Romain de la Haye-Serafini, aka Molecule, is an electronic music composer, DJ and musical adventurer, who has made field-recording his trademark. For several years this Breton has travelled the world, from the tumultuous waters of the North Atlantic or Nazare in Portugal, to a Vendee Globe boat on which he embarked to search for sounds which he then sculpted into their final form. Two years ago, he decided to immerse himself in the heart of a symphony orchestra, a less dangerous but equally fascinating adventure.

A veteran who paid his dues for over a decade before getting his shot at solo stardom, Bobby Womack persevered through tragedy and addiction to emerge as one of soul music's great survivors. Able to shine in the spotlight as a singer or behind the scenes as an instrumentalist and songwriter, Womack never got his due from pop audiences, but during the late '60s and much of the '70s, he was a consistent hitmaker on the R&B charts, with a high standard of quality control. His records were quintessential soul, with a bag of tricks learned from the likes of Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, and Sly Stone, all of whom Womack worked closely with at one time or another. Yet often, they also bore the stamp of Womack's own idiosyncratic personality, whether through a lengthy spoken philosophical monologue or a radical reinterpretation of a pop standard. An underrated guitarist, Womack helped pioneer a lean, minimalist approach similar to that of Curtis Mayfield, and was an early influence on the young Jimi Hendrix. Additionally, his songs have been recorded by numerous artists in the realms of both R&B and rock, and the best of them rank as all-time classics.

A three-record set spanning the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's career from its first album in 1967 to 1976, Dirt, Silver and Gold features all of the band's hits, including "Buy for Me the Rain," "Mr. Bojangles," "Battle of New Orleans," and the historic "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." The compilation also showcased many odds and ends (hence the "Dirt" in the title) that blend in nicely with the rest of the selections. If anyone is wondering about the Dirt Band pre-1976, this excellent collection is where they should begin.

The Queen of Showbiz, Cher's first and second solo albums from her folk-rock period are back in 2-in-1! The first two solo albums, "All I Really Want To Do" (September 1965) and the second "The Sonny Side Of Cher" (April 1966), which marked the beginning of Cher's career as a singer, actor, and TV entertainer, are included.

A Horse Called Music is a studio album by the country singer Willie Nelson, released in 1989. The album includes Nelson's last number 1 single, "Nothing I Can Do About It Now". "There You Are" peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard country chart.

Issued by underground imprint RCA Neon in mid-1971, the Shape Of The Rain album “Riley Riley Wood & Waggett” sold poorly at the time despite glowing reviews from the British music weeklies. A surging collision of Beatlesesque writing and harmonies and Byrds-like jingle-jangle guitars, sadly it would take another couple of decades before the LP was finally disinterred by a new generation of record collectors. Half-a-century after its original release, that lost jewel of an album finally gets the attention it deserves as the cornerstone of Grapefruit’s definitive new 3-CD anthology of a criminally neglected late Sixties/early Seventies British band.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band The rise of country-rock in the late 1960s introduced a down-home sound to a younger and hipper audience, and few if any groups hewed closer to country traditions – and enjoyed a longer career – than the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. They first emerged as part of the jug band revival that spawned acts like the Lovin' Spoonful and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, adding a dash of vaudeville humor (as evidence by their 1967 album Ricochet), but they matured into a sound informed by classic string bands and bluegrass when they scored their breakthrough hit with 1970's "Mr. Bojangles" (from the album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy).

British crossover jazz, funk, and pop outfit Shakatak are a sophisticated ensemble who have enjoyed a long career. With a sound steeped in contemporary jazz and R&B, they found success with both instrumental albums and pop vocal productions. Formed in London in 1980, Shakatak originally featured keyboardists Bill Sharpe and Nigel Wright, guitarist Keith Winter, bassist Steve Underwood, and drummer Roger Odell.

Young pianist/composer Jef Neve (1977) has become a prominent figure in his homeland Belgium and his reputation is rapidly spreading to the rest of the world. He studied at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven and graduated in 2000 with Master of Music degrees in Jazz and classical piano, both with great distinction. In 2001 he specialized in Chamber Music and was rewarded 'cum laude'. Jef started to play in local bands at the age of fourteen. During that period he composed a wide variety of pieces for the most divergent ensembles (from piano solo to symphonic orchestra).

For the first time ever, Gong's quintessential trilogy comprised of the albums Flying Teapot, Angels Egg and You are newly remastered from the original tapes and gathered together in a lavish EarBook. Maintaining the incredible sound quality and repackaging of 2015's critically acclaimed Camembert Electrique remaster, each CD album has been digitally remastered by Nick Robbins at SoundMastering Studios. This hardback EarBook edition features exclusive content including 60-pages full of artwork, rare photos, sleeve notes by Mojo magazine's Mark Paytress and more, together with a fourth CD of bonus material, including both sides of Gong's impossible-to-find debut single on BYG Records, released only in France in 1970.
The trilogy is a series of progressive rock concept albums consisting of Flying Teapot, Angel's Egg and You…

After two late-'60s albums on Columbia, Johnny Winter hit his stride in 1970 working with Rick Derringer and the McCoys, now recruited as his sidemen and collaborators (and proving with just about every note here how far they'd gotten past "Hang on Sloopy"). In place of the bluesy focus on his first two albums, Winter extended himself into more of a rock-oriented mode here, in both his singing and his selection of material. This was hard rock with a blues edge, and had a certain commercial smoothness lacking in his earlier work. Derringer's presence on guitar and as a songwriter saw to it that Winter's blues virtuosity was balanced by perfectly placed guitar hooks, and the two guitarists complemented each other perfectly throughout as well…

While trumpeter Webster Young pays tribute to Billie Holiday on this, his only studio date as a leader, the set is equally a tribute to Young's musical role model, Miles Davis. Young has Miles' soft-focus tone from the early to mid-'50s and, according to Ira Gitler's liner notes, he is actually playing Miles' cornet on the date. The similarities between the two players make this 1957 session a satisfying companion to Miles' work circa 1951-1953. Young is nicely matched here with tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, with the two of them using a pleasantly blowsy approach to weave loose, discursive counterpoint around each other. Guitarist Joe Puma distinguishes the set with thoughtful, understated playing that calls to mind Kenny Burrell's own Prestige dates from this period. Pianist Mal Waldron, drummer Ed Thigpen, and bassist Earl May infuse the performances with a cohesive, relaxed swing…

It speaks well for the continued viability of their catalog (probably second only to Bob Dylan's among '60s folk artists) that this is only the sixth compilation ever done on Peter, Paul & Mary's music in four decades of musical activity - and since one of the others was a Readers' Digest mail-order release and two of the others were done for special markets outside of the United States, that low number is downright astonishing. This release effectively supplants the perennially popular Ten Years Together: The Best of Peter, Paul & Mary, from 1970, and also outdoes the 2003 WEA International Very Best Of, with more songs drawn from a much wider chunk of their history as well. The material at hand covers not only most of the key singles and a handful of important album tracks by the trio from the 1960s, but also acknowledges their less widely heard solo material from the 1970s and their much more directly provocative work from the 1980s…

When the album "Phaedra" hit the album charts worldwide back in 1974, no one had foreseen such a remarkable career of a new musical sound created by Tangerine Dream. All instruments were new and unknown to the audience. The sound itself was the opposite of all common music at those days. During the concerts the band created an uncomparable atmosphere. Now, more than 30 years later you can listen to the modern form of this classic recording. The material has been re-recorded by using partly the same kind instruments as on the original recording. Also the new digital technology has played a keyrole during various recording sessions. It was not the intension to please all the TD purists and analogue fans ­ but you will have an idea of how the band is still connected to the style and trademark that has made them so original. The additional title "Delfi" has been composed 2005 in the spirit of the seventies.

Handel's Messiah is increasingly performed in authentic Baroque style and with period techniques, and this version by conductor Anders Öhrwall, the Stockholm Bach Choir, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra falls in line with the trend. While there is no clear indication that the instruments are anything but modern, the orchestral sound is imbued with a glossy string sound and transparent textures supported by a basso continuo that includes both harpsichord and organ, and the choir's scaled-down size gives it the transparency associated with Baroque choral singing.