitar, "Mr. Joe H." on stand-up bass, and "Mr. Kai C." on drums. In the 1990s and early 21st century, this is the kind of raw juke joint stuff that underwent a revival, or at least was recorded far more often than it had been, both by oldsters and youngsters. Seasick Steve's somewhere in the middle of that age range, and while what he devises is acceptable and certainly gritty, it would have been more ear-catching had it come out ten years or so earlier, before other people did similar stuff (and sometimes did it better). The songs are basic, repetitive, and slightly grungy, Steve singing in a lived-in, scratchy, at times mumbly voice that might slightly remind you of Tom Waits and Dr. John at times…

When this album was recorded in February of 1961, it had been more than year since the Portrait in Jazz was issued, the disc that won the critics over. By the time of this issue, Evans had released four albums in six years, a pace unheard of during that time. Most musicians were issuing two, three, and even four records a year during the same era. Many speculate on Evans' personal problems at the time, but the truth of the matter lies in the recordings themselves, and Explorations proves that the artist was worth waiting for no matter what else was going on out there. Evans, with Paul Motian and Scott LaFaro, was onto something as a trio, exploring the undersides of melodic and rhythmic constructions that had never been considered by most. For one thing, Evans resurrects a number of tunes that had been considered hopelessly played out, and literally reinvents them - "How Deep Is the Ocean" and "Sweet and Lovely"…

This is a recording from an historical event. On May 14th 1977 there was a Gong festival in the Hippodrome in Paris. 14 hours of Gong in several line-ups and several related bands. Among the bands appearing most notably one named Strontium 90, consisting of Andy Summers (lead guitar), Sting (vocals and rhythm guitar), Stewart Copeland (drums) and Mike Howlett (bass). If someone says "wait a moment, that's Police", yes, you are right. The roots of police stem from this band. A fact hardly anyone knows. Some of the band members had played in several other line-ups of Gong or in solo acts before this final Gong concert, and this can most notably be heard in the performance of Pieere Moerlen on drums. Not that he is bad, but one has heard more lively drumming of him.This is especially notable on "Master Builder"…