"Relaxin' with Chet" is exactly that a laid back album with some fine playing. Chet (or RCA Camden) seemed to want to make an album similar to his two masterpieces from 1957-8, "Chet Atkins at Home" and "Hi-Fi in Focus". This is confirmed by the presence of four tracks from the former (7-10 on this album) to pad out the six tracks newly recorded, as well as the fact that the liner notes are almost exactly the same as on "At Home". Also, the repertoire of the new music is similar to that of the older albums, as the theme of all three is "what Chet plays for his own enjoyment". Here Chet really lets his love for jazz shine through, tackling Tin Pan Alley as well as names like Jerome Kern and Duke Ellington. He also plays solos that are much more jazz-inflected than what is expected of him, although his finger-pickin' talents emerge notably on "Vilia" and "Say Si Si" through his use of his "Octabass" Gretsch (which is a guitar with the two lowest strings replaced by bass strings!).

Beginning in the 1950s, the immensely popular American conductor Arthur Fiedler and his Boston Pops Orchestra made a series of records covering not only the world's most-loved classical pieces, but also crossing over into popular music with great success. Whether it was the Beatles, Broadway, or Hollywood, eventually everyone who was anyone went "Pops." In 1966, Fiedler teamed up with the master of the Nashville sound, famed guitarist and producer Chet Atkins. The match was a good one, and the combo went on to produce many records together. Making its debut in the digital realm, courtesy of Real Gone Records, is a reissue of two of their excellent collaborations, The Pops Goes Country and The Pops Goes West.

The fifth studio album from Welsh quintet Super Furry Animals was their most commercially successful to date. A musically eclectic record, incorporating pop, prog, punk, jungle, electronica, techno and death metal, the album was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize in 2001 and named as Mojo's best album in the same year. Their major label debut album peaked at #3 on the UK album chart on release, supported by singles '(Running) Rings Around The World', 'It's Not The End of the World' and 'Juxtapozed With You'. Paul McCartney and John Cale make cameo appearances on the album too.

Edward Ka-Spel is a singer, songwriter and musician. He is probably best known as the lead singer, songwriter and co-founder (with Phil “The Silverman” Knight) of the prolific underground band The Legendary Pink Dots.

The GRAMMY® Award-nominated and BRIT Female “Artist of the Year” Award-nominated cellist stands out as the rare talent who can bring an outdoor festival crowd to its feet or ignite the score of a record-breaking blockbuster. As a soloist, her cello courses through the soundtracks for Wonder Woman, The Lion King, Inception, Dunkirk, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, X-Men Dark Phoenix, Iron Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, 3, & 4, League of Legends, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, CSI: NY, and The Vikings, to name a few. She has accompanied Hans Zimmer, Steven Tyler, Skrillex, Joe Bonamassa, Foo Fighters, Al Di Meola, and Carlos Santana on stage and John Legend, Ciara, and many more on tape. She thrived in the spotlight on Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson “The Immortal” World Tour, which entertained 3.7 million-plus concertgoers in packed arenas and became one of the highest-grossing tours of all time.

Gazelle Twin and NYX: electronic drone choir release their debut release, Deep England, an 8-track album via NYX Collective Records. Rooted in English pagan and sacred music, Deep England is an electronic-choral expansion of Gazelle Twin’s 2018 album Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray). Here, tracks from Pastoral, an album whose political themes have only intensified since its original release, are radically reworked and presented alongside original compositions by NYX, Paul Giovanni and William Blake.Gazelle Twin (aka Elizabeth Bernholz) and NYX, the electronic drone choir reshaping the role of the traditional female choir, originally created Deep England for live performance with Movement Director Imogen Knight, Sound Associate Peter Rice and Designer Chloe Lamford.

Remastered from original tapes, first time on CD & Digital.

Even for a label that likes to catch veteran jazz stars very late in their careers, Telarc nearly outdoes itself by rounding up Harry "Sweets" Edison (81), Clark Terry (76), Frank Wess (75) and Junior Mance (68) and recording them in a West Side New York nightclub a stone's throw from Lincoln Center. Though the flesh is a little weak at times in the trumpeters, the spirit is fortunately more than willing, and plenty of their inimitable trademarks - Edison's terse repeated notes and Terry's slippery phrases - come through in this swinging, blues-dominated mainstream session. Wess is in fine shape on flute and tenor, and pianist Mance contributes a lot of sturdy, stirring, two-fisted blues and a lovely, searching interpretation of "Emily." Edison wrote half of the eight songs on the disc - three blues (including his standard "Centerpiece") and a pleasing token bossa nova ("Sweets' Bossa")…

Take these Icelandic works as representational, as suggested by the titles Oceans and Quake, and perhaps Metacosmos. Or take them as abstract, along the lines of the title Concurrence (and that of the successful predecessor to this album, Recurrence). It doesn't really matter: the perspectives converge in the music, which is virtuosic and dense, yet elemental and viscerally affecting. The four works might be grouped in several ways. Haukur Tómasson's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Páll Ragnar Pálsson's Quake each make use of a solo instrument (in Pálsson's case a cello), and listeners could easily become engrossed in the treatment of the soloist in these two works alone.

Earth Moving was one of the last installments in Mike Oldfield's series of pop experiments, and the record does sound as if the musician was running out of patience with the genre. Many listeners have written off this period, but there were interesting moments that passionate fans still appreciate. Oldfield commits completely to the pop/rock format on Earth Moving by excluding the kind of long intro piece that he often used to kick off other '80s recordings. Instead, the composer puts a sprawling but focused (by Oldfield standards) eight-minute number, "Nothing But/Bridge to Paradise," at the end of this 1989 release. The musician/composer displays a more deft pop hand throughout this offering, which probably isn't such a good thing…

The Elements of King Crimson is a box set series by King Crimson. Originally created to promote the band's 2014 tour of the same name, it is sold exclusively through the band's merchandise booth on the tour and from the Discipline Global Mobile online stores…

Does George Benson have Irish ancestors? Is there a connection between Belfast’s melancholy ballads and the exciting vocal jazz of today? 25 year-old guitar-wunderkind Torsten Goods and his release Irish Heart call out an enthusiastic yes to these questions. Friends of Irish folk music and infectious reels are in for a surprise, and so are fans of Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt or Harry Connick Jr. There is more repertoire out there than the Great American Songbook and Goods’ choices give his twenty-something-quartet a chance to shine.
Whether it’s Van Morrison’s soul-blues (Morrison, like Goods’ mother originally came from Belfast), whether it’s Irish folk or the rhythmic fervour of the “Riverdance” show theme, all the material becomes a wonderful vehicle for Goods talent on his strings and vocal chords alike to shine…

Ske is the "solo" project of Paolo "Ske" Botta, italian keyboards player who also plays in many bands, most notably Yugen and Not a Good Sign. In 2011 the debut album "1000 Autunni" was released on AltrOck/Fading Records, and features mostly Yugen musicians. The style can be described as 70s Symphonic Prog meets Avant/RIO and Canterbury. The album received great critical acclaim and went quickly out of print, to be eventually reprinted in 2018 as "1001 Autunni", with an additional live CD.
The new studio album "Insolubilia" is still produced by Marcello Marinone. It is a dense and heavily layered album, inspired by brain teasers and paradoxes. Despite this, it has a distinctive melodic approach that should help the listener to avoid “getting lost” into the sonic labyrinth. With echoes by bands such as Gentle Giant, Änglagård…

Arcangelo Corelli is a remarkable figure in music history. He belongs to the most famous composers of the baroque era, but his oeuvre is very small in comparison with that of his peers, such as Handel or Telemann: just six collections published with an opus number and some pieces which have been preserved in manuscript. Most composers of his time contributed to more than one genre: vocal music - sacred or secular -, chamber music, orchestral works and keyboard music. Corelli confined himself to chamber music and one set of 'orchestral' music, although that term is probably not the most appropriate to characterise his concerti grossi.