The booklet flags the “impressive similarity” between Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni, premiered in February 1787, and Mozart’s masterpiece first heard in Prague later the same year. True, there are occasional superficial musical resemblances; and while Da Ponte despised the librettist Giovanni Bertati as a “dramatic cobbler”, he was happy to appropriate many of his ideas for his own Don Giovanni libretto. What strikes you time and again, though, is the fathomless gulf between Gazzaniga’s casually structured one-act romp, designed as a play-within-a-play for the Venice Carnival, and Mozart’s tragi-comic masterpiece.

Where Fortune Smiles is really a John Surman recording, but subsequent re-releases have passed the credit on to John McLaughlin (for obvious reasons). The music is similar to but more dense than Extrapolation. McLaughlin's raw sound was starting to take shape by this time and his impeccable chops are on full display. So too are those of the underrated vibraphonist Karl Berger and, of course, soprano saxophonist Surman. The foundation is held loosely in place by bassist Dave Holland and drummer Stu Martin. It's a challenging but interesting listen, especially given McLaughlin's later success and popularity.

Beethoven’s twelve violin sonatas add up to a comprehensive exploration of the possibilities and potential of writing for the two instruments on equal terms – possibilities that he was ideally placed to understand. The three sonatas on this recording are waypoints on a journey, crafted by a composer who was both violinist and pianist, and who never ceased exploring the practical possibilities of the instruments for which he wrote.

Champaign, Illinois rock band Hum have surprise-released their first new album in over 22 years: Inlet is the group’s follow-up to January 1998’s Downward Is Heavenward.

Two side-long improvised tracks – recorded in a spacious concert hall in Tokyo, and featuring the drums and percussion of Masahiko Togashi alongside some very inventive work on guitar from Masayuki Takayanagi.

Right There is primarily a straight-ahead set featuring Steve Turre on trombone and shells in a sextet with violinist John Blake, cellist Akua Dixon Turre, pianist Benny Green, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Billy Higgins. Wynton Marslis pops up on two of the seven selections, and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson is on one. Highlights include "Woody & Bu," Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem," "Duke's Mountain," and "Descarga De Turre," which has the leader at the helm of a Latin band that includes flutist Dave Valentin and several percussionists. Excellent and spirited music.

Definitive hits collection on 2 CDs plus an additional 3rd disc of b-sides and rarities. Includes the brand new single "Shame", co-written with Gary Barlow. The single marks the first time the two superstars have ever recorded and performed a duet together, and the first time they have written and recorded a song together since Robbie's departure from Take That in 1995.

Aporia is a New Age album from Sufjan Stevens and his step-father and record label co-owner, Lowell Brams. The 21 songs on Aporia are tightly crafted, resonating with a gem-like intensity, made in the spirit of the New Age composers who sanded off the edges of their synths’ sawtooth waves. Aporia approximates a rich soundtrack from an imagined sci-fi epic brimming with moody, hooky, gauzy synthesizer soundscapes, suggesting the progeny of a John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos, and Mike Oldfield marriage – but it stands apart from these touchstones and generates a meditative universe all its own.

One of the most obscure and enigmatic records in Christiansen’s discography – previously issued separately by Borgen Records in Denmark. Four minimal pieces exploring the clash between instrumental composition-improvisation and pre-recorded real sounds.

"Sunkissed Grooves & Blissed Out Moods" - Blank & Jones present with their twelfth "RELAX" album the soundtrack for the summer.The 22 new songs inspire with their unique mixture of warm, acoustic sounds and subtle electronic refinements. The hand-picked guest singers Coralie Clement, Zoe Durrant, Emma Brammer, Mick Roach and Jan Loechel give the Balearic Vibes a very special touch. Since their genre-defining debut in 2003, the unmistakable RELAX sound has been a firm part of every summer and immediately spreads a holiday feeling.The balearic and mediterranean touch runs like a red thread through the album. No wonder, as both Ibiza and Mallorca have always served Piet, Jaspa and Andy as a retreat and source of inspiration. After they first danced in Ibiza's legendary clubs such as KU in the late 80s, and later in the 90s when they themselves were DJs in Amnesia and Eden, they started to play their chill out sets more and more often in the early 00s at special places such as Café Del Mar and El Divino in Ibiza or El Cielo Café on Mallorca.Their current residency they have opened in Ibiza at "La Torre", which is the perfect place for their Relax Sound with a breathtaking view of the sunset in the sea. "The Feel Good Album Of The Summer".

Fifteen years before Chopin wrote his first “nocturne”, Irish pianist/composer John Field composed his Nocturne No. 1 in E-flat major, followed by at least 15 more pieces in the same style. In these short works for solo piano, Field–who was one of the most celebrated pianists in the world during the first quarter of the 19th century–put form to the idea of a contemplative, lyrical composition, specifically tailored to the piano’s expressive capabilities. These “night” pieces are primarily characterized by a dominant, gracefully flowing melody, with most of the harmonic activity in the pianist’s left hand. Although other pianists have recorded at least some of Field’s Nocturnes–most notably John O’Conor (Telarc) and Miceál O’Rourke (Chandos)–Benjamin Frith’s own uniquely inflected, poetic readings have a satisfying aura of intimacy cast in the warm colors of his well-tempered, expertly recorded piano. Although O’Conor’s playing is more lyrical, with more fluid legatos, Frith generally takes more time–and these invariably lovely pieces blossom just as fully and brilliantly.

Queen had long been one of the biggest bands in the world by 1980's The Game, but this album was the first time they made a glossy, unabashed pop album, one that was designed to sound exactly like its time. They might be posed in leather jackets on the cover, but they hardly sound tough or menacing – they rarely rock, at least not in the gonzo fashion that's long been their trademark…

Portugal’s long-standing black metal establishment Irae have announced their fifth album Lurking In The Depths, out June 26 on Signal Rex.

Following the mythos of the “real” Dr. Frankenstein, Johann Conrad Dippel, who served as the inspiration for the famed novel by Mary Shelley, Carach Angren’s 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus' delivers an bombastic symphonic cacophony of necromancy and mad science. Interwoven with haunting keyboards, majestic orchestrations, and a perfect balance of melodic brutality, the new album serves as the most theatrical offering from the horror metal masters to date.

The Specials are still the heavyweight champions of both waves of ska revivals (in the UK and later in the USA). I saw the Specials just before this album was released in 1979 at a Rock Against Racism concert in London's Hyde Park. I was warned by my two British hosts that the Specials would "blow my mind."… but nothing could have prepared me for the inspired anarchy of this young racially mixed Brits playing music that sounded like reggae on steroids. The two manic singers Terry Hall and Neville Staples bounced around the stage and banged their heads together in time to the music.