‘Surrender of Silence’ is the brand-new studio album from legendary guitarist Steve Hackett. As with his acoustic album from earlier this year, this too was recorded during lockdown and involving several musicians and singers contributing from around the world. “Lockdown cobwebs are blown away in one fell-swoop here”, says Steve… “With the monster rhythm section of Jonas Reingold, Craig Blundell, Nick D’Virgilio and Phil Ehart along with Rob Townsend’s soaring sax and bass clarinet, Nad Sylvan, Amanda Lehmann and myself on vocals, Roger King’s darkly powerful organ and my guitar, we plunge full-pelt into that wild release of energy”…

The organ works of Axel Ruoff, born in Stuttgart in 1957, constitute one of the most important contributions to the literature for the instrument by any composer since Messiaen, with Ruoff often using its unparalleled resources to write music of extraordinary power and dramatic flair. This third volume in Jan Lehtola’s complete recording features the organ in the unusual role of duo partner in chamber music – but it is chamber music conceived on a symphonic scale. Here these five muscular duo works are separated by a series of weighty chorale preludes.

The ultimate CD for friends of the clavichord: On this recording, Bernhard Klapprott, a pupil of Bob van Asperen and today Professor of Early Keyboard Instruments in the Bach city of Weimar, exploits all the technical and tonal possibilities offered by the original clavichord by Joseph Gottfried Horn (1788).

Voyage is the ninth and final studio album by Swedish group ABBA, released on 5 November 2021. It is the group's first album of new material in 40 years following The Visitors (1981), and contains 10 songs all composed by ABBA's songwriters, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. The album was supported by a double A-sided single release, "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", released alongside the album announcement on 2 September 2021. A digital concert residency, also called ABBA Voyage, will take place in London beginning May of 2022. Japanese original release. This is a set of ABBA's new album "Voyage" and their music video collection, "Essential Collection" (incl. 36 tracks). Japanese edition of "Voyage" exclusively features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format.

"American Epic" compilation series is a collection of releases of music associated with the film series "The American Epic", a historical documentaries are a journey back in time to the "Big Bang" of modern popular music. In the 1920s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies were forced to leave their studios in major cities in search of new styles and markets. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent. The recordings they made of all the ethnic groups of America democratized the nation and gave a voice to everyone. Country singers in the Appalachians, Blues guitarists in the Mississippi Delta, Gospel preachers across the south, Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, Tejano groups from the Texas Mexico border, Native American drummers in Arizona, and Hawaiian musicians were all recorded. For the first time, a woman picking cotton in Mississippi, a coalminer in Virginia or a tobacco farmer in Tennessee could have their thoughts and feelings heard on records played in living rooms across the country. It was the first time America heard itself.

Having had success in South Africa in the early 1960s with his band Johnny and the G-Men, as well as a solo artist, Kongos went to the UK in 1966, to pursue his musical career. His first UK based group, Floribunda Rose, formed in April 1967, comprised the British musicians, Pete Clifford (guitar) (born Peter William Frederick Clifford, 10 May 1943, Whetstone, North London) and Jack Russell (bass, vocals) (born 29 April 1944, Caerleon, South Wales), who had come to South Africa in June 1965 with The 004; drummer Nick 'Doc' Dokter (born 24 July 1945, Kampen, Overijssel, the Netherlands), a latter day member of 004; and the Cyprus-born keyboard player Chris Demetriou from John E Sharpe and the Squires. After one single, "Linda Loves Linda", Clifford returned to South Africa to join The Bats and Dokter moved to Canada and worked with Five Man Cargo. Drummer Henry Spinetti joined and the remaining members recorded three singles as Scrugg.

Freddie Roulette coaxes all manner of sweet, funky feeling out of his doubleneck lap steel guitar on the track “Joaquin” from his debut solo album.

A year after Les Paul's death, Jeff Beck saluted the guitar pioneer by staging a rousing tribute show to the great man at Paul’s regular stomping ground, the Iridium Jazz Club. Backed by his current running mates the Imelda May Band, Beck enlisted some heavy-hitters for help – Brian Setzer comes in for the rock & roll, Trombone Shorty for the jazz, Gary U.S. Bonds sings some oldies – all the better to get the party started. Despite its title, Rock 'N' Roll Party skews ever so slightly to the old-fashioned swing and standards that were Paul's specialty and with the notable exception of tightly wound versions of “The Train Kept A Rollin’” and “Twenty Flight Rock,” even the rockers feel closer to jump blues than rockabilly. And that’s fine: a tribute to Les Paul's music shouldn’t be greasy, it should be a jumping, joyous blast of nostalgia, which is precisely what this party is.

Seven years and three albums on from their debut (not counting the older tapes dusted off and given belated release as 3 and 3 Quarters), Radio Moscow haven't changed a whole lot - these guys still sound like they've passed through a time portal en route to a gig at some psychedelic ballroom in 1969, and after warming up their amps and burning down some weed, they're ready to bring the rock to the people. Radio Moscow have once again put their allegiance to the high life front and center, with a large psychoactive mushroom towering over the horizon under a giant rainbow on the front cover of 2014's Magical Dirt. However, Radio Moscow have made one fairly important upgrade with Magical Dirt - instead of bandleader Parker Griggs handling both guitar and drums in the studio through the magic of multi-tracking, as he's done on their previous albums…

Phil Collins took a long time to deliver Testify, his first record since redemptive post-divorce album Dance into the Light. On that 1996 affair, he was open to all the possibilities that may arrive during this new act and, accordingly, the album felt expansive. He dabbled with new sounds, perhaps excessively so, but it helped mirror his newfound freedom. In contrast, Testify feels a bit hemmed in, the sound of a singer/songwriter marching through the drudgery of life. This isn't to say that Testify is underpinned with despair – it certainly lacks the melancholy undertow of Both Sides, one of his moodiest and best records – but rather it feels diligent, with Collins intent on hitting all of his preordained marks.