Experience Matthias Kirschnereit's fascinating musical life in the album "Time Remembered." This extraordinary playlist of 36 hand-picked pieces tells personal stories and brings memories to life. From Bach, Bussoni, and Bruckner to Handel, Janacek,Ligeti, Rachmaninoff, Satie, and Bill Withers - this musical journey spans almost 400 years of music history and takes you into different genres and styles. Discover the turning points, rough edges, and Matthias Kirschnereit's constant urge to express himself through music. From moving to Namibia at the age of nine to leaving grammar school without A-levels to become a pianist, his musical horizon expanded abruptly. Today, after almost 50 CD recordings, thousands of concerts played worldwide, and awards, Matthias Kirschnereit is still searching for new things, challenges, and tasks.

No band smoulders quite like The Slow Show. The Manchester four-piece have built a reputation for soaring crescendos and deep emotional canyons, making music for romantic souls and wounded hearts. As they return with their fifth album, Subtle Love, they do so with their strongest and most expansive collection of songs to date. “The record is an ode to love in all its guises,” reveals singer Rob Goodwin. Subtle Love not only distils The Slow Show’s sumptuous indie pop formula, but it casts the group’s net into exciting fresh waters, incorporating winsome folk (Royal Blue) and anthemic, widescreen rock (One Shot) too. Across ten songs, the listener is taken on an amble through the band’s past and into a tantalising future. It is a highly melodic and moving affair, made by kindred spirits and lifelong friends.

Baron von Dittersdorf’s attractive personality and inventiveness as a composer shines through in every movement of the three charming symphonies featured on this world première recording. Composed in the 1780s around the time of his famous ‘Ovid’ Symphonies, the three symphonies included here abound in brilliant orchestral writing and quirky, infectious melodies.

Given Sibelius’s reputation as one of the great symphonists of the last century, contemporary Finnish composers may be forgiven for feeling a little overshadowed. Fortunately for the young Aho, Rautavaara’s advice and support proved decisive in shaping this symphony, which began life as a string quartet.
The work is in four movements, the mysterious opening and ascending brass figures of the Andante strongly reminiscent of Shostakovich. Indeed, this is confirmed by the noted music publisher Fennica Gehrman, in a short article on the Finnish Musical Information Centre website.

Vanilla Fudge took a more basic stance with Rock 'n' Roll, bringing in Aerosmith's first and the Velvet Underground's last producer, Adrian Barber, to replace Shadow Morton. Guitarist Vinnie Martell sings lead on "Need Love," and it is a quagmire of rock sounds, offset by Mark Stein's "Lord in the Country." The band then goes after a good but non-hit Carole King/Gerry Goffin number, "I Can't Make It Alone." It has that vibe that made "Take Me for a Little While" so important and so timeless, but there's just something missing. This is Vanilla Fudge's trademark sound looking for a new personality. The band started in 1967 by releasing an album of seven cover tunes done Vanilla Fudge-style. Along with Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and a handful of other bands, their sound helped shape Top 40 radio in the '60s while heavily influencing Deep Purple and what that group would do for the '70s.

"Arthur! You don't know how long we've waited!" shouted one enthusiastic female member of the audience after Love had finished performing their first song. "But you know how long I've waited," Arthur Lee playfully tossed back, eliciting sharp cheers from the crowd. Such was the spirit at the Royal Festival Hall, where, on January 15, 2003, Lee and Love re-created the Forever Changes album live in London for the first time. What could have been a pathetic display – Lee, the onetime star, performing old hits by rote – actually becomes a transcendent experience through two virtues: inspired string and horn accompaniment from a Scandinavian eight-piece, and the sheer shock and relief that Lee is able to hold himself together despite his years of well-documented self-abuse. The Forever Changes Concert does not take any liberties with the content of the legendary Forever Changes album, preferring note-for-note replication over reimagining.

Galliard were in on the ground floor of the British progressive rock movement, releasing their debut album, Strange Pleasure, in 1969 and mixing jazz, rock, folk, and psychedelic influences. The following year, New Dawn pretty much picked up where its predecessor left off, with one key exception. The band had initially featured two wind players, Dave Caswell and John Smith; though Smith was absent from New Dawn, a whole brace of additional horn players had been brought in to augment the sound. This was during the period when the likes of Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears (and their British equivalents) were starting out, and brass-rock was all the rage. That's not to suggest that Galliard were trying to ride the brass-rock gravy train – their work is too skilled and varied for that – but simply that they were right in time for the Zeitgeist.

Bearing in mind that almost anything Status Quo chose to do could only be a vast improvement on their last album, Ain't Complaining, Perfect Remedy was very well titled – and that despite being far from perfect itself. Indeed, "Tommy's in Love" is arguably the worst song the band had ever recorded, while "Not at All" only sprang to attention when it became the band's worst performing 45 since the very early '70s. It's also worth remembering that, while the album does abandon its predecessor's attempt to locate a new band sound, that's only because it thinks it has found one, in the form of producer Pip Williams' slick, country-rock approach. It has a little more in common with some of the band's efforts from the early '80s ("Living on an Island" would have fit nicely in here), but still you can't help wondering what was wrong with the band's own sound? And how long before they get back to it?

The early blues-rock of Eric Clapton, featuring live performances. Includes 12 tracks : She's So Respectable; Got To Hurry; A Certain Girl; For Your Love; I Wish You Would; Louise and other…

Dutch progressive death metal septet Phlebotomized is well-endowed with the passion of experimenting with different styles. Their fourth album "Clouds of Confusion" released via Hammerheart Records is truly a grandeur piece, full of bombast.
These are dense sonic journeys that although based in death metal invade the worlds of folk and prog too. They are gratifying on an immediate level, but it is upon multiple listens that they truly shine and the beauty of the music really makes it self-apparent. It is an oxymoronic album in many ways, being both old school and modern sounding, brutal yet clean and beautiful.

Steve Gunn's Time Off was one of the great surprises of 2013. Not because it showcased his already considerable skills as a guitarist, but because he discovered his strength as a songwriter too. Way Out Weather, written during his global travels over the last year, is ambitious. Its musical architecture is more focused yet its production is more spacious. Gunn employs a larger band here – drummer John Truscinski, bassist/producer Justin Tripp, banjo player and soundscape artist Nathan Bowles, harpist Mary Lattimore, Rhyton's Jimy Seitang, and multi-instrumentalist/engineer Justin Meagher.

The roots of hard rock can be traced back to the 1950s, particularly electric blues. In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began to modify rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming, and louder vocals. By the end of the decade a distinct genre of hard rock was emerging with bands like Led Zeppelin, who mixed the music of early rock bands with a more hard-edged form of blues rock and acid rock, and Deep Purple, who began as a progressive rock group in 1968 but achieved their commercial breakthrough with their fourth and distinctively heavier album, In Rock in 1970. Half a century later Hard Rock music is still one the favorite of millions of fans around the world and The Hard Rock Box showcases in 6 CD's many of the genre's most successful artists and songs. Uriah Heep, Saxon, UFO, Foghat, Alcatrazz, Ian Gillan, Todd Rundgren, Nazareth, Mountain and Molly Hatchet are presented along epic classics such as 'Slow Ride', 'Get It On (Bang A Gong)', 'Blind Faith', 'Hair Of The Dog' and 'Ballroom Blitz'. With remastered sound and fantastic artwork, The Hard Rock Box is a never before available collection of classic rock music that you need in your music library. Also, remember that it is not available on any streaming platforms.

As the first album the band recorded after guitarist Henry Garza suffered a serious spinal injury when he fell off-stage during a concert, 2014's Revelation finds Los Lonely Boys revitalized. The Texan trio has never been constrained by genre, but here they let their imagination wild, dabbling in every sound or style that's ever tickled their fancy, easing into proceedings with a teasing bit of traditional Tex-Mex – "Blame It on Love" opens with little more than guitar, accordion, and voice – before diving into every roots or rock style they've ever hinted at in the past.

It was inevitable that the abundant discography of Les Lunaisiens would one day turn its attention to the Complainte des rues, a ‘lament’ that tells the dark and tragic story of the wretched nobodies of society who can only protest their misery and hunger!

This CD was nominated for a Grammy award in 2007 for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
Canadian Celtic/new age/worldbeat architect Loreena McKennitt may be an odd choice for the legendary jazz label that released benchmark albums from Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, but Verve may have been moved by the undeniably talented harpist/composer/vocalist's large collection of globe-spanning gold, platinum, and multi-platinum sales awards. McKennitt's records (this is her first set of new material since 1997's Book of Secrets) tend to play like independent soundtracks to National Geographic documentaries - kind of like a more ornate, expensive version of Dead Can Dance. An Ancient Muse may break little new ground for McKennitt, but it won't disappoint longtime fans…