The Web are perhaps best known for their progressive rock classic I Spider (available on Esoteric Recordings), an album of innovation that continues to draw comparisons with the work of Van Der Graaf Generator at that time. The Web began life as a jazz and soul influenced outfit, fronted by singer John L. Watson, enjoying Top Ten hit singles throughout Europe. By the time of Theraphosa Blondi the band underwent a metamorphosis, with their music taking on more Jazz and Progressive influences, resulting in an excellent album that is rightly seen as a precursor to both the album I Spider and the band'sevolution into the group Samurai.

London's and TD's soundscapes are so unique like a score to a movie. The British influence in TD's music within their 40 years' development is bigger and more intensive than most people may have recognised. For those who couldn't join the concert or like to relive it again: here's the full cut of their beat show at the Forum in Kentishtown on Nov. 1st 2008. A kaleidoscope beginning with the new title Trauma and ending with the breathtaking live interpretation of the TD classic Cloudburst Flight.

John Lee Hooker never abandoned his raw, gut bucket Mississippi-Delta-comes-to-the-city approach to the blues throughout his fifty-year career, and if he got a tad bit slicker towards the end of that career, it was only a tad and only by degree. There are innumerable Hooker collections on the market, and this two-disc set wouldn't be anything particularly special except that it actually charts through his entire history, beginning with the ageless "Boogie Chillen," which was recorded in 1948 and topped the R&B charts for Modern Records in 1949, through "Tupelo," which was recorded in 1993 and released on the Pointblank LP Chill Out in 1995.

The Album is the ninth album released by English progressive rock band Caravan. It was recorded at Farmyard Studios, Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire in July 1980. After a year of inaction followed by Caravan being dropped from Arista Records, Caravan reformed with a line up of Pye Hastings, Geoff Richardson, Dave Sinclair, Richard Sinclair and Richard Coughlan. After attempting to record a live album, Richard Sinclair dropped out of the line up and was replaced by Dek Messecar. The group decided to scrap the live album when it was learned that a studio album could be recorded with the same budget. Members Dave Sinclair and Geoff Richardson contributed to songwriting duties alongside main songwriter Pye Hastings. The material moved in the direction of shorter songs and more mainstream instrumentation than previous albums.

Following the iconic series of the complete songs of Schubert and Schumann, Graham Johnson’s latest enterprise traverses the complete songs of Brahms. He is joined here on Volume 2 by the wonderful Christine Schäfer, whose contribution to the Schumann song series won a prestigious Gramophone Award.

An amateur cellist, the composer of Prince Igor was the only one of the Group of Five to have written some ten chamber works for his personal pleasure in keeping with the laws of Germanic rhetoric - to Balakirev's great displeasure. One of them is a pure masterpiece: his Quartet in D, featuring an irresistible Nocturne, which has been played round the world in various arrangements.

Facce d’amore, ‘Faces of love’ follows Jakub Józef Orliński’s first solo album, Anima Sacra, which moved Gramophone magazine to announce that “This is a voice with a big future.” It brings a switch from the sacred to the personal and passionate. As the Polish-born, New York-trained countertenor says, the programme – which includes eight world premiere recordings – comprises “operatic arias that tell a story, showing a musical picture of a male lover in the baroque era – not only the positive side, like joyful or reciprocated love, but also anger or even madness.” Spanning some 85 years of the baroque period, the arias on Facce d’amore are by Handel, Cavalli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Bononcini, Conti, Hasse, Orlandini, Predieri and Matteis. Orliński is again partnered by the instrumentalists of Il Pomo d’Oro and their Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev.