Polly Paulusma bares all amidst a collection of textured acoustic guitars and rich, layered melodic flourishes. 'Wildfires' is mellow and cozy in its production, but its honesty is bittersweet - an intimate and reflective rumination on love's many guises, the easy parts as well as the hard. As always, Paulusma's articulate and emotive lyrics, and her ability to convey the deepest vulnerability with vivid, sometimes nostalgic, imagery is astounding here. The album, as filled with delicate earworms as it is with expressive poetry, burns slowly but no less fiercely, and like love, it can be gentle, it can envelope one completely, and occasionally it can be heart-wrenching.

Swiss vocal phenomenon Andreas Schaerer is celebrated for his unparalleled artistry—a singer, instrumentalist, and storyteller in one. Described as “the Germanic Bobby McFerrin with the flow of a Shakespearean actor” (L’Alsace), his performances are electrifying, his voice an instrument of limitless possibility. In early 2024, the French Académie du Jazz named him European Artist of the Year, a testament to his groundbreaking contributions to music.

Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) is still best known for the early period in his career when he studied with Beethoven and then became his secretary; copying scores and handling correspondence for a composer whose relationship with the outside world only became more unpredictable with the onset of deafness. However, Ries (like his master, born in Bonn) fled Vienna in 1807 and thereafter embarked on a well-travelled career – in Paris, then Vienna again, venturing as far as St Petersburg and London, before settling in Frankfurt. Within a prolific output, he wrote 30 separate works scored for a solo flute, almost all of which date from his period in London (1813-24), where he won a reputation as a piano teacher to the well-to-do while producing his own music for London’s vibrant concert life.

Ars Antiqua Austria This renowned ensemble was founded in Linz in 1995 by Gunar Letzbor and Michael Oman with a core group of eight musicians dedicated to the task of authentically interpreting Austrian music of the Baroque era. To this end, the group performed on original instruments of the period and devoted much energy to researching and uncovering works that had been neglected until being performed by the group. The ensemble takes account of the wide diversity of cultures that have influenced and contributed to Austrian music during the centuries of the Baroque style when the physical and political boundaries of the country were more extensive. The ensemble infuses its performances with "the joie de vivre of the South, the Slav melancholy, French formality, Spanish pomp, and the Alpine character of the German-speaking regions" (Letzbor), typical constituents of the court, and folk and dance music of that time in Austria. The Ars Antiqua Austria has toured Austria, France, Germany, Slovakia, and the Ukraine, played several festivals of Baroque music, and toured the United States in 2001. The group won a Cannes Classical Award in 2002 for its recording of Viviani's Capricci armonici and continued to release albums, including Antonio Bertali: Promithia Suavissima, Parte Seconda (2005), and Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter: Dulcia Fidium Harmonia (2009).

A new issue in the attractive and innovative series "Italian Romantics", featuring Italian composers from the turn of the 19/20th century in instrumental music. Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) is best known for his operas, particularly "Adriana Lecouvreur." However, his contributions to instrumental music are equally valuable. Though less renowned than his operatic output, Cilea's instrumental works exhibit a melodic richness and emotional depth characteristic of the Romantic era. The orchestral works show his mastery of lyrical themes and dramatic expression. His works are imbued with a sense of Italianate warmth and passion, reflecting the composer's deep connection to his native land. This collection presents orchestral, and concertante works, a cello sonata and piano trio, and the complete piano music. Artists include I Virtuosi della Scala (Filippo Arlia, conductor), Enrico Bronzi (cello) and Pier Paolo Vincenzi (piano).

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was a virtuoso violinist, composer, theoretician and teacher, a spider in the international cultural web in a time when Italy was the centre of the musical world, his violin school, the "School of Nations", attracted musicians from all over Europe. Tartini wrote 125 concertos for his own instrument, the violin, attractive and melodious works full of bold harmonies and featuring brilliant solo parts that freely converse with individual voices within the orchestra. These violin concertos were so famous and popular at the time that the organist and composer Leonard Frischmuth (1721-1764) made organ transcriptions of six of them.

Elizabeth Turner's Six Lessons for the Harpsichord, published in 1756, the year of her death, is a significant contribution to 18th-century keyboard music, reflecting the stylistic characteristics of the time. Little is known about Turner herself, but her work stands as one of the few harpsichord collections by a female composer during that era, making it a valuable historical artifact. The Six Lessons are structured as suites, each consisting of multiple short movements, such as minuets, and gigues, which were popular dance forms in Baroque music.

If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities. The absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but it made their albums some of the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era.

Heavy Nova is the ninth studio album by English singer Robert Palmer, released in 1988. His first album for EMI Records after a 15-year association with Island Records, it followed Palmer's very successful album Riptide (1985). The name Heavy Nova derives from Palmer's love of both heavy metal and bossa nova rhythms. The album continued Palmer's popularity with the single "Simply Irresistible", which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the United States. The album peaked at No. 13 in the US, No. 17 in the UK and No. 15 in The Netherlands. It remains Palmer's second most successful album worldwide, behind his 1985 album Riptide.

Bowie is recognized as one of the most respected contemporary musicians of his period. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

The edition for this premiere recording has been made by Karl Böhmer, who has provided an informative introductory essay, and Oliver Mattern. Gérard Lesne has made something of a speciality of Scarlatti’s music and his lively direction of Sedecia benefits from his fluent handling of dramatic and stylistic aspects of the work… A splendid achievement.

Florence, 1600: Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri, two virtuoso singers and rival composers. Striving to rediscover the expressive powers of ancient Greek tragedy, they revolutionized the art of singing and created a new style, which eventually would give birth to opera. In reaction to Renaissance polyphony, these monodies were intended to be sung with the simple accompaniment of a plucked intsrument in order to express the full range of human passions. Peri and Caccini would often accompany themselves but they would also perform with certain family members. Thus brother and sister in this duo follow most naurally a tradition passed on by those great musicians.

As part of Decca's acclaimed Entartete (German for Degenerate) series devoted to either suppressed or forbidden music during the first half of the 20th century, Franz Schreker's opera Die Gezeichneten (The Branded) is a period masterpiece. This story of a dying woman painter Carlotta betraying here longstanding faithful lover Alviano for a newer more physically attractive Tamare and the consequences that ensue is certainly intriguing. Lovers of expertly-crafted, infectiously beautiful orchestration however will simply rejoice in the massive 120+ member ensemble Schreker requires assembled here. All of the vocalists deliver energetic, passionate performances throughout and Decca's sound is state of the art. All in all a remarkable achievement!

Released as part of the ongoing 7T's series on RPM, 10cc's The UK Records Singles Collection is a tight, 14-track collection of the band's earliest recordings – those for UK Recordings, naturally. This was before the big crossover hits started coming – in other words, don't look for "The Things We Do for Love" or "I'm Not in Love" here – and it's a document of when they were the weirdest band in the world…or, "The Worst Band in the World," to use their own words. That tongue-in-cheek classic is here, along with "Johnny Don't Do It," "Wall Street Shuffle," and "Donna," among other highlights that showcase 10cc at their oddest and fizziest and poppiest, if not quite always their strangest. For that, turn to more complete anthologies of UK Records, but this hits a sweet spot for those that want a sampler or those non-10cc listeners looking for some glammy (but not strictly glam) '70s nuggets.

Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in mid 1966, on Columbia Records. Blonde on Blonde completed the trilogy of rock albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, starting with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Critics often rank Blonde on Blonde as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique mixture of the visionary and the colloquial". It was one of the first double albums in rock music.