In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like the Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds in his salad days, the Wolf was the primal force of the music spun out to its ultimate conclusion. A Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, a Muddy Waters more dignity, and a B.B. King certainly more technical expertise, but no one could match him for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.

Although it predates his classic soul-jazz dates for Blue Note by a few years, Lonnie Smith's debut LP, Finger-Lickin' Good, boasts a deeply funky groove quite unusual for the mid-'60s, a period when few jazz musicians acknowledged the influence of more commercial musical pursuits, let alone introduced such elements into their own work. Aided and abetted by an all-star lineup including guitarist George Benson, saxophonist King Curtis, and trumpeter Blue Mitchell, Smith keeps the performances brisk and bold, galvanized by stiletto-sharp bursts of organ. Cuts like "Hola Muneca" and "Can't You Just Feel It" possess a raw vitality quite uncommon for the moment in question, and while it's disingenuous to call Finger-Lickin' Good groundbreaking, it's definitely a record ahead of its time.

Wallenstein were a band that transcended a number of musical styles during their decade-plus of existence, from early krautrock to symphonic to space rock toward the end of their existence. Wallenstein's original line-up was centered around keyboardist/vocalist Jürgen Dollase and drummer Harald Großkopf, both of whom would go on to make names even bigger for themselves in the German music business (Dollase with The Cosmic Jokers and Großkopf as a founding member of Ashra and later the Central Europe Performance). The band was originally named Blitzkrieg, but as they readied their first studio release the band discovered a prior band with that name so changed theirs and retained 'Blitzkrieg' as the title of that first album.

Hong Kong is a live album by Jean-Michel Jarre released in 1994 on Disques Dreyfus. Even though the album is called Hong Kong and has pictures of the event on its booklet, most of the tracks are from the Europe in Concert venues, except for "Souvenir of China" which is a special mix consisting of the Paris la Defense version and the actual track played in Hong Kong. Also, "Fishing Junks at Sunset" was recorded from the Hong Kong concert rehearsals. Magnetic Fields 2 comes from the encore at Barcelona 1993, which appears on the VHS tape released of this concert. Band In The Rain is also from the Barcelona show.

Retrospective, Vol. 1 (1974-1980) was designed to replace the double-disc set Chronicles, and it is, in fact, a better compilation than its predecessor. By concentrating on Rush's earliest albums – from 1974's Rush to 1980's Permanent Waves – the album draws an excellent portrait of the group's artiest work, leaving their hard rock radio hits for Retrospective, Vol. 2. Meanwhile, Vol. 1 contains nearly all of the highlights from their '70s albums, including "Closer to the Heart" and "Fly by Night," making it a nearly flawless encapsulation of their early career.

‘Ever’ the hugely popular IQ album that saw the return of Peter Nicholls to the fold in the early nineties is now 25 years young! To mark this occasion GEP are releasing a special ‘definitive’ 3 disc edition of the album with a 2018 remix by Mike Holmes. Presented in a 4 panel digipak format with a 40 page booklet, the package includes extra material on the first disc, along with newly recorded live versions of the whole album on disc 2. Disc 3 (DVD) contains a surround sound mix of the studio album plus a surround mix of the live material, along with over 2 hours of ‘further listening’ files comprising album demos, studio outtakes rehearsal tapes and unused ideas. All in all disc 3 contains nearly 4 hours of music. The 40 page booklet is packed with lots of contemporary photos, stories and memories from the time and features contributions from all the band members of 1992.

Loreena McKennitt is in her element in front of an audience, telling interesting stories about the songs and assembling a topnotch backing band. This is her first live release available to the public, and uses material from three concerts (one from Paris and two from Toronto) to put together a complete show. As with The Book of Secrets tour, the first half is The Book of Secrets in its entirety, arranged in the same order as the studio CD. This material is covered on the first CD, and it has never sounded better. The live performance seems to breathe new life into the tracks and some songs, such as "Dante's Prayer" and "Skellig," sound better than the studio recordings. The second CD is more of an overview of her career, featuring songs from her back catalog.

A boat from Venice to Padua? Yes, it does sound odd and, to recall Alice, it becomes curiouser and curiouser. The ill-assorted company of passengers includes a student, some lawyers from Murano, a fisherman from the Lagoon, a couple of girls whose profession is older than agriculture, a music-master from Lucca, and a Florentine bookseller who invites five singers on board. All the makings of a Ship of Fools if not of a Marx Brothers comedy. And so it turns out to be. The singers (four from different parts of Italy, the fifth an alcoholic German who passes round the bottle before the proceedings commence), begin with a couple of madrigals.

All four of Arvo Part’s symphonies are released on a single disc for the first time, newly recorded with the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic under the direction of one of Part’s most trusted colleagues, Tonu Kaljuste. Each of the symphonies, as the great Estonian composer has noted, is a world unto itself. Heard in chronological order they also tell us much about Part’s musical and spiritual journey, and the very different ways in which he has exercised his craft. Forty-five years separate his Symphony No. 1 (“Polyphonic”) written in 1963 while he was still a student of Heino Eller, from his Symphony No. 4 (“Los Angeles”) written in 2008, by which time he was (and still is) the world’s most widely-performed contemporary composer, and one whose now famous “tintinnabuli-style” has become an immediately identifiable artistic signature.