After leaving Deep Purple in June 1973, Ian Gillan had retired from the music business to pursue other business ventures, including motorcycle engines, a country hotel / restaurant (with a guitar shaped swimming pool), and ownership of the Kingsway Recorders studio, where from April 1974 he began to work on his first post-Deep Purple solo tracks…

Gram Parsons' legend is so great that it's easy for the neophyte to be skeptical about his music, wondering if it really is deserving of such effusive praise. Simply put, it is, and if you question the veracity of that statement, turn to Rhino's peerless double-disc set, Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology. This is the first truly comprehensive overview of Parsons' work, running from the International Submarine Band, through the Byrds, to the Flying Burrito Brothers and his two solo albums, scattering appropriate rarities or non-LP tracks along the way…

Im umfangreichen Werkverzeichnis von Felix Mendelssohn nehmen die Orgelwerke nur einen relativ bescheidenen Nischenplatz ein. Im Stammbaum der Orgelmusik aber stehen sie an prominenter Stelle: Vor allem die Sechs Sonaten Op.65 sind die wichtigsten Bindeglieder zwischen Barock und Romantik, kompositorische Leuchttürme aus einer Zeit, die mit der Orgel ansonsten nicht viel anzufangen wusste. Ihre Impulse, namentlich für die Entstehung von Orgelmusik in Deutschland, waren enorm. Sie eröffneten zahlreiche neue und unerhörte Möglichkeiten für die vermeintlich so ungelenke Orgel.

Ignored by the majority but adored by a faithful, modest few, Failsworth, Manchester's Puressence were something of a contradiction in terms. Although they shared a laddish image and an implied arrogance with the mid-'90s incarnations of other north west England indie rock acts such as Oasis and the Charlatans, the high-register, ethereal vocals of frontman James Mudriczki pointed to something altogether more sophisticated. Claims that the band met on a bus on the way to the Stone Roses' legendary May 1990 gig at Spike Island, helped fuel and maintain their down-to-earth credentials, while in contrast their music represented a transcendence of the mundane – similarly executed during this period by acts such as Aberdeen, Scotland's Geneva, and later by Southampton's the Delays.

Lalo Schifrin - The Liquidator (1965) {Film Score Monthly ‎FSM Vol. 9 No. 16 rel 2006}
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© 1965, 2006 Film Score Monthly / TCM Turner Classic Movies Music ‎| ‎FSM Vol. 9 No. 16
Jazz / Classical / Soundtrack / Stage & Screen

The Liquidator (1966) was an MGM spy spoof starring Rod Taylor as "Boysie" Oakes, a cowardly assassin who takes orders from Trevor Howard and falls for Howard's secretary, future "Bond girl" Jill St. John. The film was a black-comic look at the secret agent milieu popularized by the James Bond series, filmed in England and on the French Riviera, directed by noted cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and based on the novel by John Gardner. Scoring The Liquidator soundtrack was Lalo Schifrin - the composer who would become iconic for another '60s spy franchise, Mission: Impossible. The Liquidator was one of Schifrin's first feature-film assignments, which he tackled with his characteristic jazz/symphonic panache, combining eclectic, tuneful source cues with dramatic, avant-garde score - all with a gloriously '60s flair. Schifrin did not attempt to emulate the James Bond scores, but provided his own sense of danger and excitement, making use of many of England's finest jazz players.

On this rewarding set, the L.A. Four (altoist Bud Shank, acoustic guitarist Laurindo Almeida, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Jeff Hamilton) perform a Bach melody, "Carinhoso" (originally recorded by Shank and Almeida back in 1954), "Just Friends," a "Love" medley ("Love for Sale" and "Love Walked In"), and Chick Corea's "Spain." Shank sticks exclusively to alto for the date, leaving his flute in its case, and the result is a more high-powered program than usual.

The Dave Matthews Band may not have released the Lillywhite Sessions – the semi-legendary soul-searching album recorded in 2000 but abandoned in favor of the heavy-handed, laborious Glen Ballard-produced Everyday – but they couldn't escape its shadow. Every review, every article surrounding the release of Everyday mentioned it, often claiming it was better than the released project – an opinion the band seemed to support by playing many numbers from the widely bootlegged lost album on tour in 2001. Since they couldn't run away from the Lillywhite Sessions, they decided to embrace it, albeit on their own terms. They didn't just release the album, as is. They picked nine of the best songs from the sessions, reworked some of them a bit, tinkered with the lyrics, re-recorded the tunes with a different producer (Stephen Harris, a veteran of post-Brit-pop bands like the Bluetones, plus engineer on U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind), added two new songs, and came up with Busted Stuff, a polished commercial spin on music widely considered the darkest, most revealing work Matthews has yet created.

Gary Burton - Throb (1969) {2012 Japan Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series WPCR-27042}
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© 1969, 2012 Atlantic / Rhino / Warner Japan | WPCR-27042
Jazz / Post Bop / Vibes

Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. Throb is dominated by bassist Steve Swallow’s wonderfully complex and idiosyncratic compositions, although the great composer/arranger Michael Gibbs contributes three tunes as well. Talk about an embarrassment of riches! The combination of Steve Swallow’s bass, Gary Burton’s vibes and Richard Greene’s violin gives the band a unique texture. Given the instrumentation, there is a lot of country music thrown into the mix. Jerry Hahn is the guitarist here and contributes the usual wankery common for the period, but Swallow makes good use of him in the arrangements. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’d probably have to go for Steve Swallow’s hilarious Chickens, which is just what it sounds like..

This Danish supergroup was a result of collaboration between Ole Prehn and Hans Lauridsen from Day Of The Phoenix with Nils Henriksen and Ken Gudman from Culpeper's Orchard. "Loners & Lovers" is a beautiful mainstream folk-rock versus rock'n'roll album and is unusually sophisticated. Vibes and strings are used here and there, augmenting the three-part vocal harmonies and various guitars (acoustic, bottleneck or leads treated through a Leslie cabinet and/or other studio effects). Nils Henriksen wrote a great number of the songs. Comparisons could be drawn to The Band, the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young, although the music is played with the perfectionist approach of Steely Dan.

Fink & The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra - Live in Concert (2013) {Ninja Tune ZENCD201}
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© 2013 Ninja Tune | ZENCD201
Classical / Alternative / Acoustic / Symphonic Rock / Modern Classical

Back in 2012 Fink played a very very special one-off show. It was in Amsterdam, and they were accompanied by The (full) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The product was an undiluted triumph – a perfect marriage between Fink’s subtle and melodic songwriting and the power of a full orchestra. The subsequent live album, entitled Fink Meets The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will be available on 14th October 2013.

Alternately psychedelic, progressive, and hard rock-styled, the eclectic German band Grobschnitt became one of the most popular live acts in German history. The group recorded several lauded albums in the 1970s, moving between styles before switching to more mainstream pop and rock in the 1980s. Meanwhile, in part thanks to drummer Joachim Ehrig, the group added touches of absurdist humor to their records and live shows…

Oscar Pettiford - Montmartre Blues (1960) {Black Lion BLCD760124 rel 1989}
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© 1959-60, 1989 Black Lion Records / Phonoco | BLCD760124
Jazz / Bop / Bebop / Bass

The great bassist Oscar Pettiford spent his last year playing in Europe before his unexpected death on September 8, 1960. Except for four songs cut in August, this CD contains Pettiford's final recordings. Teamed with a young group of Europeans (most impressive is pianist Jan Johansson and trumpeter Allan Botschinsky) who were clearly pleased to be playing with him, Pettiford has a fair amount of solo space on ten numbers with "Willow Weep for Me" being his feature. Five of the tunes are Pettiford originals including the title cut, "Laverne Walk" and his answer to Miles Davis' "So What" which he titled "Why Not? That's What!" This is a fine set of boppish music that makes one wonder what Oscar Pettiford might have accomplished in the 1960s had he lived.

This debut Solo-CD of Lorenzo Montanа is a fascinating mixture of IDM/Glitch and Chill-Out/Ambient combining different styles and modern production technologies. The sound is fresh and unassimilated,futuristic and "80s" at the same time. Using this unique music mixture Black Ivy describes the microcosmos of flora, lakes, ancient landscapes… the sound of the sap and microscopic life forms. Debut CDs often have this special magic that comes from years of collection and dedication to the best sounds and compositions the artist was able to find to finally release them. "Black Ivy" has this kind of magic and FAX is proud to present this music to you.

Die Ruinen von Athen (‘The Ruins of Athens’) was composed to celebrate the opening of the new German theatre in Pest in 1812. Designed to accompany the play of that name by August von Kotzebue, its incidental music is substantial enough to form a kind of one-act Singspiel and is full of attractive arias, duets and choruses and includes the famous Turkish March. Though the work’s theme was rooted in Greek mythology, in reality it was explicitly political in nature, celebrating Pest as ‘the new Athens’. This is the first ever recording of the work with full narration.