Limited Deluxe two CD edition includes bonus disc of rarities & live tracks. 2023 studio release from the Britpop band. Given encouragement by the tremendous reception of last year's live return and first album in more than two decades, the three-piece return with Eight. Marking perhaps their busiest ever year in 2023, the band makes up for lost time having been missing from the musical map since 1998 prior to reforming in 2021 and releasing their seventh album, Keep On With Falling, last March. Where last year's album, joyful in tone yet brooding with heavyweight lyrical themes, came together as an exploration of the isolated ideas of each member, Eight is, according to vocalist and co-songwriter, Sice formed of songs recorded "purposefully to appear together on an album." Before adding, "There is also a greater depth of integration, which means that it's more difficult to tell which member of the band the song originated with." Reflecting on Seeker, the new album's opening track, written about leaning on those we trust to share life's highs and lows, bassist and co-songwriter, Tim Brown says: "This song started out as a three-chord synth pop tune and mutated into a brassy bop courtesy of trumpeter, Nick Etwell. The electric guitar flourishes were added by Louis Smith before Sice added layers of backing vocals which help drive the song along and bring it to it's joyful conclusion."

Visom is the leading instrumental record label in Brazil. Windham Hill has compiled some of the best music from this label's most renowned artists. The 13 tracks of this album present a seamless, one hour program displaying the broad range of this country's diverse musical landscape. Artists include Ulisses Rocha, Aguarela Carioca, Andre Geraissati, and Nando Carmeiro.

Michael Nyman (born 1944) is one of the most famous and successful film music composers of our time. His music, although inextricably connected with the visual action of a film, has the quality to stand on its own, to evoke and express the visual emotions in sounds only. Nyman’s most famous film score is of the film “The Piano” , becoming an instant hit. Its openness and its deceptively simple musical lines appealed to a mass audience. The music featured on this recording is either originally written for piano or arranged by the composer himself. Minimal Music champion Jeroen van Veen has been fascinated by Nyman’s music his whole life, and the recording of it was a logical step. He is the ideal interpreter of this seductive, mind opening music.

A much-admired contemporary, living composer whose popularity among a wide cross-section of music devotees and casual listeners transcends genre barriers. This new double-disc set of the complete piano music encompasses works composed over a 50 year span. Jeroen Van Veen is a preeminent and critically-favored Minimalist advocate and multi-dimensional artist with a noteworthy backlist of Brilliant Classic releases to his credit with more to come. Booklet notes written by Jeroen Van Veen.

Greatest Hits is a 2001 compilation album by The Cure. The band's relationship with longtime label Fiction Records came to a close, and The Cure were obliged to release one final album for the label. Robert Smith agreed to release a greatest hits album under the condition that he could choose the tracks himself. The band also recorded a special studio album released as a bonus disc to some versions of the album. The disc, titled Acoustic Hits, is the eighteen songs from the North American release re-recorded using acoustic guitars.

Progeny: Highlights From Seventy Two consists of ninety minutes of live recordings exhumed from Yes' 1972 tour, some of which were released as Yessongs (Atlantic, 1973). Culled from seven previously unreleased recordings of complete concerts, and sequenced to approximate a setlist of the time, this two package comes adorned in vintage Roger Dean artwork that, vivid as it is, cannot compare to the vibrancy of the music inside.

In May 2017, days before succumbing to cancer, Jimmy LaFave staged a final show in Austin at the Paramount Theatre, an all-star farewell and thank you to the music community he adoringly called home. Even in his own passing at the age of 61, LaFave’s voice provided comfort, wisdom, and healing to a hurting world. Posthumous double-disc Peace Town arrives nearly a year later, a last gift from the incomparable song crier. Like calculated final collections from David Bowie, Warren Zevon, and Leonard Cohen, each song rings with meaning. Opening on Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door,” LaFave recasts the pop anthem with a stirring emotional appeal, followed by one of only three of his own compositions among the 20 tracks, “Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon.”

During the mid-19th century, the Danish composer Niels. W. Gade was one of Europe's most well-known composers, conducting his own works all over the continent. Starting out as a protégé of Mendelssohn's, he later became his successor as music director of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and made the acquaintance of Robert and Clara Schumann, and of Liszt and Wagner. Initially known as a composer of symphonies, Gade mastered the German musical idiom to perfection, while adding a Nordic accent to it, particularly noticeable in his best works. His eight symphonies were composed between 1841 and 1871, and although Gade remained active as a composer until his death in 1890, he wrote no more symphonies. When questioned, he is said to have stated that 'there is but one Ninth Symphony!'

There isn't exactly a shortage of Rossini overture recordings on the market, but there are surprisingly few of them done on period instruments in historically informed performances. For the past couple of decades the two leading contenders in this specialized field have been Roy Goodman's recording with the Hanover Band, reissued here by Newton Classics, and Roger Norrington's renditions with the London Classical Players on EMI (now Warner Classics). Of the two, Norrington is probably the more refined, more cultured, but I've never been entirely sure that was what every prospective buyer of a period-instruments recording wanted. Goodman's accounts appear just as well played but a bit more rustic and bucolic. It's good to have them back in this mid-priced release.

Greeted with decidedly mixed reviews upon its original release, Exile on Main St. has become generally regarded as the Rolling Stones' finest album. Part of the reason why the record was initially greeted with hesitant reviews is that it takes a while to assimilate. A sprawling, weary double album encompassing rock & roll, blues, soul, and country, Exile doesn't try anything new on the surface, but the substance is new. Taking the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme, Exile is a weary record, and not just lyrically. Jagger's vocals are buried in the mix, and the music is a series of dark, dense jams, with Keith Richards and Mick Taylor spinning off incredible riffs and solos. And the songs continue the breakthroughs of their three previous albums.

The eccentric Percy Grainger was well-known for his musical arrangements which ranged from works by other composers as well as arrangements of his own original and folk music settings. These arrangements form a body of work which is perhaps unique in musical history.

68 track 3CD box set celebrating the Leeds’ independent scene of the 1980s. Featuring Soft Cell, Sisters Of Mercy, Gang Of Four, The Wedding Present, Scritti Politti, The Mission, and many more. Including The Mekons, CUD, Delta 5, The Pale Saints, Girls At Our Best, Age Of Chance, The Bridewell Taxis who all stamped their mark on the indie charts and were regulars/favourites on John Peel’s radio show. Like many Northern cities, Leeds enjoyed an explosion of music triggered by the big bang of punk rock in 1977. Indie labels sprung up to cater for a new wave of bands, who carved their own identity as the 80s dawned. ‘Where Were You’ is the first comprehensive anthology of Leeds’ independent music from that period, through to the end of the 1980s. From punk to goth, indie pop to industrial dancefloor, out-and-out pop to underground psychedelia, the four hours’ worth of recordings here are a celebration of the musical diversity emanating from the city’s studios and clubs.

Steven Spielberg's extraterrestrial-themed follow-up to the Jaws phenomena cemented his reputation as a cinematic wunderkind capable of shameless emotional manipulation and continued blockbuster ticket sales. But Close Encounters also displayed Spielberg's wise confidence in at least one of his collaborators. Composer John Williams, fresh from the Wagnerian success of Star Wars, was allowed the unusual luxury of composing much of the Close Encounters score before principal photography began. Thus Spielberg was able (as had Sergio Leone with Morricone's Once Upon a Time in the West) to stage much of his action to the Williams music playing on the set in a rare way. The entire special-effects finale was in fact edited to match the composer's rhythms…

Arcturus took a decade off of creating studio albums after Sideshow Symphonies and have returned with this, a pretty solid release which, though it lacks any fully-fledged epics (with all the song lengths at less than six minutes), still offers a confection of progressive-minded metal with symphonic and black metal touches, with the inclusion of an actual string section really allowing them to bring their symphonic aspect to the fore. Sebastian Grouchot guests on violin and adds a nicely melancholic touch to pieces such as "Crashland".
Like the preceding Sideshow Symphonies, this does not feel like as striking and groundbreaking a release as any of their first three studio albums (up to and including the classic Sham Mirrors)…

Unable to tour during the pandemic, Goran seized the opportunity to record an album of five works, written for three solo violins, a symphony orchestra, a sextet of male voices , and, of course, his Wedding and Funeral band. For his latest album, ‘The Belly Button of the World’, Goran has created three lyrical tales based around Christian, Jewish and Muslim liturgies which are performed by soloists Mirjana Nesković (Serbia), Gershon Leiserson (Israel) and Zied Zouari (Tunisia). With this album, Goran Bregović fuses the core of his creativity with his musical journey so far : classical, wild, unique, eclectic, and always unexpected…