Signum Records are proud to present the debut orchestral recording from Grace Davidson, one of the UK’s leading British sopranos specialising in Baroque music. She is joined by some of Europe’s leading Baroque musicians from the Academy of Ancient Music to perform a selection of works by Handel and Vivaldi, with performaces led by violinist Bojan Čičić under artistic director Joseph Crouch.

With Lux, the brilliant pianist and composer Matan Porat offers a visionary programme inspired by the theme of light. Twelve pieces chosen among a repertoire spanning twelve centuries accompany the course of a day, from dawn to nightfall. each piece corresponds to a time of day, with its own particular light.

One of the great Russian pianists of our time in a new studio recording of sparkling sonatas by a contemporary of Beethoven.

A century after his death on 25 March 1918, many harmonia mundi artists are eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great ‘colourist’ and father of modern music. Alexander Melnikov is among those pianists increasingly committed to playing the works of the past on the instruments on which they came into being (or could have done so). And so it is on a ‘period’ piano (an Érard piano ) that he breathes new life into Book II of the Préludes, but also – with the help of Olga Pashchenko – the extraordinary transcription of La Mer by the composer himself.

Bye bye… or Berlin for ever? Throughout the 1920s, all eyes were turned towards Berlin. Driven by a collective energy, artists of all persuasions (writers, painters, architects, filmmakers and composers) there established the principles of “New Objectivity”, which saw the city become the very epitome of modernity, at the same time as following in the footsteps of other great cities worldwide, not least New York, the birthplace of jazz. Life in Berlin was not the stuff of romance however: strikes, poverty, repression, the rise of Nazism…

For the best part of two decades now, South London Afro-Dub legends Soothsayers have been preaching their politically charged good vibrations to a growing and loyal fan base. Their live shows are legendary and vary from off-the-cuff community friendly gigs in Brixton, to festival headline slots and tours across Europe and beyond.

A Matter Of Time is the follow-up to reggae superstar Protoje's critically acclaimed 2015 full-length, Ancient Future. Always positive and politically conscious, A Matter Of Time sees Protoje again working with producer Winta James and includes two new collaborations with Chronixx, as well as recently released hit singles "Blood Money", "Truth & Rights" and "Bout Noon".

Appetite for Destruction is the debut studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. It was released on July 21, 1987, by Geffen Records to massive commercial success. It topped the Billboard 200 and became the best-selling debut album as well as the 11th best-selling album in the United States. With about 30 million copies sold worldwide, it is also one of the best-selling records of all time. Although critics were ambivalent toward the album when it was first released, Appetite for Destruction has since received retrospective acclaim and been viewed as one of the greatest albums of all time.

His most visionary and ambitious stage work to date … Adams’s conducting, second to none in his own music, had tremendous conviction and unique authority, with every facet of the score’s terrible beauty laid bare … thrilling playing and choral singing … Gerald Finley conveyed Oppenheimer’s moral agony with singing of great refinement and subtlety.’ — Guardian

Just in time for the 100th anniversary of his birth on August 25, some of iconic conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein’s greatest works have been assembled for Jazz Loves Bernstein, released on 29 June via Verve/UMe. The two-album collection spans the musical and emotional breadth of the Bernstein songbook, with interpretations of the maestro’s classic tunes spanning more than half a century, performed by some of the era’s finest jazz singers and musicians.

Released in 1979, this is another excellent album that continued ARS' popular success and documents the band continuing to make quality music-even though the critical and popular tide that had swelled through the late 1970s had reached its peak. The album features eight original songs, one of them incorporating a well known Ashford & Simpson song. The tone of this collection is softer, as only a couple of songs truly rock out, but the songwriting and musicianship continues at the superior levels the group had established previously. While two songs would break out as singles, overall it's another superior set of tunes.

After working as a writer and producer for such soul music stalwarts as Donny Hathaway and a stint replacing Curtis Mayfield as the lead vocalist in the Impressions, Leroy Hutson embarked on a solo career with 1973's Love Oh Love. The album combines the kind of smooth soul music that Hutson performed with the Impressions with more ambitious and conceptual outings in the vein of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

After recording a string of soul albums that earned him little commercial success, Leroy Hutson decided to take the most commercial route possible on 1979's Unforgettable by making a disco album. Given that Hutson was a gifted arranger/producer and tended towards the sweet side of soul anyways, it could have been a harmonious marriage. Sadly, it doesn't work because Hutson suppresses all his personality as a performer and producer to produce some disco tracks that represent the genre at its most bland and faceless.

One of the most interesting second-division California psychedelic musicians, keyboardist Lee Michaels was one of the most soulful white vocalists of the late '60s and early '70s. Between 1968 and 1972, he released half a dozen accomplished albums on A&M that encompassed Baroque psychedelic pop and gritty white, sometimes gospel-ish R&B with equal facility. A capable songwriter, Michaels was blessed with an astonishing upper range, occasionally letting loose some thrilling funky wails. In 1971, he landed a surprise Top Ten single with "Do You Know What I Mean," one of the best and funkiest AM hits of the early '70s.

Michaels keyboard-based sound does not change from his earlier albums although he does try using a synth here, and has replaced booming organ with piano. What is different is the writing. Michaels has given up 1960s heaviness for condensed, streamlined songs. Nothing wrong with this given that this was the early 1970s, tightening your keyboard sound is miles above sailing smackface into ELP goop. And there is an easy going, bluesy feeling which Michaels polishes to his advantage, sometimes even getting suddenly funky.