Compiled By – Toru Hashimoto. Spiritual grooves galore – a magnificent set that brings together rare tracks from the 70s and 80s, plus a few like-minded contemporary cuts as well! The vibe here is very much up to the "waltz a nova" in the title – that modal mode that first came on strongly in the 60s, then was picked up even more by the post-Coltrane generation – who used its progressive rhythms to really stretch out to the skies in some very righteous ways! Most of the tunes here have a great little groove, even when gentle – and the package is put together beautifully, so that the music really builds as things roll on – picking up even more power than before, and really leaving us wanting more by the end. The whole thing was done by Toru Hashimoto – easily one of the best compilers of our generation – and the package runs for nearly 80 minutes in length, with cuts that include "Faith For My Mind" by Solar, "Little B's Poem" by Dee Dee Bridgewater, "After The Morning" by John Hicks, "Moves" by Doug Hammond, "Coltrane" by Descendents Of Mike & Phoebe, "Steam" by Charles Greenlee, "Naima" by Kindred Spirits Ensemble, "Black Forest Stomp" by Hipnosis, "Tropic Sons" by Abdul Rahim Ibrahim, "Children" by Haki R Madhubuti, and "Moment's Notice" by Pharoah Sanders.

The Now What’s That I Call Music Team continue their ‘Yearbook’ series with NOW Yearbook ’84 an 80-track four-CD set and 3LP coloured vinyl package that features 42 defining hits that ruled the charts in 1984, including number ones from Lionel Richie, Chaka Khan, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and George Michael (solo and with Wham!), together with huge hits from U2, Spandau Ballet, and Deniece Williams. As with NOW Yearbook ’83 the four-CD set is available in deluxe hardcover book set with a 28-page book with track annotations and music quiz laid out in classic ‘eighties’ style. This is limited to 5,000 units. A slightly cheaper non-deluxe is also available (but you really don’t want to be buying that one). NOW Yearbook ’84 is out on 29 October 2021. Be aware that both the 3LP coloured vinyl and the 4CD deluxe of NOW Yearbook ’83 are already out-of-print, despite only being released in June, so don’t miss out.

NOW Music is proud to present the newest addition to the ‘Yearbook’ series: NOW – YEARBOOK 1982. 4 CDs of 84 defining tracks that ruled the charts in 1982. This special edition CD is housed in ‘hard-back book’ packaging, including a booklet with a summary of the year, a track-by-track guide, a quiz, and original singles artwork.
Featuring 16 of the year’s number 1s, including ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ (Survivor), ‘Ebony And Ivory’ (Paul McCartney), ‘House Of Fun’ (Madness), ‘Town Called Malice’ (The Jam), ‘Pass The Dutchie’ (Musical Youth), and 1982’s biggest seller ‘Come On Eileen’ from Dexys Midnight Runners. 1982 saw the first huge hits from a wealth of new artists including Culture Club, Wham! and Tears For Fears, as well as an incredible line-up from artists who had established their chart presence in the prior 18 months and would produce some of the greatest tracks of the decade; Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, ABC, Haircut 100, Soft Cell, The Human League, and a newly solo Adam Ant.

A principios de los años sesenta, el Jazz, el Soul y el Funk cruzaban sus destinos en discos efervescentes infectados de ritmos mestizos. Tres décadas mas tarde, aquella música aun mantiene su carácter incendiario, reivindicada con entusiasmo por miles de aficionados y especialistas de todo el mundo, y compilada en antologías como la de la serie Afrodisia, Muchos ignoraban, que el Groove también floreció en España, fueron pocos los grupos/artistas pero los hubo!

Edgar Moreau performs two cello concertos which bravely and wittily challenge convention. Offenbach’s ambitious Grand Concerto in G major culminates in military fireworks, while Friedrich Gulda’s Concerto for Cello, Wind Orchestra and Band – written 130 years later – is a dazzling stylistic kaleidoscope. Moreau is joined by conductor Raphaël Merlin and the dynamic orchestral collective Les Forces Majeures.

With an album of celebration – both joyful and solemn – trumpeter Alison Balsom again declares her love for the baroque era, which she calls “the golden age of the trumpet”. Joining Handel’s exuberant Music for the Royal Fireworks are works by two other German-born composers – JS Bach and Telemann – and by the London-born Henry Purcell. “These baroque composers knew the instrument they were writing for,” says Balsom. “There is such value in searching out the sound that they would have heard themselves, with the intention of authenticity. When it comes together it is utterly thrilling.”

Eine bunte Mischung aus bekannten Stücken wie dem "Musikalischen Spaß" - aber auch unbekannten Perlen wie dem Kontretanz "Der Sieg vom Helden Koburg". Das Ganze wird auf unnachahmlich charmante Art vom Orpheus Chamber Orchestra präsentiert.

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous instalment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”.

Released in 2004 by Warner Music, the album presents tracks in the smooth jazz and contemporary jazz genres.

Further Down the Spiral is a remix album by the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. It is the companion remix disc to the band’s second studio album, The Downward Spiral, and was released on May 29, 1995, in two editions, one denoted as Halo 10 (released in the United States), and the other as Halo 10 V2 (released in Japan, Australia, and the UK), each containing a different set of tracks.

The Essential Journey doesn't bear a title that's too hyperbolic for the collection it represents. Over the course of two discs and 32 songs, the retrospective winds through all of the group's biggest songs – not just the hit singles, but the album radio favorites and concert staples that kept the group popular on the charts and in the arenas until last third of the '80s (and, for the record, everything on the previous Greatest Hits record is here). The key to the collection is that it doesn't abide strict chronological order. Instead, it's divided into two, with all the biggest hits on the first disc and the second acting like a "more of the best" collection, and within each of the discs, the tracks flow like a concert. The result is a first-class, definitive collection for the serious Journey listener (and, despite many skeptics, there are many out there – which is not hard to understand, since arena rock never got any better than this).

Testament to the versatility and musical command that Teodor Currentzis and his unique orchestra and choir possess, this new album brings together two diverse masterworks from two titans of Russian music. Although they have been acquainted for a long time prior, this recording represents the first musical collaboration between Teodor Currentzis and the exceptional violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The instant artistic rapport (an “artistic wedding” of sorts) between these two maverick musicians can be heard in this dynamic new recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin concerto - one of the most popular works in the violin repertory. Currentzis’ authentic approach to the folk influences in Stravinsky’s music (as revealed in Le Sacre du Printemps) is again very present in his interpretation of Les Noces.

Melissa Etheridge wasn't out of the closet when she released Yes I Am in 1993, yet it's hard not to notice the defiant acclamation in the album's title. This barely concealed sense of sexual identity seeps out from the lyrics, and it informs the music as well, which is perhaps the most confident she has ever been. It's also the most professional she's ever been (perhaps not a coincidence), as she belts out these unapologetically anthemic numbers with a sense of finesse that's suited to lifestyle newspaper pages, not rock & roll, thereby setting herself up for her bout with celebrity during the second half of the '90s. Yes I Am wouldn't have been as convincing if it wasn't so slick, though; her Springsteen-isms and Janis tributes are tempered by songs that work as album rock favorites, even if they aren't as epic or passionate as their inspirations. She may not have songs as great as she did the first time out – "Somebody Bring Me Some Water" remains her finest moment – but she has a sense of purpose and identity that suits her well.

'Skirting The River Road' is the second ECM recording by Scottish singer/songwriter Robin Williamson. It follows his critically praised solo album 'The Seed-At-Zero', which set texts by Dylan Thomas. The new album finds a thread of continuity that links three visionary poets - Walt Whitman, William Blake, and Henry Vaughan - and places their work in an improvisational context. There are also new songs by Williamson himself and a radical remake of an early classic, "Here To Burn". Williamson is usually considered a "folk" musician - his roots are certainly in the world's folk traditions - but he has also always been an experimentalist. The Incredible String Band (which he co-founded) was an autonomous, homemade 'avant-garde' unit in the 1960s, outside all the idioms but instinctively reaching for new forms, with Williamson's soaring voice leading the way.

SCHUBERT: SONGS WITHOUT WORDS is an elegant recital by pianist Daria Hovora and cellist Mischa Maisky that allows us to hear Schubert songs, beautifully rich as they are with the texts as sung by many of our finest singers, here solely for the instrumental line. Somehow the interplay between melody and accompaniment (always an equal partnership in Schubert's hands) is heightened by this experience. Not that the entire album is appropriated by the cello standing in for a vocalist: the opening work is "Sonata for Arpeggione and Klavier" and is one of the highlights of the CD. But just listen to the performances of 'Standchen', 'An die Musik' and 'Du bist die Ruhe' and hear the extraordinary marriage between the piano and cello, singing as beautifully as any other version. This is one of those CDs that bears keeping out for multiple listenings in the late evening.