There's no question that the 18th century was entirely focused on the vocal achievements of the great singing stars, both male and female - on both sopranos like Bordoni and Cuzzoni and on castrati like Farinelli and Carestini. They were equivalent to our superstars of today: alter egos of "their" composers, with whom they had fostered a virtually symbiotic relationship. In addition to these singers' technical virtuosity-there's a reason that Baroque arias are among the most difficult in the operatic repertoire-these sometimes almost mythical figures fascinated audiences with their beauty of tone and legato lines.

Buxtehude’s cantata cycle, Membra Jesu Nostri, is a unique work. Based on texts from a medieval Latin hymn, ‘Salve mundi salutare’, the cycle contains seven cantatas each dedicated to a different part of Christ’s crucified body. The texts are based on the concept of an observer contemplating Christ’s body on the cross starting with his feet and moving up to his knees, hands, side, breast, heart and finally his head. Buxtehude plays cleverly with musical colours and textures and changes the mixture of voices and instruments to dramatic effect as the work develops.

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert's Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him.

While Hasse’s early fame rested above all on his operas, in more recent times it is especially his sacred compositions that have enjoyed immense esteem. This CD features his Te Deum and other sacred works.

2017 three CD set. One of RPM Records defining releases remains the Dream Babes series, the Brit Girl Sound collections which started in 1994 and ran until 2007 reaching volume 8. The scene for collecting such sounds has only grown bigger and more international since then. Now it is time for RPM's concluding word on the subject of it's own series with this set. 80 tracks, none duplicated from the DB series, many tracks fresh to CD, five tracks previously unreleased. Compiled with much learned, many archive tapes unearthed, and recordings dug from crates since the series last volume. Spanning the full spectrum of the scene, known for it's gratifying diversity, the box set offers slick originals and intriguing covers, from early girls to late girls, beat girls, folk girls, hippy girls and mod girls. Here, you'll also find the brash teeners, the raw belters, the wistful balladeers, the brassy pub singers, the breathy harmonizers and the bluesy shouters. There are Essex girls, lasses from Lancashire, Glasgwegians and hey there Geordie girls, Chelsea debs and daughters of Cardiff and Coventry, Stoke and Southend. The Commonwealth gets a nod too, with Kiwi gals and Caribbean queens. Not forgetting Schoolgirls and secretaries, convent girls and actresses, daughters of diplomats, god-daughters of royalty and stars before they were stars.

Any musical genre has its first division stars who take the limelight, eclipsing their colleagues who may be no less deserving of acclaim. This is especially true of rockabilly. Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash may be the names everyone has heard of but there are a host of others, such as the artists featured here, who have disappeared into the mists of time, leaving only a handful of tracks as testimony to the enduring vitality of their music.

3CDs of Cuban legends! This digitally remastered set features contributions from artists such as Compay Segundo, Omara Portuondo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and many more latin favourites.

Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo. However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records.

Spending the greater part of the last decade assembling this masterpiece while tracking down most of the musicians in the process, Stuart Ellis of Radiodiffusion Internasionaal has compiled a mind-blowing set of Pakistani instrumentals spanning the period between 1966 and 1976. It’s all here: rock and roll beat, surf, folk traditional mixed with pop, film tunes, electric guitars, sitar and organ solos, brilliant percussion and arrangements crafted by the grooviest bands of the period: The Panthers, The Mods, The Bugs, The Blue Birds, The Abstracts, The Aay Jays, The Fore Thoughts, Nisar Bazmi, and Sohail Rana.

Sublime Frequencies releases their first 78rpm compilations, and true to form these are sounds rarely heard by contemporary Western ears. These 2 albums (SF077/SF078) are compiled by Robert Millis, a long time Sublime Frequencies contributor and a founding member of Climax Golden Twins, He is the author of Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days (Dust-to-Digital 2008), a book of historic early recording documentation, ephemera and music drawn from Millis' 78rpm collection. In 2011, he produced and helped design "I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces" (Dust-to-Digital), a similar book drawn from the collection of artist Steve Roden. In addition to composition, sound art practice and design, he has filmed and produced experimental documentaries on Asian music: "Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan" and "This World is Unreal like a Snake in a Rope" (both for Sublime Frequencies DVD release) and is an obsessive collector of 78rpm music records and ephemera.

The album "Duck" by Aristocrats was released by Boing Music / Cargo. This highly anticipated album showcases the incredible talent and musical prowess of the band, consisting of Guthrie Govan on guitar, Bryan Beller on bass, and Marco Minnemann on drums.

Celebrating a new chapter in a nearly 60 year career as a trailblazing rocker, Suzi Quatro brings her signature style to a series of iconic covers on a new EP from Sun Records. Suzi Quatro: Uncovered reminds us why Suzi is “The Boss,” featuring tracks originally made famous by artists like James Brown, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Otis Redding, and Carole King, plus she calls on the legendary Steve Cropper for collaboration on his own songs, “Midnight Hour” and “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay.”

Pat Metheny’s new album MoonDial features solo recordings in line with the beloved One Quiet Night (2003) and What’s It All About (2011). It is a purely solo guitar record with no overdubs, using a custom nylon string baritone guitar. He experimented with this new guitar while on tour last fall. Excited by the results he was able to achieve more each night, he decided to immediately record a new album with the guitar – MoonDial.

Boy George is going ‘old school’ on new album ‘SE18’. Boy George is about to release a new reggae album and he’s taking an old fashioned approach with his latest offering. SE18 takes its title from the postcode of the area of London that Boy George lived in as a teenager in late 1970s. “This is not going to be steamed, it’s CD and vinyl only, I’m taking it right back.” Boy George said in an interview on British TV show This Morning. “My audience doesn’t seem to care about streaming. They like the product, the lyrics.” he added. The artists has had a prolific career. His band Culture Club has put out six albums, and he’s also got 12 solo albums under his belt. Plus he’s put out countless single releases, collaborations and recorded under different names including Yum Yum and Generations of Love. Last week a new documentary about Culture Club had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. It features all four members of the band, including Jon Moss who had a falling out with the other three members and quit the band in 2021. The documentary will come to Netflix later this year.

This 2007 recording of J.S. Bach's Johannes Passion, featuring Concerto d'Amsterdam and the Flemish vocal ensemble La Furia, uses the 1725 version of the piece, which substitutes some movements (most noticeably the opening chorus) more staid than those of the 1724 version. That decision to go for restraint rather than passion carries over to the performance style, as well, which tends to be reserved and tastefully correct rather than stirringly dramatic. It couldn't be characterized as flaccid because there is certainly a high energy level when appropriate, but even in these sections the performers seem more concerned with brisk precision than with stirring the blood.