Multi-platinum chart–topping global pop powerhouse Zara Larsson kicks her boldest era yet into overdrive with her heavily anticipated new album Midnight Sun. Created over the last year with frequent collaborator MNEK, alongside producer Margo XS and songwriter Helena Gao, this album is her best work to-date. Its storytelling bursts with truth and vulnerability, plumbing the depth and growth of Zara’s artistry and journey over nearly 20 years in the public eye. It’s an album unafraid to show all sides of the 27-year-old: lovestruck, wistful, ambitious, cocky, flippant, and uncertain, often in the same breath.

Manouevres was released in 1983 as the follow-up to Greg Lake's 1981 self-titled debut album. His core group of musicians (Gary Moore, Tristam Margetts, Tommy Eyre, and Ted McKenna) is still present, but Manoeuvres is a different sort of album than the '81 effort. The heavy, gritty, guitar-driven feel of the previous record is not quite as evident, making this a more restrained album. Many, Greg Lake included, tend to sell this album short and that is a mistake: this is a well-crafted album on which Lake relies more on melody than he did on his debut. A few of the heavier numbers, such as the title track, are reminiscent of Greg Lake, but it's the ballads that set this album apart. Lake shows why - as heard on the powerful and complex music of the ELP years - it was the ballads that always seemed to fare best commercially…

"We were jubilant, we were full of dance. No boundaries for our creativity." That's how we felt making the record. Groove and Dance. With POWER, we were trying to survive. With DANCE - we were celebrating life and the new chance. Dance - that's one of the styles of music I haven't touched previously, and that was always present in my life. I guess I always wanted to make that connection - between the guitar and the dance song. There's only a few dance tracks on the record ("Dance To The Rhythm" "Sho Nuff") but I wanted to go into those and tastefully fit guitar, as usually there's none in similar songs.I don't think it was done before, and certainly not much. There's a fantastic blues track 'Dwell On The Feeling' as well as a pop track 'Hurt So Good'. Timeless lyrics and haunting tribal groove on 'Sisters and Brothers' and smooth and vibe-y on 'California Chase' with a powerful message that the skid row in LA is sometimes one miss-step away, and that no one should be homeless.

The latest album from Grammy-nominated Marcus King and the Marcus King Band, Darling Blue: a soundtrack through the peaks and valleys of his mind, and an ode to his beloved home - the Blue Ridge Mountains. Available on black vinyl in gatefold jacket with 12x12" insert included.

Hard Road is Christone “Kingfish” Ingram’s most personal and powerful album yet. Blending blues with rock and R&B, it marks a bold shift in sound and storytelling. Produced by Tom Hambridge, Patrick “Guitarboy” Hayes, and Nick Goldston, the record explores love, loss, identity, and growth. Released on Kingfish’s own Red Zero Records, Hard Road reflects his mission to honor blues tradition while shaping its future.

Strut presents Mulatu Plays Mulatu, the first major studio album in over 10 years from the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.

For the latests in the Smalls Live series, highly regarded NYC pianist David Kikoski reunites his stellar trio–featuring the legendary Billy Hart on drums and the great Joe Martin on bass–with longtime friend and collaborator Randy Brecker as special guest, for a raw, live-in-the-room session. This new album on Cellar Music captures an intimate conversation between four friends–drawing from shared history, mutual trust, and a commitment to the moment.

Though Little Freddie King may not be a household name quite yet, his self-styled "Gut Bucket Blues" approach is well worth a listen for any of those who like rough but precise vocals, warm blues harp, and fat, incisive guitar.
King's style is a rough fusion of T-Bone Walker's sharp attack and Albert King's laid-back, smoky stylings: economical, precise, and thick, tending to simmer but never boil. His rented-mule vocals, likewise, do capably in the pepper-and-vinegar of his mostly self-penned album. Bobby DiTullio adds reliable harmonica, while the backing band keep a likeably primitive rhythm on low heat…

Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as “one of American music’s great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime.” The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars – including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross – and two pianos that utilize Threadgill’s unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music’s painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill’s music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer’s conducting into a singular experience.

Pene Pati’s glowing tenor voice, described by Le Monde as ‘filled with sunshine’, makes him the ideal interpreter of such roles as Rodolfo in La bohème and the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto. Now, with Serenata a Napoli, he brings his distinctive warmth to another quintessentially Italian art form, Neapolitan song. In addition to such ‘greatest hits’ as ‘O sole mio’ and ‘Funiculì funiculà’, the golden age of canzone napoletana (1880-1930) produced abundant lyrical expressions of passion, melancholy and joy.

On Renaissance, Shani Diluka invites us on a journey through the humanist movement of the Renaissance era with repertoire selected from Byrd to Frescobaldi, from Dowland to Monteverdi. Many of the pieces have never been played on the modern piano, yet Diluka's thoughtful playing is close to the intimate sounds of the harpsichord and clavichord. The album examines the effect of the Elizabethan and Italian rennaisance traditions on the development of classical music in Europe.