With Release, the highly acclaimed Lisbeth Quartett presents a greatly anticipated album on Intakt Records. After twelve years and five albums, Charlotte Greve, who has just been awarded the German Jazz Prize for “Artist of the Year”, has relied on her intuitive sensibilities to create the new music for Release. The result is an album marked by sensitive interplay – a collection of stunningly subtle and melodically pronounced songs that are both gentle and powerfully fluid. Even if the musicians are across the world in Berlin or New York City, all traveling and working on their respective projects, they seem to meld and blend with ease because of their history together and their knowledge of each other’s instrumental styles. “They have all cultivated the ability to play their instruments gently and cleanly aligning with the style of even sounds and tone they have refined throughout their journeys together. Twelve years is a long time and the span of thousands of moments that they have shared having brought them to where they are today, working as a unit, creating new music in this post-modern era and continuing their legacy as a leading band in the international jazz landscape”, writes Jordannah Elizabeth in the liner notes.

Pop rock psych group hailed from Buffalo, New York, USA, released two albums and a few 45s on Kama Sutra between 1967 and 1970…

Taeko Kunishima started playing piano at seven. Particularly taken by Mozart and Beethoven, she later studied classical piano performance at university. On hearing Miles Davis for the first time, her direction changed, leading her to explore the music of many different jazz artists, and to develop her own improvisatory technique whilst studying jazz harmony…

Asako Ogawa (Ginova), a leading Japanese-born harpsichordist based in London, actively performs as a soloist and as a continuo player in UK, Europe and Japan. She is also a baroque repertoire coach at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

This suite of three intricate, hour-long guitar drones from the Swiss experimental musician suggests no ends or beginnings, just an unfathomable expanse of immersive sound…

Previously unreleased songs and versions of songs from the debut album era 1986-88.

Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music. His teachers include William Fong, Leon Fleisher and Dmitri Alexeev. Alexander’s debut album on Rubicon was a recital of great Russian ballet music arranged for piano – Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky – and received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. This album is his first concerto recording – the two Liszt Concertos are coupled with the B minor Sonata.

It is interesting to see how three instruments often considered as secondary instruments can come together to become a formidable ensemble. Up until this time, flute and harp chamber repertoire was still mainly played and promoted by its own instrumentalists. Apart from Reinecke, no composer who wasn’t themselves a virtuoso had dedicated a major concerto to these instruments.

Songs by Warlock & Howe - Anna Harvey / Mark Austin - This delightful recital of English songs brings together one of the form's most distinctive and prolific composers, Peter Warlock, with a composer born in 1951 who continues very much in the tradition of the older composer - Frederick Howe, whose selection of his own folksong arrangements dovetail neatly this aspect of Warlock's output. Howe's songs are receiving their world-premiere recordings. Magpie by Warlock is also a world-premiere recording using the original text.

Stevie Wonder's career in the 1980s was a source of frustration to the fans he had earned in the '60s and '70s. In 1982, there were a few new songs on a greatest-hits album and a duet with Paul McCartney. Then came this soundtrack to a Gene Wilder comedy that was simultaneously more of a pop vocal album than most soundtracks and yet less than a full-fledged Wonder record…

3 years after their incredible debut album with ‘The Dark Pool’, Australian metalcore outfit Thornhill have returned for their sophomore release ‘Heroine’. The record sees the band forging their own path, going down an entirely different direction than what anyone could have predicted of them, trading out their progressive metalcore roots for ambient alternative metal heavily influenced by the likes of Deftones and The Smashing Pumpkins…

SZNZ: Summer is the second instalment in one of the bands most exciting projects to date: SZNZ, a four EP song cycle of sorts. Already mythical across the internet, SZNZ will, fittingly, be released at the start of every season. Each EP offers its own palette of colours, creatures, and emotions to explore. They’re also being created in real time, made in tandem with the season themselves. The projects lead single “Records” is a big classic Weezer rock song, with a chorus built around thunderous drums, chunky power chords and a memorable melody about songs that get stuck in your head, which is exactly what this one is sure to do.

Ellington Uptown (also released as Hi-Fi Ellington Uptown) is an album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington recorded for the Columbia label in 1951 & 1952. Three factors stand out in the interpretation of Ellington's music on this album: Betty Roche's vocal on a multi movement version of "Take The 'A' Train", the addition of Louie Bellson on drums ("Skin Deep"), and the updating of old Ellington material that is made new and fresh. Jazz critic and historian Ted Gioia notes that the work is among "Ellington's more visionary projects" and is "a masterpiece by almost any measure".

Mika Kallio has collaborated with most major jazz musicians in Finland. Some of the players he has worked and/or recorded with are Mikko Innanen, Kari Ikonen, Pauli Lyytinen, Raoul Björkenheim, Otto Donner,, Anssi Nykänen, Jarmo Savolainen, Jukka Perko, Teemu Viinikainen, Manuel Dunkel, Verneri Pohjola, Jukka Gustavson, Marzi Nyman, Eero Koivistoinen, Pekka Pohjola and many others

Neo-classical metal band Edguy were formed in Fulda, Germany in 1992 by then-students Tobias Sammet, Jens Ludwig, Dominik Storch, and Dirk Sauer. Although they were only 14 at the time, the young bandmembers worked on original material, and by 1994 they had released two demos…