British hard-rock heroes, Thunder, release their 14th studio album Dopamine, just over a year from their previous UK No.3 album All The Right Noises. This double album is a cornucopia of what Thunder do best, which has seen them create a hugely successful 30+ year career at the forefront of British rock. Across the sixteen tracks here are their signature hard rock bangers, melancholy rockers and powerful ballads. The ever prolific Thunder created the entire album while unable to tour due to Covid restrictions in 2021, recording everything that song smith extraordinaire, Luke Morley wrote. Such was the caliber of the tracks, they chose to release the first double album of their career.

Japanese psychedelic rock ensemble offer an extended progressive, jazz infused track, a rockin tune and an experimental acoustic folk composition. Kawabata Makoto (electric guitar, electronics, fuzz bass, tape, speed guru), Higashi Hiroshi (synthesizer), Jyonson Tsu (voice, acoustic guitar, mandolin), Satoshima Nani (drums), Wolf (bass), Geoff Leigh (saxophone, flute).

Röyksopp unveil Profound Mysteries, an expanded creative universe and a prodigious conceptual project. On January 1st, 2022 Röyksopp launched the film (Nothing But) Ashes… and fans were encouraged to Press «R». Alongside the Kasper Häggström-directed short film BJA, a second piece of music, The Ladder, was released. A new artefact and visualiser, created by Australian contemporary artist Jonathan Zawada, brought the music to life. All elements are accessible through the Profound Mysteries portal. A premiere of The Downfall by Marc Reisbig followed, and another chapter was revealed with Impossible featuring Alison Goldfrapp—the first human voice to be heard on Profound Mysteries. A third artefact and visualiser designed by Jonathan Zawada expanded the collection. Expect more chapters from the Profound Mysteries Universe to be unveiled soon.

The greatest fairy tale never told comes to life as never before in Shrek The Musical, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical based on the smash-hit movie! Featuring a fantastic score of 17 all-new songs, along with unforgettable characters and outrageous humor, Shrek The Musical is ogre-sized fun for the whole family!

François-Joseph Gossec’s name is more often found in history books than on record collectors’ shelves. During his long life (1734-1829) he contributed to opera reform in Paris before the arrival and domination of Gluck, was one of the directors of the Concert Spirituel, and wrote 50 symphonies. In old age he became the foremost composer of French revolutionary themes, and the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille was commemorated with a performance of his Te Deum that featured more than a thousand performers. The Missa pro defunctis initially had more modest origins. Also known as the ‘Messe des Morts’, it was first performed in 1760, and aroused notable reaction due to Gossec’s use of trombones, a novelty at the time.

Arguably a milestone for both director Sergio Leone and his musical cohort Ennio Morricone. After deconstructing the classic American western by way of The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, Leone distilled his intentions with 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West. For his part, Morricone framed Leone's meditative camerawork and mythic narrative with a mix of hauntingly spacious pieces and reconfigured snatches of old-timey tunes. Just within the stretch of the first four pieces here, Morricone evokes the endless expanse of the West with a Copland-esque aria (the main title theme), weaves some twisted grit into the showdown theme with loads of guitar fuzz ("As a Judgment"), ingeniously combines whistling and a clippity-clop rhythm for a respite piece ("Farewell to Cheyenne"), and conjures the surreal end of the cowboy mythos via a wonderfully disjointed serial-style number ("The Transgression"). And whether sounding upbeat or stark, Morricone informs it all with the dry and windswept vacancy of the West. Beautiful and stunning.

After Weinberg and his wife were able to move to Moscow in 1943 with the help of Shostakovich, he wrote the Piano Trio op.24 in 1945. The present recording is based on a copy of the manuscript from 1945, which contains all of the original ideas about the dynamics, phrasings and peculiarities of the composition. Until shortly before his death in 1996, Weinberg’s works were regularly performed with great enthusiasm by Russian artists and now, they slowly but increasingly are reaching the international concert stage. His Piano Trio, like his other numerous works, shows his immense mastery of all compositional forms, genres and styles - always shaped by events in his own fateful life.

Gong slowly came together in the late '60s when Australian guitarist Daevid Allen (ex-Soft Machine) began making music with his wife, singer Gilli Smyth, along with a shifting lineup of supporting musicians. Albums from this period include Magick Brother, Mystic Sister (1969) and the impromptu jam session Bananamoon (1971) featuring Robert Wyatt from the Soft Machine, Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth, and Maggie Bell…

A sublime addition to Sean McCann’s Recital Program, This Floating World is Roger Eno’s first solo LP in a decade, following on from Anatomy [2008] and a split LP with Plumbline in 2013. Mostly solo piano expressions, but with a few intriguing embellishments of electronics in Garden, vocals on Empty Room, and sonorous chimes in Riddle, saving the detuned pearl of Out of Tune, Out of Time, Out of Here for dessert…