Pinnacle's second CD is a quantum leap above the first. This is melodic Progressive Rock having musical hooks and natural sounding time changes. In 1997, guitarist/synth player Karl Eisenhart and drummer Greg Jones met in an East Pennsylvania coffee house where Karl was playing an acoustic gig. After clicking personally and musically, they began playing together and performing, first as Dread Pirate Roberts and then Landslide. By 2002 they draft bassist/multi instrumentalist Bill Fox and the trio begin covering progressive staples by Tull, Rush, Yes as well as the Police.

After participating in five classic studio albums (three with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and two with Black Sabbath) in the late '70s and early '80s, it seemed that singer Ronnie James Dio could do no wrong. And with the release of his self-monikered band's debut album, Holy Diver, in 1983, Dio struck gold once again by injecting catchy melodies into the classic metal riffery of his previous groups. Besides Dio's inspired songwriting, the album's consistency owes a lot to his carefully chosen bandmates, including veteran bassist Jimmy Bain and drummer Vinny Appice, and a phenomenal find in young guitarist Vivian Campbell, whose creativity and technique are quite astounding.

Here are Maurizio Pollini's compelling interpretations — paired with two now legendary conductors - of five piano masterworks performed with the Vienna Philharmonic at home, the Musikverein's magnificent "golden hall" In Mozart and Beethoven the camera captures the pianist's virtuosity as well as his empathy with Karl Bohm as they document the only two Mozart concertos that Pollini has ever released. For the Brahms concerto Pollini is joined by a young Claudio Abbado creating great music-making in which this essential repertoire is joyfully illuminated by two kindred spirits.

A Place to Bury Strangers defund post-punk orthodoxy with the most audacious and varied songwriting of their career on their sixth album, See Through You, out on Oliver Ackermann's label, Dedstrange. Following up on 2021's highly acclaimed Hologram EP, the rebooted lineup, vocalist/guitarist Oliver Ackermann plus drummer/vocalist Sandra Fedowitz and bassist John Fedowitz (both of Ceremony East Coast), delivers an overclocked set of futuristic electronic punk music encoded with punishing industrial rhythms, swirling voltage-starved guitars and unclassifiable auditory annihilation. Across thirteen tracks recorded in seclusion throughout the nihilistic absurdity of the coronavirus pandemic, See Through You is proof-positive that the group hailed as "The Loudest Band in New York" is still finding new ways to push the needle deeper in the red.

The next step in the evolution of the bass guitar! The idea of a concerto for bass guitar is something that I have been dreaming of for decades. Since its invention, the bass guitar has firmly established itself as an essential and integral part of practically every genre of music. The bass guitar, as we now know it, was invented and produced by Leo Fender starting in 1951. The more portable bass guitar, in comparison to the large and unwieldy double bass, was capable of playing at higher volumes via amplification and satisfied the new sonic demands created by the widespread use of electrification in popular music. By increasing the overall scale of the electric guitar and only using the lowest four strings (E, A, D, G), Fender gave birth to a new instrument. Traditional double bassists could quickly adapt, with the added benefit of more accurate intonation due to the frets. Hence the original name: The Precision Bass. At the same time, guitarists could also become bass players when called upon. As a result, many of the early bass guitarists began their musical life as guitar players, with the most well-known example being Paul McCartney of The Beatles.

This Albert Roussel disc couples the Second Symphony with one of the composer's most popular pieces, the complete ballet music for Bacchus et Ariane. It is the first in a cycle of three releases featuring the four symphonies and two ballets by the French composer, performed by the Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach.

Francisco Javier Vargas Pardo is a Spanish blues and rock guitarist, founder and leader of the Vargas Blues Band. Javier was born in Madrid shortly after his parents, immigrants in Argentina, returned from Buenos Aires. Nine years later, once again back in that country, they reside in the cities of Mendoza, San Luis, Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. Passing through Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires, he meets Tanguito, composer of “La Balsa” and pioneer of National Rock. It is in Argentina where he awakens his passion for music and where Javier begins to play the guitar. There he experienced the National Rock movement that was conceived in Buenos Aires and spread thanks to magazines such as Pelo and Pin-up.

May 2004 was the 400th anniversary of the death of Claudio Merulo (1533-1604), a great organist and composer of the Renaissance. We are pleased to present the world première recording of his complete organ works. These works represent the complete range of musical development of compositions for keyboard instruments in the 16th century. Since their quality had no equal at that time, Merulo's opus is of immense importance for the history of music. Tapping the full potential of the then usual forms of expression and structure, Merulo a contemporary of Gabrieli and his colleague as ''maestro di cappella'' at the Marcus Cathedral in Venice was groundbreaking in a highly creative era.

Although his first four solo albums were commercial disappointments, 1984's 4630 Bochum turned Herbert Grönemeyer into the biggest musician in Germany. Featuring a blue-collar, stadium rock sound and highly literate lyrics – including double entendres, puns, and other creative word play – 4630 Bochum became the best-selling German album of all time, a record it held until Grönemeyer's Mensch beat it two decades later.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first Bach recording for DG couples his Concertos BWV 1041 and BWV 1042 with the world-premiere recording of the Concerto commissioned by her from Sofia Gubaidulina, the Russian composer who regards Bach as her greatest source of inspiration. Mutter gave the premiere performance of Gubaidulina’s Concerto at the 2007 Lucerne Festival and will record the work with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev at the beginning of 2008.

Once Upon A Time is the definitive last word on Family. A long-awaited 14 disc box set that collects the band's entire back catalogue for the first time…