Sundial Aeon returns with a new album titled Aquamorphosis. This is another chapter of the ambient-trance voyages that the duo, Radoslaw 'Raiden' Kochman and Daniel 'Dan' Lulkowski, has been serving us since 2006. Sundial Aeon invited artists such as Brian Dougans - YAGE/The Future Sound Of London and vocalist Elvya Dulcimer to create a new album. You will hear the result of the cooperation in the form of a remix of the track Revelation In Delight performed by YAGE/FSOL and vocals by Elvya Dulcimer on the track Celadon Sky - Ambient Version. With full confidence, the new album by Sundial Aeon Aquamorphosis will open to you new horizons of ambient-trance, deep, calming, flowing chill-out emotions.

Jessica Pratt, Michael Head, Khruangbin and more appear on our latest free CD. All copies of the May 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Total Blam-Blam – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Jessica Pratt, Michael Head and Khruangbin to Mint Mile, Gospelbrach and Arthur Melo. Now dive in…

Featuring a collection of 18 recordings and storied collaborations with some of his favorite female musicians, the new album stands as a testament to the generation and genre-spanning brilliance that has defined Kweskin's illustrious career for the past six decades. Throughout the album, recorded almost completely in one or two takes, Kweskin showcases the captivating, boundless essence of his artistry alongside guests such as Maria Muldaur, who first worked with Kweskin in the 1960s as part of Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band. Other special appearances include Samoa Wilson and Meredith Axelrod, who have released LPs with Kweskin throughout the years, while Rose Guerin and Juli Crockett have been frequent performers at his concerts on both the East and West coasts. Fiona Kweskin, his granddaughter, also lends her vocals to several tracks such as the album’s latest single and music video, “You’re Just In Love.”

Nazih Borish , oud player and composer of Syrian origin, presents his new album, Roots of Strings . This is the fourth release in the collection of recordings born from the artistic residencies of the Centre des musiciens du monde in Montreal.

As the repository of the earliest phase of Frank Sinatra's solo career, 1943-1952, Columbia Records is usually thought to be at a disadvantage against the more accomplished work the singer recorded for Capitol Records and his own Reprise imprint. But in two albums released on the same day in 2003, Sinatra Sings Cole Porter and Sinatra Sings Gershwin, Columbia's Legacy division expands on its studio recordings of Sinatra by borrowing airchecks from the collection of Charles L. Granata, and thereby improves its holdings. Sinatra would not seem at first blush to be the ideal interpreter of Porter, if only because his rough-and-tumble background is always visible beneath his careful intonation, while Porter's lyrics are redolent of wealth and comic condescension. But Sinatra sang "Night and Day" in his first solo session in 1942 and went on to perform Porter throughout his career, often achieving near-definitive readings. The ground on which they met was intellectual rather than social: Porter was at heart a wit, and Sinatra understood the jokes, while emphasizing what emotional content there was, giving it a greater sincerity than the songwriter might have intended. This collection effectively mixes a bunch of studio recordings with previously unreleased radio performances that find Sinatra ranging over many different Porter moods.

The discography of Strauss’s last opera is not exactly crowded, but the two existing accounts provide formidable competition for any newcomer. First there was Sawallisch, conducting the Philharmonia for EMI in 1957 (unfortunately in mono) and a cast led by Schwarzkopf, Ludwig and Fischer-Dieskau. Then, in 1971, came that other supreme Straussian, Karl Böhm, with Janowitz, Troyanos and (again) Fischer-Dieskau, recorded in Munich for DG. The new Decca set brings together many of today’s leading exponents of Strauss’s roles, dominated, for me, by the unsurpassed Clairon of Brigitte Fassbaender, now alas, never to be heard on stage again following her retirement. Heilmann and Bär make an ardent pair of rival suitors, Hagegård an admirable Count and Halem a sonorous, characterful La Roche. (There is a delightful link with the past history of the opera in the person of Hans Hotter: he sang Olivier in the 1942 premiere, La Roche in the 1957 Sawallisch set, and here, at 84 when recorded in December 1993, a one-line cameo as a servant.) For many, though, the set’s desirability will rest on Te Kanawa’s Countess.

A well-rounded exploration of every shade of blues Ford does so well: Chicago-style ("When I Leave Here"), jump blues ("The Miller's Son"), jazz-blues balladry ("Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"), and Texas shuffle ("Tired of Talkin'"). Ford's buttery lines and burnished tone (and his boyish voice) are captured in all their glory by producer Danny Kortchmar. Solidly anchored by bassist Roscoe Beck and drummer Tom Brechtlein, Ford solos liberally, taking the fast funk of "Think Twice" over the top with a burning series of rapid-fire runs and well-tooled turnarounds. Slowing down for a languid version of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You," Ford plays it raw and soulful, recalling B.B. King. He then turns up the pace on "Strong Will to Live," closing out the album with a signature solo full of fire and drama.