Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau, longtime admirers of each other's work, first toured as a duo in 2013. At the end of 2015, they played a two-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom before going into the studio to record Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs that Nonesuch releases on January 27, 2017, on two CDs / LPs. The vinyl edition includes a bonus performance of Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." You can watch a live performances of the former above and the latter below.

Oh my God! Wow!!! Are you ready to be terrorized by a March that literally makes you feel as if you ARE the person being marched to the scaffold or a Witch’s Sabbath that makes you feel as if Witches are right there harassing you? For the longest time I merely listened to the Symphonie Fantastique as a disinterested onlooker of the proceedings depicted in the music. I never felt an involvement with the music because of the performers involved—UNTIL NOW!!

Having used his talents as a virtuoso bass player to turn drum & bass & electronica on its head with a series of mind melting albums for Warp, Tom Jenkinson or as most people now him - Squarepusher calls on the help of his allies Strobe Nazard, Company Laser & Arg Nution to take a second turn on what amounts to possibly his most ambitious project yet, Shobaleader One.

Shostakovich’s music is often 'two-faced', sometimes sublimated in ecstasy and joie de vivre, sometimes plunged into emptiness and suffused with a death wish. Accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Teodor Currentzis, Alexander Melnikov captures this feeling admirably in the Concertos Opp.35 and 102, and perhaps still more poignantly – “with disarming sincerity and fearless directness”, to quote his booklet note – alongside Isabelle Faust in the Sonata Op.134.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (At The Drive-In/Mars Volta) is in the midst of releasing a series of solo albums via Ipecac Recordings. Azul, Mis Dientes is the 18th album in the series, and the third of a further 12 solo records to be released in 2017.

This disc is really something special. Collectors are so spoiled for choice in the baroque repertoire at present, particularly on period instruments, but even in a glutted market this disc stands out for imaginative repertoire selection and outstanding interpretation. Its particularly gratifying, in these days of complete editions of everything, to see a discerning artist like Giuliano Carmignola choose four remarkably diverse works by three different composers, and simply play the living daylights out of them. The result roundly disproves the notion that Italian baroque violin concertos all sound the same, a point made even more forcefully by imaginative continuo work (on harpsichord, lute, and organ) by the Venice Baroque Orchestra that helps to emphasize each pieces individual character. The two Vivaldi concertos, for example, couldnt be more different.

The great painters have always known how to combine the different perspectives of the Nativity into a single picture. Here the RIAS Kammerchor tells the Christmas Story in music: Mendelssohn frames the painting, to which the darkness and the promise of promise of heavenly light form the background. The Virgin Mary leads us to the heart of Christmas Night and to rejoicing at the Saviour s birth. We come full circle with the Four Motets of Poulenc, which sum up all the facets of Christmas and its emotions.

Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent present their third project for Phi focussing on vocal music of the Renaissance. This time, it is the English composer William Byrd (c.1540-1623) who is being honoured. The title of the programme is that of Byrds motet Infelix ego, one of the greatest artistic statements of the 16th century. Its text is a meditation on Psalm 50, written by the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola, a remarkable man who waged a campaign against the corrupt Medici family in Florence.

'Obviously,from the interpreter of these pieces of all the pieces on this CD one expects skill and sensitivity.But there must be still more:a gift for colour;an ability to imagine decors;a vision of textures,of space.And also,for these pieces that are at once heir to and summing-up of a glorious tradition,a wide-ranging knowledge,a culture of the piano repertoire.The interpreter of the Études is situated at the finishing line of a marathon,that of the keyboard en blanc et noir.He or she must know everything,and play nearly everything.Nelson Goerner is one such pianist.'Dominique Jameux.

22nd April 2016 would have been the 100th Birthday of violin legend Yehudi Menuhin, and Daniel Hope dedicates a complete album to his former mentor and close friend.

Five time GRAMMY-winner Marty Stuart will release Way Out West, his 18th studio album, on March 10 on Superlatone. The album was conceived as a love letter by one of Country music’s living legends, whom has played with everyone from Cash to Lester Flatt, to the lonely but magical American West, specifically the promised land of California. "If you go and sit by yourself in the middle of the Mojave Desert at sundown and you're still the same person the next morning when the sun comes up, I'd be greatly surprised," says Stuart. "It is that spirit world of the West that enchants me."