A magnificent collection of classic melodies that are very popular among listeners and music connoisseurs

Giorgio Moroder completed his first ever live tour in 2019 - now it’s time again to experience his disco decade! This definitive collection brings together recordings from the legendary disco producer who put the late, great Donna Summer on the map, and whose talents as composer, performer and producer led to Grammy and Academy awards and numerous collaborations with many artists worldwide.

Jordan: The Comeback is Prefab Sprout's largely successful attempt to embrace the breadth of popular music; wisely reuniting with producer Thomas Dolby, Paddy McAloon freely indulges his myriad ambitions and obsessions to weave a dense, finely textured tapestry closer in spirit and construction to a lavish Broadway musical than to the conventional rock concept LP. Over the course of no less than 19 tracks, McAloon chases his twin preoccupations of religion and celebrity, creating a loose thematic canvas perfect for his expanding musical palette; quickly dispensing with common pop idioms, the album moves from tracks like the samba-styled "Carnival 2000" to the self-explanatory "Jesse James Symphony" and its companion piece "Jesse James Bolero" with remarkable dexterity.

George Benson's place as one of the greatest and most successful guitarists in the history of jazz is secure, but what's easy to forget sometimes is that he began his career as a vocalist, and if this release, a tribute to Nat King Cole, comes as any kind of surprise, it shouldn't. Benson's and Cole's careers are remarkably similar, both becoming known first as instrumentalists, Cole as a pianist, and Benson, of course, as a guitarist, with both eventually easing into the pop mainstream because of their voices. Cole was a one of a kind vocalist, of course, and even Benson wouldn't claim to equal him as a singer, but Benson has a similarly soothing and lush tenor voice that more than holds its own on these familiar songs.

Juliette Hurel's 2013 album on Naïve explores pieces for flute and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, evoking the period between Classicism and early Romanticism. Perhaps the subtlest work of the program is Beethoven's Flute Sonata in B flat major, WoO A4, written in 1790 and fashioned under the influence of Haydn. Its sunny disposition and light textures are periodically interrupted by unexpected key changes and sudden digressions into the minor, characteristics that anticipate Beethoven's later development and mark it as a transitional work. His Serenade for flute and piano, Op. 41, is an arrangement of the Serenade for flute, violin, and viola, Op. 25, and it has a similar, if sometimes deceptive, air of Classical simplicity, which is all the more apparent because of the brevity of the movements. Only Schubert's Variations on a Theme from Die schöne Müllerin is unequivocally Romantic, and its sudden changes of mood and key make it the most fascinating piece on the disc.

Nik Turner is one of the founding members of Hawkwind. He was a member from 1969 to 1976 and rejoined the band from 1982 to 1984. Turner played saxophone and flute and he occasionally sang. "Space Gypsy" (2013) features Turner's vocals, and his trademark saxophones and flutes front a quintet whose sound is drenched in synths, mellotrons, electric guitars, and drums. His vocals are awash in reverb but they ride cleanly just above the instrumental fray. While this music isn't so much prog as cosmic rock, it has enough weirdness in both its production and with the man himself singing of Mayans, space aliens, multidimensional realities, and mystic and occult practices to please most acid travelers. Clocking in at 50 minutes, standout tracks include opener "Fallen Angel STS-51-L," with its crunchy guitar driving through the layered mellotrons and drums, the gently spacy "Galaxy Rise"…

With a "bonus" eighth track of the Rondo alla Zingarese-Presto from Brahms' First Piano Quartet filling out this CD to a near maximal 75 minutes and 55 seconds, this disc is a steal. The Double Concerto by Brahms is an energetic and riveting yet enigmatic addition to the concerto repertoire. With a combination of solo instruments not widely used since the Baroque era due to their contrasting sounds, this work presents some unique challenges in finding the proper balance between orchestra, solo violin, and solo cello.

On his 2013 release The North Borders, British producer Simon Green (aka Bonobo) continues along the organic-meets-electronic path that his 2010 release Black Sands followed, but this walk takes place as it's turning to dusk, and there are varying degrees of mist and chilliness along the way. Opener "First Fires" with Grey Reverend (singer/songwriter L.D. Brown) sounds like it could be quite warm, but it's entirely autumn-minded sweater music that wistfully wonders what to do with "faded dreams" as Green allows bits of glitchy sunlight to shine through his cloudy synth construction. "Emkay" is the clangs and echoes of a seaside port at night that wonderfully shuffles its way up to a lighthouse tune, then there's majestic songstress Erykah Badu wonderfully vibing ("We don't need no truth/Got plenty/Now it grows on trees") on "Heaven for the Sinner" over Bonobo's deep version of the broken beat. "Towers" suggests sleepy urban buildings in twilight with a vibraphone representing the little bits of life and light that will sparkle through the night, while "Don't Wait" is just before the dawn, as innocent chimes chase away the eerie things that lurk in the darkness.

Albert King recorded a lot in the early '60s, including some classic sides, but they never quite hit the mark. They never gained a large audience, nor did they really capture the ferocity of his single-string leads. Then he signed with Stax in 1966 and recorded a number of sessions with the house band, Booker T. & the MG's, and everything just clicked. The MG's gave King supple Southern support, providing an excellent contrast to his tightly wound lead guitar, allowing to him to unleash a torrent of blistering guitar runs that were profoundly influential, not just in blues, but in rock & roll (witness Eric Clapton's unabashed copping of King throughout Cream's Disraeli Gears).