John Edward Illsley is an English musician, best known as bass guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits. With it, he has received multiple BRIT and Grammy Awards, and a Heritage Award. As one of the founding band members, with guitarist brothers Mark and David Knopfler, and drummer Pick Withers, Illsley played a role in the development of Dire Straits' sound. By the time the group disbanded in 1995 changes in personnel meant that Illsley and lead singer Mark Knopfler were the only two original band members remaining. Illsley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Dire Straits in 2018. Illsley has produced two albums of his own, with Mark Knopfler as a guest musician, and has helped with Mark's personal projects and charities.

Quartet (1996) is an album by the Pat Metheny Group. The album features Pat Metheny on guitar, Lyle Mays on keyboards, Steve Rodby on bass, and Paul Wertico on drums. Most of the tracks were loosely written or improvised, using several unusual instruments. The Group itself never played these songs live, though Metheny played "When We Were Free" with his trio and recorded a live version on the album Day Trip. "As I Am" was played during trio concerts with Michael Brecker. Metheny remarked in a podcast retrospective that the improvisational late-middle portions of, Quartet contain some of the darkest music the Group has ever recorded. He also stated that "When We Were Free" is a personal standout for him, especially Mays's piano solo.

The original line on Gary Clark, Jr. was that the young Texas guitarist was supposed to be the future of the blues, having been mentored by Jimmie Vaughan and Eric Clapton, but as his star rises, Clark has made it increasingly clear that his creative ambitions run a lot deeper than being the next hotshot guitar slinger. On his major-label debut, 2012's Blak and Blu, Clark demonstrated he isn't interested in following the path of blues traditionalists, and while there's plenty of great guitar work on 2015's The Story of Sonny Boy Slim, this is by no means a conventional blues album.

Digitally remastered edition of this 1983 solo album from 1/2 of The Everly Brothers. The album features the UK Top 10 hit `She Means Nothing To Me' with Cliff Richard sharing lead vocals. Includes musical assistance from Pete Wingfield, Billy Bremner, Terry Williams, Christine McVie and Mark Knopfler. Songs written by acclaimed writers such as Ian Gomm and Gallagher & Lyle.

The most traditional pop band of all the Welsh bands to emerge in the post-Brit-pop days of the mid-'90s, Catatonia reworked the sound of jangling late-'80s alternative rock with a punchy, amateurish indie rock attack. Comprised of vocalist Cerys Matthews, guitarist/vocalist Mark Roberts, guitarist Owen, bassist Paul Jones, and drummer Aled Richards, Catatonia formed in Cardiff, Wales in the early '90s. Matthews and Roberts used to busk together in Cardiff before officially forming the band.

Discovery is the second studio album by the French house duo Daft Punk, released in March 2001. It marks a shift in the sound from Chicago house, which they were previously known for, to disco, post-disco and synthpop-inspired house. The album provided itself as a soundtrack to the anime film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, which was a collaboration between the creators of the album, Leiji Matsumoto, and Toei Animation. According to an interview with Remix Magazine Online, Thomas Bangalter stated: This album has a lot to do with our childhood and the memories of the state we were in at that stage of our lives. It's about our personal relationship to that time. It's less of a tribute to the music from 1975 to 1985 as an era, and more about focusing on the time when we were zero to ten years old. When you're a child you don't judge or analyze music. You just like it because you like it. You're not concerned with whether it's cool or not. Sometimes you might relate to just one thing in a song, such as the guitar sound. This album takes a playful, fun, and colorful look at music. It's about the idea of looking at something with an open mind and not asking too many questions. It's about the true, simple, and honest relationship you have with music when you're open to your own feelings.

Just 26 years old, Nicola Benedetti has been making chart-topping recordings for 10 years. This album celebrates the best of those recordings, and her other successes – from winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, to her 2012 best-selling album ‘The Silver Violin’, the highest charting classical instrumental album in the UK of the last two decades. A collection of great violin music – from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending to the Tchaikovsky and Bruch violin concertos and Arvo Part’s Spiegel Im Spiegel. Featuring brand new recordings – Brahms’ invigorating Hungarian Dance no. 5, Monti’s ever-popular Czardas, and Chopin’s emotional Nocturne in C# minor. The album includes Nicola performing with leading orchestras and conductors, as well as some of her favorite chamber players. This album showcases the incredible range of Nicola’s playing and demonstrates her wide appeal. In January 2013 Nicola was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music and charity.

This 22-cut double-disc set finally gets at it. Issuing a single disc of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler would be a silly thing at best and a hopelessly frustrating one at worst. When the band burst on the scene with "Sultans of Swing," there was a lot happening in rock music, but most of it was under the radar and remains forgotten except in the historic annals of music fanatics. Knopfler and his band were full of rock & roll romance and proved it through their first four recordings time and again. They couldn't help but become superstars and mainstays of MTV.

Unlike his Delmark sets, almost everything on this set (first issued in France on Black & Blue) is a cover (only the observant "Heap See" boasts original lyrics). Still, "Barroom Preacher" stands as the Chicago guitarist's most satisfying and consistent album, as he deals out gorgeous, shimmering versions of "Little by Little, " "Cold, Cold Feeling, " and "You Don't Know What Love Is" tailored to his soaring vocals and twisting guitar riffs (ominous minor keys often play a role in his rearrangements).

If eclectic is your bag, then Heartbeat might be your thing. Like Hector Zazou, Ryuichi Sakamoto employs a realm of many styles on this upbeat collection. Songs performed in Japanese, Russian, French, and English (by friends Youssou N'Dour, David Sylvian, and Deee-Lite's DJ Towa Towa and Super DJ Dmitri) top an already brimming album that is everything its predecessor, Beauty, wasn't. Two completely different versions of the title track add arty spice. "Triste" is a wonderful, lazy-afternoon stroll in Paris jazz; "Lulu" follows suit. Is there no end to this Sakamoto's talent? He does jazz, rap, and chucks in a couple of solo piano pieces reminiscent of his soundtrack work. "Songlines" came about via his score for Pedro Almodovar's High Heels. "Boram Gal" and "High Tide" – with guests Youssou N'Dour and Arto Lindsay, respectively – are both delicate and swathed in summer. Ingrid Chavez adds poet's fire to frozen dust on "Returning to the Womb" and contributes eerie funk on "Cloud #9."

Style Council's first proper album Cafe Bleu was one of their better efforts, but it indicated the group's fatal flaw – a tendency to be too eclectic and overambitious. Amidst the lazy jazz instrumentals, many of them courtesy of Mick Talbot, Paul Weller inserted several solid soul-tinged pop songs, including "My Ever Changing Moods," "Headstart for Happiness," "You're the Best Thing," and "Here's One That Got Away." However, that doesn't excuse the rap experiment, "A Gospel." The album was later released with a slightly different running order as My Ever Changing Moods in the U.S.; the American edition included the U.K. hit "A Solid Bond in Your Heart".

This first album by the trio Tasis is not lacking in assets and this has not escaped the director of Triton, the jazz club of Les Lilas who wanted to release their first album under his indie label of independent music and organ. JP Vivante is committed to making known original works that could remain unknown, even unheard. PORQUE SÍ or the personal vision of tango, anchor music of the three virtuosos of this chamber trio with atypical instrumentation (bandoneon, piano, violin). They embellish their music with borrowings (their formidable musical culture allows them to) from classical music of the early 20th century (Bartok, Stravinsky …) to the song with this Parce que by Aznavour which takes on new colors under their fingers.

With a capaciously-filled boxset of a dozen CDs made up of attractive individual programmes and entitled The Spanish Guitar, Glossa reintroduces the superb playing of José Miguel Moreno. And with recordings from 1991-2004 which still sound fresh and vivid today. A new essay and all the sung texts are included in the physical booklet that completes this limited-edition set.

A warm welcome back for this 1977 recording of Handel’s most successful opera, which ran, in 1727, for an unprecedented 19 performances. Curtis and his team were visionary 20 years ago. Recitative is lively, declaimed rather than fully sung; vocal decorations sound spontaneous, period instruments are played with zest and polish – barely a sour note from the handful of strings; colours include a trio of oboes and bassoon and, accompanying Bowman in fine voice, a pair of horns for what Dr Burney described as ‘one of the best and most agreeable hunting songs that was ever composed’.

With acclaimed recordings of the Symphonies and selected orchestral works, Cpo has gone some way in demonstrating this American composer was one of the twentieth century’s most important composers. Antheil wrote his one act opera The Brothers in 1954. The libretto, penned by Antheil himself, drew on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Its setting is the working-class world of post-war America, and the four men and one woman presented by Antheil on stage are all damaged and traumatized.