Day of the Dead is an epic tribute to the music and artistry of the Grateful Dead, curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. They have brought together some of their favourite musicians to reinterpret the songs and sounds of the Dead for a new generation. 59 tracks and over 5 hours of music makes the album a landmark to get lost in, to discover hidden treasures and to make your own playlists for whatever mood you’re in. Covers by The War On Drugs, Kurt Vile, Bill Callahan, Courtney Barnett, Anohni, Wilco, Mumford & Sons, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, The Flaming Lips, Stephen Malkmus, Cass McCombs, Tim Hecker, Lucinda Williams, Perfume Genius, Fucked Up, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, The Tallest Man On Earth and others.

Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition. Described, variously, as "dusky and mysterious, cosmetic and up-for-it", "Industrial techno disco," and "like a Japanese express train", Curve's second album Cuckoo is more sophisticated, more seductive, less serrated, even squelchy in places than their debut, Doppelganger. A mature, fluent, and literary album, it hit the Top 30 on release in 1993. Cuckoo takes the listener from the established hallmarks and runs with them - over the horizon - to many new and rich areas of pop melodrama. Delicate and gorgeous moments sit easily with their simultaneously cool and incendiary sound. A more personal album, it is nonetheless metallic, unforgiving, loud, clear. As with Doppelganger the album was produced by the band with Flood and Steve Osborne, and it was mixed by Alan Moulder. It is home to the lead tracks from singles Blackerthreetracker EP and 'Superblaster' and is regarded by the band as their best piece of work. This expanded edition includes the album plus the remixes and two previously unreleased tracks, the original versions of 'Rising' and 'Half The Time', which have only previously been available in their remixed form. Compiled by Dean Garcia and Toni Halliday.

Following a few years after Levee Town, an album tightly focused on a specific place and time, Landreth dedicates The Road We're On to the more intangible magic of the blues. The music this time scans a vast panorama, from the Texas shuffle of "All About You" and zydeco pulse of "Gone Pecan" through the tub-thump beat of some Bayou dive on "Juke Box Mamma." Aside from a couple of cuts on which he plays standard guitar, Landreth fills this album with wizardly slide work: A shimmering lick at the end of "A World Away" provides the most gorgeous sonic moment, though his extended jam on the environmental call to arms "Natural World" sustains a high level of intensity through several choruses. On most of these tracks Landreth performs in a raw trio setting, almost all the time recording live; on "Hell at Home" he even keeps the scratch vocal, rather than overdub a fresh version, because the four-beat groove, reminiscent of "Walking Blues" on Paul Butterfield's East-West, is so in-the-pocket.

John Jenkins: yet another seventeenth century English composer who deserves to be more widely known. This delightful CD from The Consort of Musicke directed by Trevor Jones is no dutiful study of a hidden but rather uninspiring corner of English early Baroque consort music; rather, a mosaic – rich in color and shape, carefully crafted and full of surprises. Listen, for instance, to the unpretentious, jaunty and appropriately figurative progress through the Saraband (52, tr.6) and the restrained melancholy of the Fancy-Air (4, tr.7). Jenkins' counterpoint is well-wrought, his instrumental palette fresh and crisp and his melodies catchy without being fey or superficial in any way. He is in excellent hands with the Consort of Musicke… eight string players of the caliber of Monica Huggett and Alison Crum violins; Alan Wilson organ and Anthony Rooley theorbo. If fresh, beautiful, expertly-played English consort music appeals to you, don't hesitate to get this gem of a CD – actually a reissue of a Decca disc from 1983: it's unreservedly recommended.

2013 release, the 20th album from the veteran British Electronic music pioneer. The songs on Splinter were written by Gary and his longtime co-conspirator Ade Fenton. The album sees Gary blending his unique musical vision with modern technology, creating something this is both 'current' and entirely different than anything else you will hear all year.

Writer and producer Leon Ware has been responsible for some of R&B and pop's most lush and romantic tracks. Ware produced Marvin Gaye's 1976 classic I Want You. He also co-wrote songs like Michael Jackson's "I Wanna Be Where You Are," Marlena Shaw's "Sweet Beginnings," and the Main Ingredient's "Rollin' Down a Mountainside" to name a few. This album is the follow-up to his 1976 Gordy release Musical Massage and was released shortly after he was behind the controls for nine of the ten tracks of Melissa Manchester's Don't Cry Loud. Inside Is Love has the intelligent and melody rich work fans expect from Leon Ware. Produced by Ware and Ron Roker, this has arrangements from David Blumberg, Gene Page, and Sonny Burke. Although he's not the world's strongest vocalist, his methodical, light tenor gives these songs a personal stamp. The first track, "What's Your Name" has Ware playing his naïve lothario act to the hilt. The magnificent "Love Is a Simple Thing," co-written by Chicago member Robert Lamm, possesses a chorus that is both poignant and uplifting.

Meeting of the Times is an album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and vocalist Al Hibbler recorded in March 1972 in New York City. It features performances by Kirk and Hibbler with Hank Jones, Ron Carter and Grady Tate with an additional track recorded by Kirk with Leon Thomas, Lonnie Liston Smith, Major Holley and Charles Crosby from the sessions that produced Here Comes the Whistleman (1965).

GRAMOPHONE Magazine Editor's Choice - February 2016. Critical acclaim for Jonathan Plowright's two previous discs in his series of Brahms’s works for solo piano includes distinctions such as ‘10/10’ on the website Classics Today and top marks in Diapason as well as ‘Instrumental Choice of the Month’ in BBC Music Magazine. On his third disc Plowright presents the listener with two seemingly contradictory aspects of Johannes Brahms: the deeply serious, emotionally charged, but also meticulously constructed late Piano Pieces of Op. 118 and their precursor Op. 76 appear side by side with the unapologetic extroversion and scintillating verve of most (if not all) of the 16 Waltzes Op. 39, and the flamboyant Variations on a Hungarian Melody. Brahms’s fascination with Hungarian gypsy music stemmed from his friendship with the violinist Eduard Reményi, and found an outlet in several works, among which the Hungarian Dances are probably the most famous.

This collection covers Pendergrass' run of big hits from the Philadelphia International era, including "I Don't Love You Anymore," "Close The Door" and "Turn Off The Lights".

The Reformations fundamental alterations to traditional forms of church service, had, by Bach's time, resulted in German churches Latin yielding to the country's own language. To a limited extent, however, the Latin mass text did remain in use in the Protestant church in particular the Kyrie and Gloria sections. Termed Missa to differentiate them from complete settings, these pieces are often referred to now as 'Lutheran Masses'. Bach's famous Mass in B minor began its existence as a work of this type, and four other examples from Bach's pen have survived. Newly performed and recorded by Bach Collegium Japan under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, the Missae BWV 235 and 236 are here combined with four separate settings of the Sanctus. Two of these are original works, whereas BWV 241, and possibly also 240, is an arrangement of another composers setting. The 'KyrieChriste' BWV Anh 26 is an example of how Bach used music by other composers, in this case by his Neapolitan contemporary Francesco Durante.

Leon Russell's accolades are monumental in a number of categories, from songwriting (he wrote Joe Cocker's "Delta Lady") to session playing (with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, just to name a few) to his solo work. Unfortunately, it's the last category that never really attracted as much attention as it should have, despite a multitude of blues-based gospel recordings and piano-led, Southern-styled rock albums released throughout the 1970s. Leon Russell and the Shelter People is a prime example of Russell's instrumental dexterity and ability to produce some energetic rock & roll. Poignant and expressive tracks such as "Of Thee I Sing," "Home Sweet Oklahoma," and "She Smiles Like a River" all lay claim to Russell's soulful style and are clear-cut examples of the power that he musters through his spirited piano playing and his voice. His Dylan covers are just as strong, especially "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh," while "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" and "It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall" have him sounding so forceful, they could have been Russell's own.

Leon Redbone followed up his debut long-player On the Track (1975) with Double Time (1977), an equally enchanting, if not somewhat eclectic blend, of jazz, folk, blues and pop standards – all in Redbone's undeniably distinct throaty baritone. While the tunes may be familiar, these renderings are steeped in the artist's unique sensibilities. The results are uniformly ingenious and commence with a New Orleans ragtime flavored interpretation of Blind Boy Blake's dirty "Diddy Wa Diddie" blues. Augmenting Redbone's acoustic guitar is an extended cast of session stalwarts and a host of other musical notables – such as Milt Hinton (bass), Jonathan Dorn (tuba), Vic Dickenson (trombone) and Jo Jones (drums). Don McLean (banjo) sits in, supplying his criminally underutilized instrumental versatility on the endearing revamp of Jimmie Rodgers' "Mississippi Delta Blues." The decidedly demented reading of "Sheik of Araby" is nothing short of inspired insanity. Redbone incorporates a Screamin' Jay Hawkins-esque persona belting out a variety of hoots, snorts, howls and hob-gobbles set behind a hot-steppin' fret board flurry à la Django Reinhardt.

Weather Report is generally regarded as the greatest jazz fusion band of all time, with the biggest jazz hit ("Birdland") from the best jazz fusion album (1977's Heavy Weather). But the group's studio mastery sometimes overshadows the fact that it was also a live juggernaut – so don't overlook the outstanding live and studio album from 1979, 8:30. This was a rare quartet version of Weather Report, with co-leaders in keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The bassist was the inimitable Jaco Pastorius, the drummer a young Peter Erskine. Pastorius is otherworldly on early gems like "Black Market," the breakneck "Teen Town," and his solo showcase, "Slang" (in which he quotes Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun"). Shorter is most involved on the CD's slower pieces like "A Remark You Made," "In a Silent Way," and his own solo piece, "Thanks for the Memory"; Zawinul and Erskine shine on the swinging version of "Birdland" and roller coaster ride of the "Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz" medley. Four studio tracks (composing what was side four of the original album version) close 8:30 with a flourish – and some surprises.

Joe Cocker! is Joe Cocker's second studio album, released in November 1969. Following the template of his first LP, this album features numerous covers of songs originally performed by Bob Dylan ("Dear Landlord"), The Beatles ("She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "Something" - both released almost simultaneously with original versions; "Let It Be" was also recorded and released as a B-side), Leonard Cohen ("Bird on the Wire"), and future touring partner Leon Russell ("Delta Lady"). Cocker also co-wrote one song, "That's Your Business Now", Chris Stainton, who was also his writing partner in later years.

Actress and singer Julie London is best remembered in pop terms for her much-covered classic ‘Cry Me A River’ a Number 9 US hit in 1955 and a Number 22 UK success two years later. But as this compilation shows, there was much more to the girl than one impressive song.