Although Eric Martin is best-known as the lead singer of rock quartet Mr. Big, he was a seasoned music veteran before that outfit in 1988. Born on October 10, 1960, in Long Island, NY, Martin moved often during his childhood due to his father's career as an Army officer. When the family settled in San Francisco in 1976, Martin formed the band 415 with some high school friends. The band became a popular local draw, eventually opening for acts like Billy Squier, Molly Hatchet, and the Marshall Tucker Band, while still an unsigned ac…

Dave Douglas has a superb experienced trio supporting him on Moving Portrait. The session consists of the trumpeter's compositions plus three by Joni Mitchell. Douglas feels that the words, music, and meaning of Mitchell's songs provide an excellent starting place for his ensemble to improvise in jazz. Like all forms of art, the result is a session that includes drama, variety, and a story that attaches different meanings to each viewer or listener. Douglas' music evolves from the hard bop idiom, with special care given to the presentation of his unique ideas. The trumpeter uses a soft attack, round tone, fluid articulation, and unlimited imagination to honor beauty in various forms. Pianist Bill Carrothers is adventuresome in his approach and complements the trumpeter well. Genus and Hart provide a variety of colors to match Douglas' limitless palette.

This album brings Egberto Gismonti (mainly at his custom-made violões, just a couple of tracks at the piano), Nando Carneiro (violão, a discrete keyboarding), and Zeca Assumpção (double bass). The album comprises a broad dynamic range, from the peaceful, melancholic, and meditative to the aggressive, percussive, and dissonant. It brings a major difference from albums such as Dança Das Cabeças in the sense that the musical themes are delivered in a more direct manner, while Dança was more ambiguous. From the excellent music of this album, the northeastern-inspired bass solo of "Orixás" and the beautiful theme "Forrobodó" can be mentioned.

Head-cradling and steeply hypnotic organ drone works from The Eternal Chord - an all star Touch squad revolving Anna Von Hausswolff, Charles Matthews, Claire M. Singer, Hildur Gudnadottir, Jana Winderen, Maia Urstad, Marcus Davidson, and Mike Harding. Big tip to disciples of extreme low end frequencies!

Great live recording from the current Ten Years After line-up, featuring Marcus Bonfanti (guitars / vocals), Chick Churchill (Keyboards), Colin Hodgkinson (bass) & Ric Lee (drums)…

“If this isn't great interpretation, I don't know what is,” wrote Gramophone’s reviewer in 1968, when this recording was first released, “I have no hesitation in saying that I think it the greatest performance I have yet heard on record.” John Barbirolli, an intense and inspired interpreter of Beethoven’s music, had been conducting the Eroica for many years, but the symphony acquired a special significance for him in the final years of his life. “Strange how the Eroica exhausts me these days,” he wrote in 1966. “It may well be because I am really beginning to plumb its depths.”

Don't Be Cruel is the second studio album by American singer Bobby Brown. It was released in the United States on June 20, 1988 by MCA Records. Brown changed producers for this album, and worked extensively with hit-making songwriting and production duo Babyface and L.A. Reid. The album is dedicated to Brown's deceased best friend, James "Jimbo" Flint, who was stabbed to death when Brown was aged 11. Don't Be Cruel incorporates new jack swing, R&B, funk, dance and soul.

The expanded 3-CD follow up to the iconic now out of print 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t be Wrong compilation, now features songs right up to the groups last album.

Steam Theory is the work of multi-instrumentalist Jason Denkevitz. He had contributions from guest musicians and being a wizard of programming, his music sounds like a full orchestra with tasty jazz and classical arrangements. He can switch to some light jazz mood to a heavier mood keeping the feel of the melody throughout a song. The overall production makes this new release even more enjoyable. The album has some high songwriting value, not many passages that makes you skip a song. Recommended to those who enjoy Jazz fusion and Prog Rock.

They say that in space, no one can hear you fall into a trace of repetitive heavy psychedelic bliss. Germany’s The Spacelords - guitarist Matthias "Hazi" Wettstein, bassist Erhard "Akee" Kazmaier and drummer Marcus Schnitzler; all of whom are also responsible for sundry other effects and/or noises - wrap up a trilogy of three-song full-lengths with Spaceflowers, taking what began on 2016's Liquid Sun and continued with 2017’s Water Planet for their fourth release total on Tonzonen Records including last year’s live outing, On Stage. Whether they’re in the studio or not, the trio emit a cosmic vibe of marked depth, and in the three extended pieces of Spaceflowers, they bloom in true fashion, each one seeming to spread out in all directions at once, circular petals opening wide to catch the light of some strange sunlight and thereby be sustained.

West Coast metal veterans METAL CHURCH will release "From The Vault" on April 10 via Rat Pak Records. "From The Vault" is a collection of previously unreleased songs from the Mike Howe era. ( New Studio Tracks, B-Side Tracks From The Damned If You Do Sessions, Cover Songs, USA Bonus Tracks From The XI Album )

The story goes that composer Carter Burwell owes his fortuitous, ongoing collaboration with the filmmaking's Brothers Coen to one crucial requirement: he worked cheap. But the Coens' low-budget film noir debut, Blood Simple (which also launched the career of cinematographer-turned-director Barry Sonnenfeld), certainly got the best of the bargain, a wonderfully less-is-more score highlighted by a compelling solo piano theme. For the Coens' next film, Raising Arizona, a darkly goofy kidnapping-themed comic vehicle for Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, Burwell veered bravely into the ozone, mixing heavily Gothic organ, soaring sopranos, bluegrass banjo, whistlers, synths, yodelers, and samples of what sounds like a tin can being kicked down the longest hill in the world into a delightfully heady farrago that recalls Morricone at his most mischievous.