Plastic Penny were a British group who made the U.K. Top Ten in early 1968 with "Everything I Am," a labored ballad augmented by strings, that wasn't even one of their best songs. Much of their material was psychedelic pop with hints of encroaching prog-rock, sometimes recalling the Who a bit, elsewhere going into more fey story-songs. Their guitarist, Mick Grabham, would play with Procol Harum between 1973-1977.

This is the first time that this one-and-done French jazz rock rarity has ever been reissued on CD! This is Euro-styled progressive electric jazz; perhaps a bit comparable to Missus Beastly. Originally released in 1976, Moravagine (including 3 members of Chute Libre) is a unique piece of jazz-rock/fusion musicianship, melding traditional French, African and Brasilian influences.

The swirling waters, the ocean's peaceful powers and its natural majestic strength, the cycle of life that is inherent in the sea and the repetitive endlessness of waves, stroking the world's shores is part of Jay B. Jay's music. Listening to his music is like taking a totally natural, positive journey to that peaceful. sunny island in your dreams, riding on the crest of the perfect wave.
Jay B. Jay started his classical piano training when he was eight years old. By the time he turned 28 he had studied at various academies jazz, harmony, classical composition and in the USA majoring at the Boston Berkley College of Music in jazz composition and arranging…

Rick Wakeman spent much of the '80s and '90s recording instrumental albums that veered toward either classical or ambient, so 2003's Out There comes as a bit of a shock: it's an honest to goodness revival of the full-throttle prog rock Wakeman pursued on his solo albums in the '70s. A large part of this is due to his decision to form a full-fledged supporting rock band. Called the New English Rock Ensemble, they're a quintet led by Wakeman and featuring Damian Wilson on vocals, Ant Glynne on guitar, Lee Pomeroy on bass, and Tony Fernandez on drums and percussion.

With his sophomore effort for Dawn, everything came together for guitarist and songwriter Mike Cooper. Trout Steel established him as one of the pre-eminent players on the Brit folk and blues scenes. Given his organic approach to composing; his truly dazzling abilities with acoustic and slide guitars; and his predilection for just the right sidemen and arrangements, Cooper was among the most poised musicians of his generation, and Trout Steel proves the point time and again over its 11 tracks.

Back when Rainbow Bridge was originally released, it was actually among the best of the posthumous Hendrix releases. Billed as "the original motion picture soundtrack" (it wasn't, really), it was a mix of excellent, finished studio tracks and a couple of live tracks. Despite this, it's understandable why it didn't appeared in the digital realm until 2014 (officially, at least).

For this new recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Jordi Savall conducts an all-female orchestra, as Vivaldi did in his time at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. The soloist Alfia Bakieva is a violinist of Tatar origin currently living in Salzburg, Austria. She is a multi-instrumentalist, particularly in the field of folk music, playing violin, folk fiddle, kyl- kobiz, ghizzhak and similar instruments. She studied Baroque violin with Enrico Onofri (Palermo Conservatory) and Hiro Kurosaki (Mozarteum University), focusing on historically informed performance practices in the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic repertoires.

With more than 260 recordings to his credit and an intensive career as singer, conductor, scholar and teacher, René Jacobs has achieved an eminent position in the field of Baroque and Classical vocal music.

Using the textured sonics of The Unforgettable Fire as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of War, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The Joshua Tree is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems – the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" – have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill," or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared."