The Violin Sonata that I wrote was meant to express the longing and the striving for an inward, profound truth, which is not to be found in the outer surface of everyday life, but in the emotional depths of the human spirit. It is a mirror on the era in which it was written, in which I as an individual was seeking a new, personal language of music - Cesar Franck

We continue our recordings with Scottish pianist John Bryden who on this occasion brings us a selection of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. Some of the most beautiful Preludes and Fugues, the Partita no. 1 and the iconic Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

Vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi performs the revered Iraqi Maqam tradition, accompanied by traditional instruments of the Chalghi Baghdadi, featuring Amir ElSaffar on the santur.

This Was Then is the ninth full-length album by pianist/composer Erik Deutsch. His long-running NYC sextet has once again been enlisted to conjure their magic: Tony Mason on drums, Jeff Hill on bass, Avi Bortnick on drums, Mike McGinnis on Reeds, and Brian Drye on trombone; plus special guests Mauro Refosco on percussion and Victoria Reed on vocals. In between touring full time with The Black Crowes, piloting multiple projects, and recording with an incredible variety of artists, Deutsch has found the time to create an excellent new album of original material.

It is a rather widespread opinion that the genesis of musical compositions intended to positively impress the listener’s soul is often connected to an initial illumination that expands within a creative process that is per se rather ordinary. It is that creative spark constituting the generating principle which, as it unfolds, gives form and narrative cohesion to the sound archetype.

Brand new album from Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) performing acoustic covers of Bob Dylan songs.

Writing the liner notes to this album necessarily compels me to begin with a preamble which fully complieswith the music and renditions it contains: listening to a discographical work is an active act of creation, the moment when we choose to shift our point of observation towards an imaginative reality that, once experienced, appears more authentic and faithful than everyday's ordinariness.

SOMM Recordings is excited to explore the fascinating and largely unknown repertoire of Ibero-American art songs. A shared passion for showcasing hidden jewels of Latin American song inspired the collaboration of Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong and Portuguese pianist João Araújo, who began their partnership while studying at the Royal College of Music. Julieth received the 2018 RCM President’s Award presented by RCM President, HM King Charles III. She won the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Audience Prize in the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World competition and was recently named one of Opera Wire’s Top Ten Rising Stars. João was awarded best collaborative pianist prizes at the Concours Musical International de Montréal in Canada and the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards at Wigmore Hall, and he has been nominated for the Gerald Moore Award.

Kiss from the Balcony is what happens when three musicians become enamored with one another’s musical abilities and shared curiosities. After meeting at a bar gig in Oakland, CA in 2016, and sporadically collaborating on various songs and albums, Madeline Kenney, Ben Sloan, and Stephen Patota toured together after the release of Kenney’s 2023 record A New Reality Mind.

Ferenc Nemeth returns with UnStandard Too, a bold follow-up to his groundbreaking album UnStandard.
A powerful statement on individuality in a world that increasingly values conformity, this album champions artistic freedom and the courage to break away from the norm. Featuring Nemeth on drums, percussion, and vocals, alongside bassist Massimo Biolcati and alternating saxophonists Dayna Stephens and Marcus Strickland, the trio pushes musical boundaries with modern interplay, original compositions, and the use of a vocal harmonizer. Drawing from classical, Hungarian folk, and jazz traditions, UnStandard Too is not just an album - it's a movement that celebrates embracing uniqueness and redefining freedom in music and life.

In the early years of the twentieth century a first wave of composers in the Caucasus laid down the basis of their national schools by grafting the outlines of western classical music onto local folk traditions. By mid-century a second generation took up the challenge more thoroughly, their compositions confidently handling the large forms of the concert hall, though still drawing on regional idioms. The Soviet orthodoxy of the day expected its composers to abide by the rules, but the three composers heard here – two Azeris and a Georgian, all young men when they wrote the violin concertos on this album – brought something fresh and individual to the task, marrying east and west, form and freedom, tradition and originality.

Though he was admired by figures as illustrious as Rossini and Verdi, violinist-composer Giuseppe Austri has been largely forgotten, unlike his great contemporaries Paganini, Sivori and Bazzini. These premiere recordings show how inventive and virtuosic his works for violin and piano are, suggesting that he must have been a performer of transcendent technical and expressive abilities. Austri was in the mould of the great itinerant virtuosi of his time and, though his compositions can display Paganini-like writing, he matches incendiary passages with graceful cantabile and intimate delicacy.

Jason Isbell - award-winning artist is back with his fifth album 'Something More Than Free', featuring Isbell's Southern-inspired vignettes of working class men, women and traditions that permeate these 11 new songs. The pure honesty and authenticity of Isbell's poetic lyrics and soulful vocals have connected deeply with so many, and they shine as brightly as ever on the new album. It is Isbell's most sonically diverse album to date.

Though quintessentially American in spirit, the musical snapshots in this album are as diverse as the men and women who composed them. Drawing from influences as disparate as the blues, jazz, Broadway, gospel, folksong and the wild west, these ‘American vignettes’ merge popular idioms into a new canon of the repertoire for cello and piano. The distinctive voices of six US composers, from the late twentieth and early 21st centuries, here come together to weave a virtuosic and colourful tapestry of Americana.

Cut From The Original Analog Master Tapes By Kevin Gray. All Analog Process (AAA). High Quality Vinyl Release. Original Gatefold Design. The 1967 Impulse Records legendary Funk/Soul Instrumental masterpiece album Chicken Fat. If you haven’t heard Chicken Fat yet, get ready because the LP won’t leave your turntable until your jaw stops hitting the floor.