Madeleine Peyroux took significantly less time than the eight years between her debut and its follow-up to release her third album, Half the Perfect World, which finds a more mature – or at least less vulnerable – singer, one who chooses to express herself with nuance rather than overtness. Often, like in the opening "I'm All Right" – one of four original songs – this aversion to unconcealed emotion works well, playing off the swelling Hammond, the swinging rhythm of the acoustic guitar (contrasting nicely with the hook of "It's all right, I've been lonely before"), and the simple drums. But at other times, like in "A Little Bit" – which is bluesy and more upbeat and practically screams for an outburst, a growl, something – her hesitancy instead almost comes across as a flaw, as a fear of fully expressing herself.

Le cinesi (''The Chinese ladies'') is one of numerous pieces of the kind—generally called azione teatrale or something similar—composed during the eighteenth century for court entertainments.

David Zinman’s Mahler has been warmly received in many quarters. He is proceeding through the cycle chronologically and the Fifth will not disappoint those who like their Mahler sane and lucid. Sound quality remains near state-of-the-art even if there seems to be too much hall ambience for absolute clarity this time. The orchestra has been carefully drilled – individual members are named in the attractive, copiously annotated booklet – but it is idle to pretend that Zürich can offer either the characterful solo playing or the corporate weight of Chicago, Vienna or Berlin. That the back inlay and the track-listing misrepresent the work’s tripartite structure matters little.

The Godfather of contemporary blues, who took modern Chicago blues and embellished it with the bite, fire, and flash of rock & roll, Buddy Guy had not yet broken through in America (although he was much appreciated in Europe) when he recorded three albums for JSP Records between 1979 and 1981, including this, the middle one, which found Guy working with a solid session band of guitarists Doug Williams, William McDonald, and Phil Guy, saxophonist Maurice John Vaughn, keyboardists Gene Pickett and Eddie Lusk, bassists Nick Charles and J.W. Williams, and drummers Merle Perkins and Ray Allison. It's vintage Guy, and shows the raw but applied talent and showmanship that would eventually bring him the large American audience he so justly deserved in the 1990s. A 2008 re-release added three bonus tracks.

Over a period of five years, Swiss directors Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer documented the activity of legendary producer Manfred Eicher, the founder and driving force behind ECM Records, whose advocacy of progressive jazz and of classical composers like Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk, Valentin Silvestrov, and György Kurtág changed the landscape of contemporary music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The film Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher was released in 2009 and this 2011 soundtrack album is made up largely of tracks taken from previously released ECM albums that Eicher produced, some from as early as 1980. Most of the pieces are low-key and understated and feature chamber ensembles, although there are several piano tracks and several featuring orchestra or chorus. The album has a mix of selections from ECM's classical and jazz repertoire, and from the label's specialty, the many pieces that lie somewhere in between the two.

Drummer/label head Pat Ford reunited with Charlie Musselwhite and brought along brother Robben Ford on guitar, producing this return to form. Musselwhite is up to the task in all departments – singing, playing (great tone), and especially songwriting (the title tune and "Seemed Like the Whole World Was Crying," inspired by Muddy Waters' death) – but it had been a while since Robben Ford had played low-down blues (touring with Joni Mitchell, putting in countless hours in L.A. studios), and it may have been wiser to give the guitar chair to Tim Kaihatsu, who by this time had seniority in terms of hours on the bandstand with Musselwhite, above any other Musselwhite alumnus. Pianist Clay Cotton is in fine form. This time out, the deviations (to be expected by now) include Don & Dewey's "Stretching Out," an impressive chromatic harp rendering of "Exodus," and Musselwhite's solo guitar outing, "Baby-O." Easily Musselwhite's best-engineered album yet (nice job, Greg Goodwin).

Her first English-language effort following a pair of mid-decade personal tragedies, Celine Dion's 12th set Courage is a transformative, cathartic release for the powerhouse vocalist that carries listeners through her process of healing and moving on. While the deaths of her husband and brother inform much of the album, they do not completely define it. Rather, Dion's phoenix-from-the-ashes power shines and reveals a confident rebirth as she rebuilds life and reclaims herself. Paired with its intentionally uplifting French-language predecessor, 2016's Encore un Soir, Courage continues to track Dion's grief, just with a contemporary pop angle.

Love Hurts is the 20th studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on June 11, 1991 by Geffen Records. The RIAA certified it Gold on August 27, 1991. It is the final studio album with the record label Geffen. The lead single from the album was, "Love and Understanding" and the follow-up singles were "Save Up All Your Tears", "Love Hurts", "Could've Been You" and "When Lovers Become Strangers". It debuted at #48 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart with the sales of 19,000. Billboard stated in November 2011 that Love Hurts has sold 600,000 copies in the US. In European and Oceanian countries, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, the album was very successful, and peak at number one in four countries: Austria, Ireland, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Inventio is an inventive project at all levels, beginning with the instrumentation. Marco Ambrosini is one of very few musicians playing nyckelharpa outside the Swedish folk tradition, and Jean-Louis Matinier has similarly taken the accordion beyond any ‘folkloric’ frame of reference. On the present disc, the French-Italian duo plays a programme inspired by the baroque sonatas of Bach and Biber but also by the lyrical cadences of Pergolesi. They adapt and arrange works of each of these masters, and contribute compositions of their own. Following a path from ancient to modern music, they improvise together, finding new sound-colour combinations in the special blending of their instruments…

After three years of waiting now follows the second part of the Reader Of The Runes trilogy and at the same time eleventh album of the Italian folk power metal legends Elvenking! With "Reader Of The Runes - Divination" this mystical journey was started in 2019, which finds another fabulous climax on "Reader Of The Runes - Rapture". For twenty years, the band has already proven that they well deserved their cult status in the scene and not only through outstanding live shows can expand their fan base more and more. With "Reader Of The Runes - Rapture" Elvenking show that they are not treading water and continue to develop their sound without losing their trademark. Another strong foundation in a usual flawless discography.

Vittorio Ghielmi, one of today’s most admired viola da gamba soloists, comes from a family of musicians (his brother founded Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini). In parallel with his erudite and virtuoso readings of Marais or Graun, Vittorio Ghielmi is an artist who enjoys crossing borders. With his ensemble, Il Suonar Parlante, he seeks new musical languages and collaborates with leading figures of jazz (Uri Caine) and the masters of traditional music (Khaled Arman, Dhruba Ghosh).