On Chasm, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto blends together his favorite styles of music without limiting himself to one genre. Chasm is a mixture of avant-garde and Western pop and a vehicle for uncompromising electronic experimentation. Chasm opens with "Undercooled," a composition that combines rap with an Asian melody. This piece is followed by "Coro," a track made up of harsh audio static. The title track is composed of electronically altered piano notes, which swell up and down and loop mechanically. This piece has a haunting, almost underwater, feel to it. Towards the end of Chasm, we come across "Song," an abstract work that combines a Spartan electronic backbeat with loud white noise. However, Sakamoto makes a sharp left turn for the album's closer "Seven Samurai - Ending Theme"…

After proving they could keep 10cc alive as a duo act with 1977's successful Deceptive Bends, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman pressed on in 1978 with Bloody Tourists. Although it scored some notable hits, it was a less consistent and less memorable affair than its predecessor. The problem with Bloody Tourists is that it feels like a group of session musicians trying to come up with songs in the 10cc style instead of a proper 10cc album. The eccentric humor that once flowed freely feels forced on this album: "Reds In My Bed" is a lame stab at Cold War satire that never really succeeds in saying anything while "Shock On The Tube (Don't Want Love)" tries to be daring with its tale of a subway sex fantasy and instead comes off as smutty and dull…

The focus of Kalevi Aho’s output lies on large-scale orchestral works, and his work-list includes fifteen symphonies to date, composed between 1969 and 2010. Although the Finnish composer is famously lavish as an orchestrator, and often invites rare guests such as the heckelphone into his orchestra, the scores of Aho’s three chamber symphonies are much more economic in scale. But although composed for some twenty strings in all, and of more modest durations than for instance the 50-minute Eighth Symphony for organ and orchestra, they bear eloquent proof of the composer’s aim of exploiting to the full the expressive capabilities of a string orchestra.

Les dictionnaires de musique du XIXe siècle signalent tous l’importance de Gross comme violoncelliste et compositeur. Il est injustement absent de ceux d’aujourd’hui. Son oeuvre de plus de 43 opus est composée principalement de musiques pour le violoncelle, de pièces pour piano, de lieder et de quatre quatuors à cordes.

Rarely has the precociousness of his talent been better demonstrated than on this new disc… the rarities, like the more familiar pieces, are played with unapologetic conviction. Penelope Thwaites, a Grainger advocate since well before the current boom, paints the music in bold strokes… a major contribution to the Grainger discography.

Jazz in Paris: Swing 48 collects some of Django Reinhardt's best electric guitar performances from the late '40s, including "Pêche à la Mouche," "Minor Blues," "Night and Day," and "Swing 48." These lively numbers are balanced with quieter but no less inventive tracks such as "For Sentimental Reasons" and "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)." Two takes on "Blues for Barclay" round out this compact collection, which may not be as thorough an exploration of this part of Reinhardt's career as Peche à la Mouche, but still offers a taste of his electric, bop-influenced years.

Amazing and colourful rock sutra from Turkey! Siddhartha is interesting blend of progressive space sound like Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree with trippy rock ballads. This album is full of major mood swings from very serene and tranquil moments to the all out blitzkrieg jam sessions. Siddhartha is full of surprises and each songs carries its own colours and characteristics always sounding highly original. This is an essential recording and will absolutely remain a classic. This album has been nominated, for the 4th edition of Prog Awards album of the year of 2009.
A Trip to Innerself kicks off wistfully, Eastern phrasing just dominating over a rich sonic background, there's a vocalised mantra that develops quietly in this soundscape before some gorgeous organ-sounding phrasing from the keyboards, and the guitar comes in powerfully at the end…

A dream comes true, CUARTETO SOLTANGO negotiated for a long time with the star Tango singer LEONEL CAPITANO until he came to Munich for the production - a co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk. Arranger and pianist Martin Klett and Leonel Capitano have put together 16 tangos in different styles of famous Tango composers. There are famous styles and their founders: Aníbal Troilo, Osvaldo Puglieses, Horacio Salgán, Oswaldo Tarrantino. Elías Randal, Virgilio Exposíto, Acho Manzi, Sebastián Piana etc.

These songs present a willingness to reduce life’s complexities to simple, understandable equations. Truly an album that highlights his songwriting capabilities, you can hear an urgency to communicate in every word he sings. Floyd loves to play with guitar, and Tony Mathews is highlighted. The full band including the Ebony Horns shine out on this 2005 Highjohn Records release, and there are surprise guests in the fine! As always, Floyd’s brilliant piano virtuosity is featured prominently throughout.

With the establishment of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens in 1843, the Danish composer and conductor Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) swiftly rose to fame as the city’s internationally acclaimed king of waltzes and galops, leading his orchestra from the violin. For this recording, Lars Ulrik Mortensen and Concerto Copenhagen – Scandinavia’s leading period instruments ensemble – studied Lumbye's original scores and used instruments from the era to recreate an authentic sound. This collection showcases Lumbye’s enchanting music, along with popular pieces by his idols, Lanner and Strauss I.

SOMM Recordings announces The Distances Between, the second volume of songs – including 17 first recordings – by Stephen Dodgson marking the 10th anniversary of his death. The Distances Between features soprano Ailish Tynan, mezzo-soprano Katie Bray and baritone Marcus Farnsworth, accompanied by Christopher Glynn (piano), Mark Eden (guitar) and Ian Wilson (recorder). All but Farnsworth are returning from Volume 1.

The title might be French for "fool the world," but with Trompe le Monde, the Pixies weren't fooling anyone: this was essentially Black Francis' solo debut. It focuses on Francis' sci-fi fascination and lacks any Kim Deal songs; even her backing vocals are far and few between. Yet the band sounds revitalized on Trompe le Monde, as if it were planned as their last hurrah. The raucous "Distance Equals Rate Times Time" and the explosive cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Head On" are fairly straightforward, but the lyrics remain quirky on "Planet of Sound," a song about a Martian who lands on Earth, and "Palace of the Brine," a tribute to sea monkeys and Utah's Salt Lake…

As far as Vangelis' early work is concerned (pertaining to the five years of his solo career), Spiral stands up quite well, although it's almost always regarded as an inessential effort. Although the structures and the overall dynamics of the pieces are less complicated and less sophisticated, Spiral's keyboard utilization is still extremely effectual, even if it does take awhile to get off the ground. The five tracks that make up the album aren't as atmospheric or as elaborately shifting as 1975's Heaven and Hell or 1976's Albedo 0.39, but his musical movement does seem to transgress toward full, complete soundscapes, especially in "To the Unknown Man," the album's best example of Vangelis' artistry. The album is based on a dancer's appreciation of the universe and how it spirals into infinity, a concept which came to him through his own pirouettes…