Best known as a member of the legendary Welsh band Man, Deke Leonard also enjoyed a successful solo career in the early 1970s.
Iceberg (1973). Though Deke Leonard had made his reputation playing progressive rock in the Welsh group Man, his first solo album has more of a roots rock feel than anything released by that band. Roots rock played by someone with a taste for odd arrangements, perhaps, but roots rock nevertheless. "Lisa" and "Jesse" both sound like something that the Band might have turned out, country fiddle, organ, and all, though Leonard's distinctive, reedy voice makes it unlikely that anyone is actually going to mistake one for the other. Rockabilly comes in for some attention too, as in the delirious "Hard Way to Live"…

The Coasters were the 1950s' (and early rock's) dominant novelty/comic R&B ensemble, benefiting from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's lyrical wit and inspired production. They weren't simply proficient clowns; the Coasters were a skilled vocal unit whose talents were utilized on slice-of-life narratives, prophetic youth manifestos, and even an occasional teen anthem, as well as the prototype humorous vehicles "Yakety Yak" and "Poison Ivy." Although Rhino has already given them the deluxe two-disc treatment, consumers who either don't want that much Coasters material or prefer only the hits are nicely served by this 16-track anthology. It contains every major release, plus valuable lesser-known selections such as "Shoppin' for Clothes" and "What About Us."

"The trees are coming into leaf/Like something almost being said." Taking a cue from these lines of Philip Larkin, pianist Simone Dinnerstein casts her album of the music of J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert in poetic terms. Her understanding of the composers is summed up in her own words: "The music of Bach and Schubert share a distinctive quality, as if wordless voices were singing textless melodies." Of course, Bach and Schubert were masters of setting texts to profoundly expressive music, so it is fruitful to look for the lyrical impulse in their keyboard works and appropriate to find songful interpretations. Yet Dinnerstein doesn't merely serve up rhapsodic renditions or treat the music as some kind of tuneful vehicle for idiosyncratic or personal reveries. Her playing is quite in character for both composers, and her treatment of the material is far from self-indulgent.

Heartattack and Vine is Tom Waits' seventh and final album for Asylum. As such, it's transitional. As demonstrated by its immediate predecessors, 1978's excellent Blue Valentine and 1977's Foreign Affairs, he was already messing with off-kilter rhythms even in the most conventionally structured blues and jazz songs, with nastier-sounding guitars - he plays a particularly gnarly style of rhythm on this entire album. Five of these nine tracks are rooted in gutbucket blues with rock edges and primal R&B beats. By this time, his singing voice had deteriorated to a gasping-for-breath whiskey-and-cigarettes growl that could make words indecipherable from one another, but his jazzman-inspired phrasing more than compensated. Check the opening title track with its razored electric guitars (Roland Bautista guested on lead over several cuts), Greg Cohen's walking upright bass and natural sound…

The dozen signs of the Zodiac are ruminated upon during the pseudo-psychedelic Cosmic Sounds. This embarrassingly dated "concept" album was issued in late 1967 on Elektra Records . The recording – replete with equally absurd cover art – helped usher in the "age of Aquarius." Judging by the astrological psycho babble in these grooves, it may too have been the age of excess. But what should one expect from an album whose caveat reads "Must Be Played In The Dark"? Cosmic Sounds narrator Cyrus Faryar's other credits include proficiencies as a bouzouki player, bassist, guitarist, and sometimes vocalist for a plethora of diverse artists, namely Dave Guard & the Whiskeyhill Singers and the Modern Folk Quartet, as well as guest spots on albums by Mama Cass Elliot, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Buffalo Springfield, Fred Neil, and even the Firesign Theatre.

With this second contribution to the Vivaldi Edition, Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante sign here the recording of the twentieth opera of the collection - a pasticcio in which Vivaldi ‘recycles’ hit tunes from the ‘World of Warcraft’ operas of his contemporaries.

Aquostic II – That’s A Fact! is the follow up to the phenomenally successful album from 2014 Aquostic (Stripped Bare). Aquostic II offers a generous helping of Quo classics that are immediately recognisable, and yet demonstrably re-engineered; including In The Army Now, Hold You Back and Roll Over Lay Down. Also featured are three brand new tracks from the band One For The Road, Is Someone Rocking Your Heart? and One Of Everything. This deluxe edition comes with a bonus CD featuring six tracks recorded at the band’s 2015 Stuttgart Aquostic show including Pictures of Matchstick Men and Whatever You Want.

Pietro Paolo Bencini (1675? -1755) was one of the most important figures in the musical life of Rome in the eighteenth century. His sacred music is on the same level as that of Alessandro Scarlatti. This is evident from the fact that much of his music can be found in copies even outside Europe. The most important part of his oeuvre is in the collection of the 'Cappella Guilia', now the library of the Vatican. Bencini worked as 'maestro di cappella' in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso and from 1743 in St. Peter's of Rome; an important job. His style is festive, full of contrasts and smooth melodic lines.

This matchup between pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and drummer Louis Hayes directly precedes Peterson's recordings for Pablo. The pianist is in typically brilliant form on the LP, performing six standards (including "Soft Winds" and "On the Trail") along with his own "Wheatland." From the results here, it couldn't have been too surprising that Peterson would want to record frequently with Pedersen in future years.

The first 10 years of Magma were celebrated with the music written by Christian Vander on three memorable evenings in June 1980 at the Olympia theatre in Paris. This retrospective, reuniting most of the musicians who had performed in the group, was issued as two albums, Retrospektïẁ 1/2 (Double) and Retrospektïẁ 3 (Single). Issued first, Retrospektïẁ 3 comprises 3 titles, Retrovision, a long piece in the style of the album Attahk, in which the vocalists Stella Vander, Guy Khalifa and Maria Popkiewicz turn in a blazing performance over a driving rhythm section, followed by a supercharged version of Hhai, in which the trio Lockwood/Paganotti/Widemann works miracles. And finally La Dawotsin, where, in a more muted register, Christian Vander’s voice triumphs through its mastery and profound sensibility.