Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band set rock on its ear from 1965 until 1982, when leader Dan Van Wet retired from music. Engineering a mutant strain of musical DNA (garage, punk, tuff-ass R-n-B, extraterrestrial field hollers, austere "classical" miniatures, loping sea shanties, scorched-earth delta blues, free-blowing skronk, fat-bottom groove and post-everything clangor all found their way into the soup), CB&HMB are now regarded as one of the most original and consistently compelling bands ever waxed.

It figured that some other prolific composer of Handel’s time would have composed a competing “Water Music,” but Telemann’s half-hour work–otherwise known as an Overture in C–remains relatively obscure. Written for the centenary of the Hamburg Admiralty a few years after Handel’s “Water Music,” it is an invigorating piece of work, consisting of an Overture and nine dance movements with various watery descriptions from mythology that the listener can take or leave.

Immensely gifted emerging artist" (New York Times) Daniel Lozakovich has been dreaming about recording the Beethoven Violin Concerto since he was eight. He first performed it on stage when he was thirteen, and at fifteen was invited by Valery Gergiev to perform the concerto with him in Moscow. A few short years later, he has reunited with his mentor Gergiev to record the Beethoven with the Mnchner Philharmoniker for Deutsche Grammophon.

As composer, musicologist and critic, Erkki Salmenhaara (1941-2002) was one of the major figures in Finnish musical life in the second half of the twentieth century. His music for organ charts his stylistic evolution, from a modernism influenced by his teacher, György Ligeti, to triadic harmonies spiced with dissonance. Even so, all these works manifest his fondness for the ability of the organ to generate massive and powerful blocks of sound, giving this music a monumental character in keeping with the grand spaces of the buildings in which it is usually heard.

Geometrical Sardine takes listeners on a daring sonic expedition with Last Flight Before Extinction, released on Produccions BLAU S.L. Fusing electronic precision with organic intensity, the album unfolds as a vivid exploration of rhythm, texture, and emotion—where pulsing beats collide with haunting melodies and atmospheric layers. Each track feels like a dispatch from a world on the brink, balancing urgency with fragile beauty. Boldly experimental yet deeply human, Last Flight Before Extinction captures the sound of survival, transformation, and the enduring will to create amid chaos.

Winner of the 2022 Charles Cros Academy Prize for her second album, Varka, French-Greek singer Dafné Kritharas invites us on a musical odyssey between the lands of Byzantium and the shores of the Orient, accompanied by musicians from here and elsewhere. A journey that sings of exile, love, and joy with a pure and heartbreaking voice.

This is the definitive collection of Charles Mackerras’s Mozart recordings for Linn, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Comprising nine symphonies plus the Requiem, this boxed set exemplifies why Mackerras was acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest Mozartians and the SCO is internationally recognised as one of the world’s finest chamber orchestras. Mackerras’s recording of Mozart’s four late symphonies (Nos. 38–41) won multiple awards: the 2009 Classical BRITs Critics’ Award and the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Year and Orchestral Awards, whilst his recording of symphonies Nos. 29, 31 (‘Paris’), 32, 35 (‘Haffner’) & 36 (‘Linz’) was named Symphonic Recording of the Year at the 2011 ECHO Klassik Awards. Completing the collection is Mackerras’s recording of the Mozart Requiem, boasting stellar soloists led by soprano Susan Gritton and mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers. The score, prepared by the renowned American academic Robert Levin, aims for a more historically authentic performance of the choral masterpiece. It was named a benchmark recording by BBC Music Magazine amongst other accolades.