The Foul Tempered Clavier (2001) by Rascal Reporters is an album that combines various genres, including progressive rock, jazz, and a bit of avant-garde influence. This debut album from the British band features complex arrangements and intricate musicianship, with the album title playing on the idea of a "clavier" (a keyboard instrument, often the piano) and the temperamental nature of its music. The album is known for its dense, layered sound, offering a rich listening experience for fans of experimental music.

Blue Öyster Cult marks time with a second live album on which they turn out good, if redundant, concert versions of recent favorites like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Godzilla" and add to their repertoire of live covers such oldies as the MC5's "Kick out the Jams" and the Animals' "We Gotta Get out of This Place." A perfectly acceptable, completely unnecessary souvenir record from a hard-touring band of the '70s. (It should perhaps be noted that the mid- to late '70s was a period when more live albums than usual were being released, especially in the wake of Peter Frampton's massively successful 1976 album Frampton Comes Alive!.)

Australian synth-pop band Pseudo Echo formed in 1982 and were influenced by the emergent British New Romantic bands Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Ultravox. By 1984, Pseudo Echo were second in popularity in their homeland only to the mighty INXS. According to rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Pseudo Echo "combined flash clothes, blow-wave hairstyles, youthful exuberance and accessible synth-pop to arrive at a winning combination … and found a ready-made audience among teenagers who fawned on the band's every move". Their international breakthrough hit was their pop-rock makeover of the Lipps Inc track, the disco classic 'Funky Town'. This was a worldwide smash hit in 1987 reaching #1 in Australia and Canada, #8 in the UK and #6 on the US Billboard Hot 100! This is a 2-disc expanded edition of their second album, "Love An Adventure", that 'Funky Town' originally appeared on.

Certainly, the 'quietest time of year' is also the time when music is to be most frequently heard - not only in public, in shops or markets, but also in the countryside, where Christmas is the time when perhaps the most singing is done. The music author Marius Schneider once underlined this fact by writing:"God hungers for songs." And thus the time which celebrates the symbolic birth of the Lord is a great time for music - even for people who may have no direct religious beliefs. With this 5CD-Set Capriccio presents in total 100 Classical Christmas titles, sung by most famous choruses and soloists. And draws a bow from the high classical Christmas Oratorio by Bach to more simple songs from the country side. And of course the most famous song can't be missed: Silent Night, Holy Night.

Chris Isaak distinguishes his second holiday album – the first, the plainly titled Christmas, arrived back in 2004 – by designing Everybody Knows It's Christmas as a throwback to the pre-Beatles days of rock & roll. Not for nothing is this released on Sun Records; the album consciously evokes the simple, spare rockabilly pioneered at the landmark Memphis studio in the 1950s. That doesn't mean this is a greasy, Dixie-fried affair, though. Working with producer Dave Cobb, Isaak achieves a clever blend of the Sun aesthetic and the form of early Elvis RCA Records. It's lighthearted and playful – it's a Christmas record, after all – but it's not drenched in extraneous studio sweetening; whenever there are supporting vocal harmonies, they're not pushed into the forefront, they're used as subtle coloring. Isaak and Cobb get the vibe just right, and the singer/songwriter also contributes a number of snappy originals, like the clever "Almost Christmas" that bops like vintage Ricky Nelson. All of it adds up to a minor Christmas miracle: a deliberate throwback that feels fresh and fun.

TRIPLE DISC SET OF LIVE AND BROADCAST RECORDINGS FROM THE GUITAR MAESTRO Featuring previously unreleased live recordings from Joe Satriani, recorded for FM Broadcast throughout his solo-career to date, this collector s box set will prove a delight for fans of the man everywhere. Kicking off on Disc One with a marvellous performance Joe gave in San Jose in 1988, shortly after the release of his dynamic Surfing With The Alien album. Disc Two features rarities from across Satriani s career, and includes his full MTV Unplugged appearance, his set at the 1991 Bill Graham Benefit Concert and an extraordinary Jam session he took part in at his own home studio, alongside his former pupil Steve Vai. Concluding the set, Disc Three includes the live show he played at the Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA, in 2000, as part of that year s G3 tour, which again found him playing alongside Vai on a number of cuts.

SUPERB BROADCAST RECORDING FROM ELP S LATE- 90S REFORMATION TOUR After a period in the mid-1980s, when Keith Emerson and Greg Lake reformed as Emerson, Lake & Powell - with former Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell, but after one 1986 album and a tour, the trio went their separate ways. But in 1991, Emerson, Lake & Palmer reformed and issued a 1992 comeback album, Black Moon, on Victory Records. Their 1992-93 world tours were successful, culminating in a performance at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. In 1994, the band released a followup album, In the Hot Seat, after which they went on hiatus because of health problems suffered by both Carl Palmer and Keith Emerson Emerson and Palmer eventually recovered enough to start touring again, beginning in 1996.

STUNNING 1977 ELP SHOW FROM WEST VIRGINIA Emerson, Lake & Palmer took an extended break in 1974, but regrouped in 76 to record Works Volume 1 at Mountain Studios in Montreux and EMI Studios in Paris. The double album featured one side of each LP containing songs by each member and a fourth of group material. Emerson's side consisted of his 18-minute, three-movement Piano Concerto No. 1 . Lake contributed five songs he co-wrote with Pete Sinfield, and Palmer's included two covers of classical pieces by Prokofiev and Bach. One of the two group tracks, Fanfare for the Common Man , is a cover of the same-titled orchestral piece by Aaron Copland, which was released and reached No. 2 in the UK single charts, in the band's highest charting UK single in May 1977. Works Volume 2 followed in November 1977 featuring shorter tracks recorded between 73 and 76, and the two Works albums were supported by North American tours which lasted from May 1977 to February 1978, spanning over 120 dates. Among the finest concert of the tours was performed in Wheeling, West Virginia on 12th November 1977, where the trio put on a mesmerising show which fans who attended still speak of in hallowed tones. Recorded for live radio broadcast at the time, incredibly the show has not previously been released in its full edition. All that changes with the release of this 2CD Set, which allows the thousands of fans still in awe of this most musical, talented and creative of groups to finally hear what all the fuss was about.

Bon Jovi After ushering in the era of pop-metal with their 1986 blockbuster Slippery When Wet and its hit singles "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Wanted Dead or Alive," and "Living on a Prayer," Bon Jovi transcended the big-haired '80s, withstanding changes in style and sound to become – and stay – one of the biggest American rock bands. Unlike a lot of their peers, Bon Jovi's appeal isn't limited to the States. Slippery When Wet, its 1988 sequel New Jersey, and 1992's Keep the Faith were all international smashes, each selling over ten million copies worldwide. Another way they have differed from other MTV favorites of the late '80s lies in how Bon Jovi has cannily and subtly changed their sound to fit the time. First, the group slowly lessened their reliance on arena rock guitars, emphasizing melody and ballads without rejecting hard rock. They incorporated elements of soft rock and country, moves that helped them sustain their popularity into the 21st century – a long run they celebrated in 2024 with the documentary Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story and the album Forever.

Fearlessly searching for new conceptions of sound and not caring where he found them, Garbarek joined hands with the classical early-music movement, improvising around the four male voices of the Hilliard Ensemble. Now here was a radical idea guaranteed to infuriate both hardcore jazz buffs and the even more pristine more-authentic-than-thou folk in early music circles. Yet this unlikely fusion works stunningly well - and even more hearteningly, went over the heads of the purists and became a hit album at a time (1994) when Gregorian chants were a hot item. Chants, early polyphonic music, and Renaissance motets by composers like Morales and Dufay form the basic material, bringing forth a cool yet moving spirituality in Garbarek's work…

The name (an acknowledgement of mankind as parasite-in-chief) is High Parasite; the voice, that of Aaron Stainthorpe - longstanding frontman with doom metal maestros, My Dying Bride…
The 10 tracks are produced by the legendary Gregor Mackintosh of Paradise Lost, who also adds some signature guitar lines and programming, and as a body of work, ‘Forever We Burn’ heralds the arrival of a new name and a familiar, formidable voice.
As a revered and recognised performer, a founding member of My Dying Bride and singer with the groundbreaking act for over three decades, the spotlight will doubtless focus on Aaron’s distinctive profile to start with; pull back the red velvet curtains…

Matthias Bamert’s survey of music by Mozart’s contemporaries continues with this elegant programme of Cannabich Symphonies. Harmonically conservative, lavishly scored, and full of the mannerist crescendi and rising figures the Mannheim Orchestra was famous for, these are fascinating examples of the style gallant. Though Cannabich had found his way to sonata form in the G major symphony, something of Telemann’s programmatic writing hangs over the Symphony in A major, while baroque affects are yet more keenly felt in the D major Symphony. The London Mozart Players’ pristine sound and careful phrasing is highly enjoyable throughout.

Italian violinists invaded germanic countries from the beginning of the 17th century, with Farina in Dresden, Marini in Neuburg and Bertali in Vienna. Their influence was considerable, stretching over the entire Empire to the furthest flung towns of Central or Northern Germany. The Italian sonata went hand in hand with the violin, exemplifying a taste for the fantastic and the baroque. Michal Praetorius, despite his knowledge of Italian musical practice, preferred to discuss the instrument under its German name of "Geige", although the term of "violino" soon began to appear in every musical publication In this eagerly awaited, special prized re-release of his remarkable anthology of early violin music, François Fernandez gives a us a masterly and higly seductive lesson of style.

By 1997, Crosby, Stills & Nash were without a label thanks to a drastic artistic slump, but they began working on a new album, paying for studio time out of their own pockets. Neil Young expressed interest in the tapes, and suddenly, a new CSNY album was in the works. Even though Young's continual tinkering pushed its release back by months, Looking Forward still feels rushed and half-finished. It's immediately apparent that the record began as a self-financed project; it sounds weirdly muted, as if all the levels weren't set accurately; similarly, it's possible to hear sometimes awkward overdubs added to basically completed tracks. While they may have named the album Looking Forward, CSNY are alternately nostalgic and haunted by the past, which colors their attempts to look toward the future. All four of Young's songs fit squarely within the Harvest tradition, as he tries to balance his restless nature with growing old…

Call this Peterson's 'back to my roots' blues album, but it finds him in more retro territory than his previous outings. There's a distinctive Albert King-Freddie King-Albert Collins almost-'70s feel to all the music here and the support of roots players like Johnny B. Gayden, Dennis Chambers and Butch Bonner makes this much more of a ensemble effort. Highlights include the storming "You're the One for Me," a great King-like solo on "Tin Pan Alley," an instrumental tribute to Albert Collins on "Pickin'" and oddball covers of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" and Prince's "Purple Rain." Peterson is stylistically all over the road on this disc but his versatility on both guitar and keyboards ultimately pays off in the end.