Martin Turner - founding original member of Wishbone Ash and lead vocalist, bassist and key creative force on iconic album releases such as 'Argus', 'Pilgrimage', 'There's the Rub' and 'New England' - returns with this long-awaited studio collection of new compositions. Written and recorded with Turner's touring musicians and other collaborators, 'Written in the Stars' follows a critically acclaimed period of worldwide live activity. Turner's present live band consists of Danny Willson (guitar/vocals), Misha Nikolic (guitar/vocals) and Tim Brown (drums/vocals). Turner describes this new album as "a guitar-based set of songs which represents an extension of the Wishbone Ash legacy, with an emphasis on the melodic qualities that the classic line-ups of the band were known for".

Native Wisdom: World Music Of The Spirit collects music from all over the globe in an attempt to offer an introduction to world music. Though any effort like this is bound to be incomplete, the album does indeed offer an effective introduction to broad array of musics. Neophyte listeners would be well-served by the collection, since it lets them sample a variety of styles.

Completely Well was B.B. King's breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, "The Thrill Is Gone," and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King's pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King's old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he's having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it's a nice stop along the way before you finish it.

There's an old saying that one is only as good as the people with whom one collaborates. Judging by the list of musical contributors to Hector Zazou's Sahara Blue, Zazou is quite good indeed. Among many others, those adding their own touch to Zazou's album include Bill Laswell, Dead Can Dance, John Cale, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Tim Simenon. Zazou devised the album as a mix of musical styles set to lyrics/vocals taken from the pen of Arthur Rimbaud. While it might appear like a pretentious undertaking on paper, the album is a cohesive slice of eclectic music-making. Jazzy spoken word songs such as "Ophelie" intermingle with throbbing dance-oriented numbers like "I'll Strangle You" and quiet, peaceful piano-based meditations such as "Harar et les Gallas." Dead Can Dance duo Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard work their particular magic on "Youth," exchanging vocals, and on "Black Stream," where Perry's dark, somber synth weeps around Gerrard's stunning vocals and yang chin. Zazou himself mostly stays in the background, providing production and electronic sounds, allowing the players to showcase their abilities.

Italian pop culture icon Gianni Morandi worked his way up from the bottom of the entertainment industry. Born in 1944, as a child Morandi sold soda and candies at the local movie theater in his native town of Monghidoro to make ends meet. He made his performance debut at age 12, singing in the public square on New Year's Day, 1956. His noticeable musical talent caused his parents to move him from traditional schooling to a school in Bologna, where he studied song and performance with master vocalist Alda Scaglioni. He made his official debut in 1958 in Alfonsine, Ravenna; three years later Morandi formed a band, and was soon referred to as the Italian Paul Anka. In 1962, Morandi won a small talent competition where he met and impressed boxing and entertainment promoter Paul Lionetti, who arranged an audience with RCA executives. That same year, the world was introduced to Morandi via his premier 45, "Andavo a Cento All'ora." Morandi's popularity blossomed in 1969 with his win at the Canzonissima Festival. Although he experienced a slight decline in popularity during the 1970s, the next decade was a great era for Morandi, punctuated with his winning performance at the prestigious Sanremo Festival in 1987. Over the course of his career, it is estimated that Morandi has sold more than 30 million records.

Thomas Dausgaard's recordings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra of three of Franz Schubert's middle symphonies are displays of authentic period practice in state-of-the-art reproduction, and it's a winning combination. The watchword here is clarity, because these symphonies are models of Classical form and precision, with orchestral writing that is utterly transparent and ideally balanced, so the music is only enhanced by the spacious multichannel recording and direct stream digital processing. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra offers pristine string sonorities, and the winds have the distinctive and slightly pungent timbres of the 18th and early 19th century instruments Schubert knew. Dausgaard's interpretations are clearheaded and meticulous, and it's obvious that his musicians respond to his cogent direction with energy and enthusiasm. BIS recorded these performances on different occasions between 2009 and 2011 in the Örebro Concert Hall in Sweden, so in spite of the breaks between sessions, there is consistently superb sound quality, thanks to the first-rate engineering team and the unchanging venue. Highly recommended.

Oracular Spectacular is the first major label studio album by American band MGMT. The album, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide, was nominated for best international album in the 2009 BRIT Awards. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 494 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Japanese Edition includes four bonus tracks.

This release in Praga's Reminiscences series of SACD remasterings features the great Russian conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky leading the Leningrad Philharmonic in recordings of two masterpieces of the Romantic repertoire. Brahms's refined and intellectually complex Symphony No.4 is paired with the rich, heart-on-sleeve passion of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5 – one of the composer's best loved works.

Recorded in the fall of 2006, shortly after B.B. King's 81st birthday, Live is really an abridged audio complement to a video release, containing 12 of the 19 tracks available on the DVD of the same title. King has made a lot of live albums in his time, but his approach hasn't changed much over the years. In addition to his obvious talents as a guitarist and showman, he has also been fortunate in that his chosen style of music, a version of the blues growing out of the swing-influenced jump blues of the 1940s, has not only remained perennially popular but grown in acceptance. As performed here by the B.B. King Blues Band, it is still essentially the same, a jazzy roadhouse music that leaves plenty of room for solos. At one time, most of those solos were played by King on his guitar, but now he is content to give the showcase to his horn players, as he does on "Blues Man," or organist James Toney, who claims the lion's share of "Rock Me Baby." There is still plenty of guitar work, however, and King remains seemingly as agile as ever. He is also a relaxed, comfortable frontman, engaging in easy banter with both band and audience.

Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack album by Prague Philharmonic Orchestra was released Jun 25, 2002 on the Silva Screen label. This complete score to the 1968 version of ROMEO & JULIET was re-recorded by The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra And Chorus.

United Nations of Sound is the debut album by British alternative rock band RPA & The United Nations of Sound (pseudonym of Richard Ashcroft, arrived at his fourth solo album), released on 19 July 2010 through Parlophone. The album was released in the United States on 22 March 2011 under the name "Richard Ashcroft" through the record company Razor & Tie.

Gen X-ers will instantly recognize Burl Ives's voice from his appearance as a rotund snowman in the animated TV classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. But more mature listeners should remember that Ives was a key figure in the folk explosion of the '50s. His pop handling of traditional tunes brought him great success, and this CD collects some of his best. A few tracks, like a swinging "Blue Tail Fly," complete with Andrews Sisters-style background singing, may seem anathema to the folk aesthetic, but that's splitting hairs. If nothing else, this is exceedingly friendly music, and there's nothing wrong with that.

With this disc, Vladimir Ashkenazy, celebrated for his readings of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, and his son, Vovka, take on music by Debussy and Ravel for two pianos, and the results, utterly unlike virtually anything Ashkenazy père has ever recorded before, make it a real winner. From the electric excitement of the opening En blanc et noir, through the hazy mysteries of Jeux, and the luminous colors of the Rapsodie espagnole, to the inexorable hysteria of La Valse, Ashkenazy père and fils turn in performances that match the music for poise, drive, and technical brilliance. Some might find their sonorities a bit hard-edged at points – should the opening of En blanc et noir and the close of La Valse really be hit so strongly? – but the results are so consistently thrilling that most listeners are likely to be swept away. Recorded in close but clear and vivid digital sound, this disc may not be for every Debussy and Ravel fan, but it should certainly appeal to fans of Ashkenazy.

The first time June Tabor and Maddy Prior made a duo recording, it was released under their names and was entitled Silly Sisters. On this, their second album, Silly Sisters is the name of the group. Officially, it still consists of just Tabor and Prior, but most tracks also feature Breton guitarist Dan Ar Braz, Welsh harpist and keyboardist Huw Warren, and various other guests. As with their first album, the program is a winning mix of traditional and modern British folk music. An eerie and haunting arrangement of Andy Irvine's "Blood and Gold" is followed immediately by an almost African-sounding instrumental by Ar Braz; Tabor and Prior perform a brief a cappella "catch" by Henry Purcell entitled "Cakes and Ale"; and the traditional "Hedger and Ditcher" shows up in an arrangement that features both bagpipes and soprano saxophone. But interesting as things get instrumentally, Tabor and Prior's almost telepathic musicality and sharp, reedy voices are always at center stage, and the songs are always well served by the arrangements.

The Photographer is a three-part mixed media performance accompanied by music (also sometimes referred to as a chamber opera) by composer Philip Glass. The libretto is based on the life and homicide trial of 19th-century American photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Commissioned by the Holland Festival, the opera was first performed in 1982 at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.