The Swedish lutenist, Jakob Lindberg, developed his first passionate interest in music through the Beatles. He started to play the guitar and soon became interested in the classical repertoire. From the age of 14 he studied with Jörgen Rörby who also gave him his first tuition on the lute. After reading music at Stockholm University he went to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Here he further developed his knowledge of the lute repertoire under the guidance of Diana Poulton and decided towards the end of his studies to concentrate on Renaissance and Baroque music.

With Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau, William Christie invites us to take a pleasant walk in the beautiful garden of French vocal music from the XVIIIth Century. Featured composers include Rameau and his contemporaries, and the repertoire ranges from opera highlights and profane cantatas to instrumental interludes. Christie's program presents a vivid overview of the music that was played in Versailles at the peak of its splendor. The album's vocal soloists are young singers who took part in Le Jardin des Voix (The Garden of Voices) - a biannual musical academy led by William Christie and Paul Agnew that is designed to unveil the most promising talents of the coming generation.

Michael Collins MBE is one of the most complete musicians of his generation. Continuing his distinguished career as a soloist, he has in recent years also become highly regarded as a conductor and in 2010 took up the position as Principal Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia, and works with leading orchestras around the world both as a soloist and as a conductor. Committed for many years to expanding the repertoire of the clarinet, he has premiered works by some of todays most highly regarded composers, including John Adams, Elliott Carter, Brett Dean and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In addition to commissioning and supporting new compositions, he is also a champion of well-crafted arrangements of other works for the clarinet.

Breathtaking virtuosity, sumptuous sound, expression brimming with suspense: on his debut album the young Byelorussian clarinetist Vladimir Soltan gives his all while enjoying superb ensemble support from the Hamburg Symphony. Under its conductor Jose Luiz Gomez this orchestra simply surpasses itself in concertante competition with the soloist. What Carl Nielsen demanded of the clarinet must have seemed simply impossible to those who witnessed the work's premiere. The composer fully exploits the instrument's extreme registers, the dynamic spectrum ranges from the tenderest pianissimo to mighty fortissimo, and even the fingers get a full dexterity workout.

Hugo Distler's contribution to Lutheran church music of the twentieth century can hardly be overestimated. His clear musical language marked by lightness and transparency has influenced generations of church musicians and composers. With the Norddeutscher Kammerchor in top form, Maria Jürgensen has now recorded a program with works from Distler's Liturgische Sätzend as a complementary contrast - Hans-Werner Zimmermann's jazz-inspired chorale variations Distler's Nürnberger Großes Gloria. The Liturgische Sätze (Liturgical Settings) are based on original Lutheran melodies from the Reformation period.

A new album, on a new label armed with a whole new line-up and a new dynamic: no matter what, PESTILENCE or more specifically their maestro Patrizio Mameli are like the phoenix, rising from the ashes, over and over again. Three years after ‘Hadeon’, the band and their totally revamped line-up – besides former Dew Scented and Creepmime Joost van der Graaf on bass and Bleeding Gods’ Rutger van Noordenburg on lead guitar, former God Dethroned Michiel van der Plicht joined on drums last year – not only prove to be worthy of its golden legacy but actually deliver with ‘Exitivm’ what is probably their best incarnation in over a decade, with the kind of instantly recognizable sound that will immediately make all ‘Testimony Of The Ancients’ fans drooling with anticipation while proving they’re not a nostalgia act but are living in the now. Recorded over two months last summer and armed with the crispiest production they’ve ever had, their ninth full-length is titled ‘Exitivm’ for a reason. Meaning ‘brutal destruction’ in Latin, those ten new tracks (plus one intro and one outro) are brutal yet progressive, drenched in a sci-fi atmosphere and transfigured by Mameli luminous solo work and subtle keyboards layers. Both a reinvention and a confirmation of everything the band has been standing for since 1986, thirty-five years later PESTILENCE are more than ever exploring the further outposts of the extreme metal sound on ‘Exitivm’.

Finnish songwriter Timo Mölsä will be releasing his studio project Endless Chain‘s debut album “Forthcoming Past” via Rockshots Records on June 25th, 2021. The album features guests Mikko Heikkilä (Kaunis Kuolematon, Dawn Of Solace, Black Aeon Sun), Ville Hovi (Blackstar Halo), Aki Salonen (Nemecic), Sami Yli-Sirniö (Kreator, Waltari), Antti Kolehmainen, (Waltari), and Samuli Mikkonen (Korpiklaani). The full length was recorded, mixed, and produced by Aleksanteri Kuosa (Before the Dawn, Wolfheart, Waltari) along with mastering done by Juho Räihä (guitarist of Swallow the Sun).

Mouse on Mars, the Berlin-based duo of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma, approach electronic music with an inexhaustible curiosity and unparalleled ingenuity. Operating in their unique orbit within dance music’s nebulous echosystem, the duo’s hyper-detailed productions are inventive, groundbreaking but always possessing a signature joyful experimentation. A genre-less embrace of cutting-edge technologies have ensured that each Mouse on Mars release sounds strikingly modern, a fact made more remarkable when one reflects on the duo’s 25 years of making music. New album AAI (Anarchic Artificial Intelligence) takes Toma and Werner’s fascination with technology and undogmatic exploration a quantum leap further. Collaborating with writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei, a collective of computer programmers and longtime Mouse On Mars collaborator/percussionist Dodo NKishi, the duo explores artificial intelligence as both a narrative framework and compositional tool, summoning their most explicitly science-fiction work to date.

Gaspard Auge releases his Debut Album Escapades. He is best known as one half of Justice, the duo that united rock and rave and whose dancefloor smashes defined a generation. Gaspard made an instrumental album whose sound will be familiar to Justice ’s fanbase, echoing some previous works and inspirations of the cult duet. Escapades sounds like a UFO landing from another galaxy, or time, a baroque masterpiece that reimagines European classical music for this century.

Decades before Corey Harris, Guy Davis, and Keb' Mo' wed the Delta blues to various folk forms, there was Taj Mahal. Almost from the very beginning, Mahal provided audiences with connections to a plethora of blues styles. Further, he offered hard evidence connecting American blues to folk styles from other nations, particularly, but not limited to, those from the West Indies and various African countries, bridging gaps, highlighting similarities, and establishing links between many experiences of the African diaspora…

Mechanix is the tenth album by the British hard rock band UFO; it was released in 1982. The contemporary music-press adverts on the album's release carried the tag-line 'Mechanix: it will tighten your nuts'. Immediately after the completion of the tour in support of the album, founding member and bassist Pete Way left the band to join former Motörhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke in Fastway.