Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.

Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author, known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues, and soul, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. His own term for himself was "bluesologist", which he defined as "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues." His music, most notably on Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul.

The Waterboys, one of the most creative, loved and literate bands of the last four decades, return this summer with their 14th studio album Good Luck, Seeker. Comprising dramatic spoken-word over wild, relentless genre-busting music (is it psychedelic soul? Is it trance? punk?), My Wanderings In The Weary Land might just be the greatest rock’n’roll record ever made – and one that is darkly appropriate to our weird, wired times.

The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons is culminating documentation of a richly inspired piece – lauding four key figures of the Civil Rights Movement: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali. Marshaling his ever-sharpening skills as a composer, arranger, conductor, musician and lyricist, Christian McBride has created a historically and culturally illuminating five-part suite for an 18-piece big band, chorus and narrators that places the motivating forces as well as the goals of the Civil Rights Movement within a powerfully relevant artistic context. It is a one-from-the-heart project McBride was, apparently, destined to undertake. This recording of The Movement Revisited marks the addition of a fifth movement, “Apotheosis,” which acknowledges the election of Barack Obama as the first African American President of the United States.

The West Coast's answer to The Last Poets, The Watts Prophets played an integral part in the raising of black consciousness and laying the foundations for rap. Formed at the Watts Writer's Workshop, Anthony "Amde" Hamilton, Otis O'Solomon, and Richard Dedeaux began performing together as Watts Prophets, setting their socially and politically conscious poetry to spare, often jazzy musical backing. They made high-profile guest appearances on Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key of Life and Quincy Jones' Mellow Madness. And were later the subject of an Emmy-nominated documentary, Victory Will Be My Moan. In 1969, the group debuted with The Black Voices: On the Streets in Watts and, two years later, followed with Rappin' Black in a White World, which featured accompaniment by ex-Motown songwriter/pianist DeeDee McNeil. The radical, incendiary tone of their work fit right in with the emerging black power movement and attracted unfavorable notice from the government, with the home of the Watts Writers Project being destroyed by fire in 1975 after having been infiltrated by an FBI informant. Throughout the years, they've remained sporadically active as performers, and were rediscovered by the hip-hop generation as their records were sampled frequently by many hip-hop artists including Ice Cube, Digable Planets, and Coolio. The Watts Prophets remain dedicated community activists today, promoting creative self-expression and the arts to young people around Southern California and beyond. Two bonus tracks. Deluxe Arigato Pak! Water Records. 2005.

A 5CD box set edition of Consequences, the remarkable triple vinyl debut release from ex 10cc members Godley & Creme.

This 75th Anniversary 4 disc collectible edition includes The Original Leopold Stokowski Soundtrack, the Digital Re-recording by Irwin Kostal, the Original Score for the Deleted 'Clair De Lune' Sequence, 2 Bonus Tracks: 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' and 'Peter and the Wolf,' both read by Sterling Halloway, Enchanting Illustrations, Original Concept Art and More!

Ringo Starr anchored the Beatles with a smile and a thundering backbeat, qualities he'd never lose during the group's heyday or throughout his long solo career. Starr often took the spotlight in the Beatles – he stole scenes in their feature film debut, A Hard Day's Night, he sang "Yellow Submarine," the 1966 number one single that launched a 1968 psychedelic animated film of the same name – but he didn't start writing original material until the band's final years, penning "Don't Pass Me By" for The Beatles and "Octopus's Garden" for Abbey Road. While Ringo would pen a number of hits in the first years of his solo career – "It Don't Come Easy" and "Back Off Boogaloo," his first two U.K. Top Tens, were written by him alone – he'd soon rely on a blend of covers, originals, and songs given to him by his wide circle of friends, colleagues, and admirers.

This fourth studio album and seventh release on Sub Rosa embraces the new. Leaving aside for a while the logbooks of long journeys and the field recordings of the previous albums, the music of Oiseaux-Tempête unfolds as a twilight and prophetic orchestra around G.W. Sok's punctuated voice.

The "storyteller" concept was ideal for aging singer/songwriters, letting them run through their back catalog and illuminate the origins of their best-known songs with stories and anecdotes. Ray Davies essentially invented the concept on his promotional tour for his semi-fictional memoir X-Ray, and his concerts were so successful, they eventually provided the basis for the VH1 series Storyteller. It also led to Storyteller, his first solo album since the soundtrack to Return to Waterloo. Like that album, it has a sound very similar to the Kinks – which shouldn't be surprising, since Davies was the musical force behind the band – but it's considerably more engaging than Return to Waterloo.

The dubbing spokesman Christian Brückner (among others for Robert De Niro) and Michael Wollny prove to be the perfect couple to let Heinrich Heine sound again. With aesthetic flair and imagination, Michael picks up the mood and gesture of the poems and prepares the musical breeding ground for Brückner's haunting performance of the texts in mostly completely free improvisations. Voice and piano intertwine and inspire each other in the dialogue of recitation and real-time composition.

When You're Strange: Music from the Motion Picture is the studio album and the soundtrack to the 2010 documentary film, narrated by Johnny Depp, about The Doors and their music. The soundtrack features 14 songs from The Doors’ six studio albums, with studio versions mixed with live versions, including performances from The Ed Sullivan Show, Television-Byen in Gladsaxe, Felt Forum in New York and The Isle of Wight Festival.

A unique new album of poetry and music featuring Marianne Faithfull, set to the music of Warren Ellis, and featuring Nick Cave, Brian Eno and Vincent Ségal.

Songs from the Bardo begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration. Anderson, Choegyal, and Smith fuse modern compositional techniques with the mystique of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to make these visionary traditions more accessible to a new generation of listeners and to reveal the ancient wisdoms contained within.

Girl On Dates is the 1999 CD single by electronic duo IQU (formerly ICU), who collaborated with actress Miranda July for this release. It features two songs, including remixes of both. This was released by K Records.