With a delivery that makes John Martyn sound like a Shakespearian voice coach, the one-time hero of the early Harvest days returns with a small band (Steeleye Span's Rick Kemp and Lindisfarne's Ray Laidlaw) and his best album in years. Indeed, the old obsessions (loneliness, love, drinking, injustice) have not been explored this convincingly since 1970's Fully Qualified Survivor. It Ain't So is an understated grumble of a song, feeding off an insistent minor riff; The North Will Rise unexpectedly introduces northern dissaffection to a reggae beat; while Hard Times has a riff and solo that recall Chapman's ex-guitarist, Mick Ronson. If anything, the ballads hit even harder, particularly Drinking Alone and the title track, where humanity and old-fashioned canniness produce a song to break hearts old and young.

Roy Buchanan is the guitarist's guitar hero. Singularly uninterested in rock stardom and the trappings of fame that go with it, Buchanan never achieved the popularity of his six-string peers; yet his unfathomable technique and ferocious Telecaster tone put him near the top of any serious listing of the greatest guitarists of all time. Stories abound about the regard with which other musicians held Roy (and the indifference with which he greeted their esteem); for example, legend has it he turned down the Rolling Stones for the job Mick Taylor got, and blew off playing with John Lennon, while Jeff Beck dedicated "'Cause We've Ended as Lovers" from Blow by Blow to him.

2015 release, the debut solo album from the iconic voice and founding member of punk/new wave/pop/genre-defying band The B-52s. No one can accuse Kate Pierson of rushing into a solo career – Pierson had spent close to 40 years as a member of the iconic new wave dance combo the B-52s before she decided it was time to step out with her first solo album. While Pierson occasionally wrote songs with a personal project in mind, it wasn't until 2015 that she finally released her first solo album, Guitars and Microphones; produced in part by Sia, who co-wrote nine of its ten songs, and released through Pierson's own Lazy Meadow Music label, the album reflected a more contemplative and stylistically diverse side of Pierson's musical personality, and featured contributions from Sia, Nick Valensi, Dallas Austin, and Tim Anderson.

A straightforward summary of the Shadows' first three years of habitual hit-making, opening with the pounding flurry of "Apache," then tracing through the next eight smash singles, with a handful of attendant B-sides (and one EP cut, the title track from The Boys) to round the package out. There is no denying the sheer brilliance of this early sequence. Hits like "Wonderful Land," "FBI," and "Man of Mystery" utterly rewrote the guitar's role in rock, not only musically, but culturally as well. Unquestionably, the Shadows' importance and impact diminished as the years passed, but at the outset of their career – the period documented here – they were untouchable. It is for that reason that The Shadows' Greatest Hits is still regarded in some quarters as the finest Shadows album of them all, an accolade which no other compilation (and goodness knows, there's been enough of them) has ever been able to dismiss. Even the sleeve screams "masterpiece."

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of The Studio Albums 1979-1987, a new clamshell boxed set that gathers together all seven studio albums released by the legendary classical rock band Sky over a nine year period.
Formed in 1979, Sky brought together the worlds of rock and classical music in a highly successful and inspiring way. Featuring the gifted talents of guitarist John Williams, percussionist Tristan Fry, legendary bass player Herbie Flowers, former Curved Air keyboard player Francis Monkman and guitarist Kevin Peek, Sky recorded their debut album at Abbey Road studios in the early months of 1979. The band’s self-titled debut reached the UK top ten in May 1979 and went on to achieve Platinum status in the UK and was also a major hit in Europe and Australia…

Arhoolie's Ball n' Chain is a terrific collection of late-'60s recordings from Big Mama Thornton. Supported on various tracks by Lightnin' Hopkins and Larry Williams, Big Mama runs through such familiar items as "Hound Dog," "Sometimes I Have a Heartache," "Sweet Little Angel," "Little Red Rooster," "Wade in the Water," and "Ball and Chain," turning in generally powerful performances. By and large, these don't necessarily rival her classic '50s recordings, but they are worth investigating if you're looking for something more.

African Sketchbook is a superb example of the kind of solo concerts Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand) performed early in his career. They were lengthy, non-stop affairs with pieces strung together end on end, sometimes repeated, sometimes with interpolations from Monk or Ellington, and always supremely creative and moving. He would often introduce the evenings with a composition for flute, as is the case here with the gorgeous "Air." After that, it's wave upon wave of songs. Some are rhythmically propulsive numbers with Ibrahim vamping for all he's worth with the left hand while deftly evoking aspects of South Africa with the right. The songs tend to have a basis that may strike Western listeners as gospel-related while, in fact, it's gospel that shows these same African roots…

Sun Secrets is nothing for Eric Burdon (Animals) to be ashamed of artistically. With approximately 24 minutes per side, Sun Secrets is a far cry from The Black Man's Burdon and the rhythms of the group War. As Mountain guitarist Leslie West would do a year after this when he formed the Leslie West Band, Burdon beats him to the punch with a self-titled group that rocks - rocks harder than the Animals, rocks harder than War. It's innovative reinvention, and quite pleasing, not only to hear the three-piece unit blitzing behind the singer as he reinterprets Animals classics like "When I Was Young," "It's My Life," or the Hendrix/Cream riff-laden version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," but on the instrumental title track as well. The tragedy of it all is that, according to the singer's biography, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Eric Burdon with J.Marshall Craig (Thunder's Mouth Press), Burdon did not want this material out…

A 30 year retrospective of the music of Ian Boddy.
They say a journey begins with a single step. Ian Boddy's journey began in 1979 when he walked into the studio at Newcastle's Spectro Arts Workshop. Intrigued by the sounds emanating from the banks of VCS3 synthesisers and Revox tape recorders, he started a 30 year odyssey of musical experimentation and adventure. Never following the mainstream or courting a band-centric musical path he has nevertheless forged a truly unique musical career.
From the release of his first ever full album on the UK cassette label Mirage in 1980, he has gone on to issue 23 solo & 24 collaborative albums, performed over 100 concerts in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany & USA, composed 11 library music albums for DeWolfe Music and programmed several sample CD's & virtual instruments…

Zefiro has already proved its strong affinity with Georg Philipp Telemann's music, and the ensemble's recording of his Ouvertures a 8 was awarded a Gramophone Editor's Choice. As Julie Anne Sadie pointed out, ''the much-vaunted lean muscularity of the Ensemble Zefiro performances favors the wind instruments and, when joined with one-to-a-part strings, produces a freshly balanced sonority that alters our experience of these works''. The 250th anniversary of Telemann's death offers now a neat incentive to release this successful recording on which his Wassermusik, generally referred to as Hamburg Ebb and Flow, is coupled with Handel's more familiar aquatic suites.

This disc is a real plucker’s delight featuring not only the skills of three leading mandolinists – Juan Carlos Muñoz, Mari Fe Pavón and Alla Tolkacheva – but also a continuo section consisting of baroque guitar, harpsichord and (anachronistically) Renaissance lute; even the violone and gamba are usually played pizzicato. Together they romp through a programme of concerti and sonatas by Dall’Abaco, Arrigoni, Matteis, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sigismund Weiss (rather than his more famous brother Sylvius Leopold), Fasch and of course Vivaldi; with a doffof their tricorns in the direction of earlier baroque composers Castello and Uccellini. This is joyous, glorious music-making.

La Simphonie du Marais under their director Hugo Reyne are terrific. They bring this music alive with such stylish performances that bring fine textures, variety, colour and often some exotic moments, Hugo Reyne knowing just how to lift these suites to reveal every fine moment … These performances remain the benchmark.

Mayr had established himself as a highly successful composer by the beginning of the 19th century. Medea in Corinto is one of his best-known operas, based on a libretto by Felice Romani. For decades after its 1813 première at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples, it provided one of the speciality roles for Isabella Colbran and Giuditta Pasta. In this recording, Italian conductor Fabio Luisi gives an intense reading of Mayr’s music and masterfully underlines its deep psychological dimensions, enhancing the drama that unfolds on stage. Luisi, a Grammy Award-winning artist, is also principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and general music director of the Zurich Opera. Michael Spyres and Enea Scala, take the important roles of Jason and Aegeus. The role of Medea is entrusted to the Spanish soprano Davinia Rodriguez, who effortlessly delivers Act I’s demanding cavatina with obbligato violin, usually omitted in most productions.