Queen played three sold-out shows at the legendary Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, North London, in 1974. The first was in March, the crowning glory of the Queen II tour; the band then returned for two more nights in November as part of the Sheer Heart Attack tour. 1974 was a year of high achievement for Freddie, Brian, Roger and John; as well as releasing two albums, from which came their first two hit singles, “Seven Seas Of Rhye” and “Killer Queen,” the latter charting all around the world, they completed major tours across the UK, America and Europe. Queen dazzled their audience with an unforgettable show delivered with a skill and confidence which belied their youth. The tape machines were rolling, capturing the highly energetic performances. To mark the 4oth anniversary of these legendary shows, here, finally, is Queen at the Rainbow; lovingly restored, mixed and digitally mastered, and including material never previously available.

A stunningly sophisticated leap into modern musical textures, I'm Your Man re-establishes Leonard Cohen's mastery. Against a backdrop of keyboards and propulsive rhythms, Cohen surveys the global landscape with a precise, unflinching eye: the opening "First We Take Manhattan" is an ominous fantasy of commercial success bundled in crypto-fascist imagery, while the remarkable "Everybody Knows" is a cynical catalog of the land mines littering the surface of love in the age of AIDS.

Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1967 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. The group's core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and featured Stone's brother and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone, sister and singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Gregg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham. Formed in 1967, the group's music synthesized a variety of disparate musical genres to help pioneer the emerging "psychedelic soul" sound. The work of Sly and the Family Stone greatly influenced the sound of subsequent American pop, soul, R&B, funk, and hip hop music.

Sandra Feva may be an unfamiliar name to those who didn't follow indie soul scene in the early 80s, but she certainly was not unknown to real soul enthusiasts at the time. On the contrary, it seemed that every connoisseur rated her very high, and compared her to Gladys Knight, Betty Wright, Margie Joseph and other songstresses of the same calibre. Fellow Soul Express scribe Heikki Suosalo wrote in early 1983 that he "hasn't heard a better album by a female singer this decade", John Abbey in Blues & Soul considered Sandra on a par with Gladys, and Clive Richardson cites in the liner notes of this reissue release that "here was a new voice to match the newly-solo Gladys Knight and the vibrant Patti LaBelle".

The four-piece from Oakland, California built up considerable momentum on the back of their sophomore album, Velvet Incandescence, which arrived in April 2023. Returning with Bioluminescence, the new year heralds a new chapter for the band. Creatively spearheaded by guitarist Tony Thomas (also of Botanist) and vocalist Chelsea Murphy, Dawn Of Ouroboros conjures up an atmospheric blend of black and death metal. Whilst Chelsea’s distinctive vocals both scathe and soothe, there is a vicious underpinning of progressive and propulsive extremity that unites their sound into something cohesive and alluring. An abyssal, claustrophobic thread runs through to the sound of the album itself - expanding and contracting as the songs undulate and pulsate. Dawn of Ouroboros are illuminating the path forward as they approach the release of Bioluminescence. Once again they find themselves with much to celebrate as an even brighter future beckons.

A well-rounded exploration of every shade of blues Ford does so well: Chicago-style ("When I Leave Here"), jump blues ("The Miller's Son"), jazz-blues balladry ("Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"), and Texas shuffle ("Tired of Talkin'"). Ford's buttery lines and burnished tone (and his boyish voice) are captured in all their glory by producer Danny Kortchmar. Solidly anchored by bassist Roscoe Beck and drummer Tom Brechtlein, Ford solos liberally, taking the fast funk of "Think Twice" over the top with a burning series of rapid-fire runs and well-tooled turnarounds. Slowing down for a languid version of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You," Ford plays it raw and soulful, recalling B.B. King. He then turns up the pace on "Strong Will to Live," closing out the album with a signature solo full of fire and drama.

Mark Murphy's 2005 Verve album, Once to Every Heart, focused on the veteran jazz vocalist's rare, even singular ability with ballads and torch songs. Produced by Till Brönner, the great flügelhorn player, it was an album that brought Murphy's name back toward - if not into - the jazz mainstream and offered another side of his work to the ever hip European DJs who revere his catalog. Love Is What Stays is a deeply satisfying and, in places, even astonishing reflection on time and its passage. Memory, reverie, regrets, victories, hipster mysticism, and wonderfully canny theatrically poetic wordplay all come to bear in these songs. Released 50 years after his debut - when he was already being hailed as one of the music's great singers - it is more adventurous and downright wily in its aims than anyone could have hoped for. And those aims? They are reached with relative ease. The group of players is no less wide ranging: Lee Konitz makes an appearance…

Quasi Parlando is an important addition to ECM's documentation of the work of Tigran Mansurian, an often breathtaking account of highly original contemporary chamber orchestra music. Issued in the wake of his 75th birthday, the album presents four works for soloists and strings, and marks the ECM debut of the Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, winner of the 2013 Gramophone Awards 'Record of the Year'. It opens with the Armenian composer's fiercely-concentrated Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and String Orchestra, and proceeds to new music performed by its dedicatees: the lyrical Romance, dedicated to Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and the intensely expressive Quasi Parlando, dedicated to German cellist Anja Lechner. Both are world premiere recordings, as is the Violin Concerto No 2, subtitled Four Serious Songs, which concludes the programme. Throughout, the soloists deliver committed performances, as does the Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the direction of Candida Thompson.