When you listen to The Poem of Ecstasy', Scriabin advised, 'look straight into the eye of the Sun', and he made sure that Ecstasy was orchestrated in such a way as to burn itself onto the consciousness. Whether by design or not, and without leaving you with tinnitus, this new performance, in its moments of joyful - and finally tintinnabular - climactic clamour, does just that. There is a sensational resolve from (and resolution for) the horns as they eventually take over and expand the trumpets' assertions and reach for the heights. And, thankfully, Pletnev, his fearless players and his engineers have left room to maximize this moment of arrival.

The brilliant young violinist Chloë Hanslip has recorded another volume of Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series, and displays her usual insouciant virtuosity and obvious delight in the music. Glazunov’s Violin Concerto, written for Leopold Auer, is a masterpiece of violin writing, including a brilliantly effective cadenza by the composer himself. As Hans Keller wrote, ‘Glazunov created an almost perfect concerto—instrumentally, the best I know amongst pianists’ violin concertos’.

For this set of Beethoven's first five symphonies, Jordi Savall began with the fundamental idea of recovering the original sound of the orchestra and tempo as the composer imagined them. All the orchestral work was performed with instruments corresponding to those used at the time, and by 55-60 musicians, a number similar to that arranged by the composer. 35 players were selected from Le Concert des Nations alongside 20 young musicians from different countries across world. The main goal was to reflect, in our 21st century, all the richness and beauty of these symphonies, through a true balance between colors and the quality of the orchestra's natural sound.

French act AKIN was formed back in 1998, and following two demo releases that were favouarably received by the local French metal press they were signed to French label Sacral Productions. Their full length debut album Verse was released in 2001, followed by the EP Forecast in 2003. A few years of inactivity followed, but in 2009 the band decided to have another go. The end result became the CD The Way Things End. Initially self-released in April 2011, and following the band signing to US label Progrock Records reissued worldwide later the same year.

Strange Brew: Weird & Wonderful Covers From the Atlantic & Warner Vaults Review by Jason Ankeny
Much of what's so great about the soul-jazz of the late 1960s and 1970s is the jazz community's embrace of contemporary pop and rock & roll – purists blanched, of course, but a new generation of musicians recognized the potential in the melodies and rhythms that dominated AM radio, setting out to reinvent these songs by seizing and expanding their undeniable groove. Strange Brew: Weird & Wonderful Covers From the Atlantic & Warner Vaults collects some of the most imaginative and unexpected renditions to emerge from the WEA roster – the unfortunate subtitle may suggest the material boasts little more than novelty value, but to the contrary, much of it is genuinely compelling, not to mention genuinely funky. If there's a common modus operandi at work here, it's maintaining just enough trace elements of the original to keep a given song familiar, but twisting and stretching it far enough to create something fresh and new – highlights include Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "My Girl," Ananda Shankar's "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and Jack McDuff's "Blowin' in the Wind."

Backbeats Records is strictly a compilation company based in the U.K. and distributed throughout the European Union at budget prices. What they do is simply compile collections of dance music by well-known and obscure artists from the disco era to the late '90s. And for what it’s worth, when it comes to licensing, they do a terrific job, and this set is a case in point. Compiled by Ian Dewhirst, this collection of '70s and '80s soul walks the end of the classic soul era’s foray into funk, disco, and beyond into the '80s high-production modes associated with that era. Dewhirst is a smart cookie, however, and while the '80s produced some of the lamest records ever in the name of soul, he’s avoided all of them on Back to My Place Baby, an excellent collection of babymakers.

In the crowded underbrush of the late sixties British psych blues scene Jasper was definitely at the head of its class. The quintet's personalized blues style, with Steve Radford's excellent lead-guitar lighting the way (punctuated also by their keen use of flute and harpsichord) is well expressed in the inspired version of 'Baby Please Don't Go' and 'Ain't no Peace'. Unfortunately soon after the release of their rare 1969 debut album Liberation the group disbanded and disappeared from the scene.

If Alternative 4 feels like a rushed album, it’s because, somehow, it is. Prior to its recording, the Cavanagh brothers witnessed the death of their mother: the event is commemorated in the album’s cover artwork, which represents a burial place inside an angel’s shroud. The album’s main theme is based on betrayal. But not the typical relationship issues treated like a game by Chad Kroeger, but rather the realization that the importance of relationships and friendships can be understood only when lost forever, in favor of some sort of “ignorance of convenience” in order to make thoughts of misanthropy, nihilism and suicide hit as much later as possible: a battle against nothing made quietly by every human on Earth, yet widely accepted and practiced by the modern society like an elephant in the room…

The Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Early singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were brutal, three-chord ravers that paved the way for punk and metal while inspiring peers like the Who. In the mid-'60s, frontman Ray Davies came into his own as a songwriter, developing a wry wit and an eye for social commentary that culminated in a pair of conceptual LPs, The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), that proved enormously influential over the years. By the end of the '70s, the Kinks had refashioned themselves as a hard rock stadium act, resulting in a surge of late-period popularity until they disbanded for good in the mid-'90s.

NOW Music is proud to present the next instalment in our ongoing ‘Yearbook’ series, NOW – Yearbook 1986; 80 tracks from a fantastic year in pop! This special edition CD is housed in ‘hard-back-book’ packaging, including a 28-page booklet featuring a summary of the year, a track-by-track guide, a quiz, and original singles artwork.
Opening with two stellar #1s, ‘A Different Corner’ from George Michael and ‘The Sun Always Shines On T.V.’ from a-ha, before leading into huge hits from Duran Duran (‘Notorious’), Kate Bush (‘Hounds Of Love’) and ‘Thorn In My Side’ from Eurythmics. A top year for pure Pop magic is showcased in the next run of hits, including the #1 from Falco, plus Level 42, Kim Wilde, Nick Kamen, Owen Paul, and The Bangles, before timeless radio friendly Pop from the Pretenders, and the lead single from one of the year’s biggest albums (‘Graceland’) from Paul Simon with ‘You Can Call Me Al’. Reggae-Pop from UB40 and another #1 from Boris Gardiner give way to two of the year’s most enduring ballads from Simply Red and Spandau Ballet.

In the Telemann mountains, much of the topography remains terra incognita because most of Telemann's music remains an undiscovered country. But whatever future generations of hardy musicologists may uncover, it is unlikely that Telemann's Nouveaux Quatuors en Six Suites published in Paris in 1738 will be displaced as among his output's highest peaks.

The cantate francaise flourished during the first half of the eighteenth century. Morin and Bernier were among the most interesting early exponents of it, Campra, Monteclair, Clerambault and Rameau among the most impressive. Indeed, it is generally recognized that the cantate francaise reached its zenith in the hands of Clerambault. He is represented on this new disc by Le Soleil, vainqueur des nuages. It appeared in none of the composer’s five published collections of chamber cantatas but was issued separately in 1721

Mediocre melodic rock from this Scandinavian band who were formed to play a set of unreleased songs collected by MTM manager Magnus Soderkvist.Three of those were co-written by Sherwood: "Tell Me You're Mine" (described by Söderström as "Powerful AOR track with a rhythmic thing going on that I like."), "Night After Night" ("Quite a heavy tune this one. Riff made of pure lead. Johan pounding the poor drums with the thickest drumsticks he could find. Pontus hitting the strings of his bass with a brick.") and "Should have Done You Right" ("The ballad of the album. Good melody and the form of the song is not that obvious which I think makes it more interesting. Excellent vocals from Jan."). None are particularly notable. Sherwood's co-writers are Jimmy Haun, who played on Union, and Guy Allison of World Trade. As far as I know, they have never released their own versions of these songs. Babylon is a cover of the Starship song, while John Wetton-collaborator Bob Marlette co-wrote a couple of the other pieces.

Farnace was apparently one of Vivaldi's favorite operas because he mounted numerous productions in various cities and wrote six versions of the score, more than of any of his other operas. The conventions of operatic vocal characterizations that came to be standard higher voices in the sympathetic roles and lower voices in villainous roles had not yet been established, and Farnace features a baritone and contralto in the heroic roles, with a soprano as the villain.

The Swedish vocal trio known as Spin Gallery may be a little soft for some Sea of Tranquility regulars, but Standing Tall merits mention here because it's full of exquisitely performed ear candy that won't leave you feeling empty inside. On Standing Tall, Christian Antblad, Kristoffer Lagerstrom and Magnus Weidenmo sing a dozen songs, most of them written by Tommy Denander, who's worked with the likes of Marcel Jacob (Malmsteen, Talisman), Tony Franklin (Blue Murder, Lana Lane), Fergie Frederiksen (Toto), Steve Overland (Alan Parsons) and Fee Waybill (The Tubes). With roots firmly planted in the Eighties, this is an album packed with soaring harmonies ("To Hell and Back"), melodic rockers ("Standing Tall") and atmospheric ballads ("Grace"). I could do without some of the boy-band influences ("Am I Wrong") and Peter Cetera sound-alikes ("Need to Be Free"), but most of Standing Tall is a high-caliber pop record that offers a refreshing and lighter change of pace.