The talented guitarist Joe Diorio has mostly recorded for obscure record companies throughout his career including this set for the completely forgotten Zdenek label. The early-'80s LP features Diorio (who has always had his own sound) in a trio/quartet with other Los Angeles-based musicians: keyboardist Carl Schroeder, bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Jim Plank. Diorio stretches out on five standards (including Jobim's "Bonita") plus one of his originals, playing some fine post-bop guitar that is often strikingly original.

Light Years, The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra is a two CD compilation album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). The album celebrates the band's 25th Anniversary singles career starting in 1972 and contains all of ELO's 29 UK hit singles plus other single edits that either didn't chart or were hits in other countries. All the songs included are the edited 7" single versions. It is also the first ELO compilation to feature the song "Across the Border" which was scheduled to be released as an EP track in 1980 but was withdrawn. Although not in chronological order, it is however the most comprehensive assemblage of the band's hits of the many compilations available. The album reached 60 in the UK Album Charts. The album was also released in Europe with an identical track order under the titles, The Swedish Collection and The Danish Collection.

Bach – Arrangements and Transcriptions – Official album release !
Jean-Baptiste Dupont, Cavaillé-Coll organ in St Sernin, Toulouse.

Ex Cockney Rebel / 10cc keyboard wizard Duncan Mackay's classic 1974 debut album Chimera is available for the first time. Re-mastered and approved by the artist with liner notes, rare photos and a bonus track, Chimera is essential for fans of keyboard driven prog rock in the vein of ELP and Rick Wakeman.

Even within the unpredictable Neil Young discography, this qualifies as one of his most unpredictable efforts. This soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man is entirely instrumental, with the exception of some poetry read by Johnny Depp (who stars in the film) and a bit of dialogue. What's more, these untitled instrumental passages are dominated by subterranean guitar rumbles that manage to sound both grungy and subdued. Young also takes care to vary his approach a bit, switching occaionally to pump organ, detuned piano, and acoustic guitar. The results not only evoke the hostile, desolate landscapes of the film's Old West, but work on their own terms as ambient mood music for the non-new age crowd, creating an atmosphere of restless disturbance with subtlety and grace. It's not necessarily for the typical Neil Young fan (whoever that might be), but it's certainly one of his most successful experimental efforts.

Though he has shown a mastery and affinity for both electric and acoustic axes, Tommy Emmanuel's Higher Octave debut, Midnight Drive, finds him focusing almost exclusively on warm yet frequently aggressive acoustic melodies, complemented here and there by the raw, plugged-in energy of Robben Ford and Larry Carlton. The overall mix is the kind that smooth jazz lovers find easy to swallow, but offers more bite and adventure than most like-minded releases in the genre. Smooth jazz radio may find an easy mark with a laid-back take of Sting's "Fields of Gold," but Emmanuel's other tracks dig deeper, showing off a stylistic chameleon drawing from the many phases of his career. His soft pop side comes out on power ballads "No More Goodbyes" and "Stay Close to Me," the latter reminding us why guest saxman Warren Hill's biggest hit to date was called "The Passion Theme." Emmanuel's more aggressive blues-rock side (honed no doubt by a few years in the progressive mid-'80s ensemble Dragon) emerges with Carlton's help on "Can't Get Enough." The striking contrast between the pastoral, folksy roads of "Drivetime" and the disc's best track, "Villa de Martin" best reflects the gamut of Emmanuel's approaches.

EMI Music presents RMX (Curated by Blank & Jones) - Superstars remixed by Superstars!
Pet Shop Boys, Robbie Williams, Moby, Depeche Mode, Katy Perry, David Guetta, Lenny Kravitz, Kylie Minogue, Blank & Jones and others.

You might think that Handel's Water Music, HWV 348-350, arguably the most familiar piece of Baroque music (the Four Seasons of Vivaldi can give it a run for its money, but its popularity is more recent), has received every possible interpretation. And you would be wrong, as the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin have shown in this Harmonia Mundi release, precisely recorded in Berlin's Teldex studio. You get a steady parade of innovations here, marked overall by, but not in the least restricted to, blisteringly fast tempos that turn the horn-dominated movements into tests of virtuosity. Unexpected dynamic contrasts and the unusual rhythmic treatment of the "Overture" to the Suite No. 1 (sample track one) are other novelties, but this veteran group is not out for shock value. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin operate without a conductor, and their coordination in these crisp prestos is worth the price of admission in itself. Their ability to act as one in really unusual shapings of each individual movement is remarkable, and the treacherous horn parts are near perfection in the hands of Erwin Wieringa and Miroslav Rovenský.

Charlie Musselwhite continues his prolific four-decade career jumping over to Telarc for his first album of the millennium after spending the '90s recording for Alligator and Virgin. A recap of his formative Memphis roots, Musselwhite receives substantial assistance from guests Robben Ford on guitar (Musselwhite provided Ford with his first gigs when the guitarist was in his late teens), Texas vocalist Kelly Willis, and guitarist/mandolin player Marty Stuart; the last two bring a rootsy, laid back country feel to the album that effectively fuses the swampy C&W, R&B, and blues of Memphis into a cohesive statement. Musselwhite blows unamplified harp on every track, but it's his weathered, understated vocals that infuse these songs with down-home charm. Covers from Jimmy Reed, Los Lobos (the album takes its title from their "One Time One Night"), Ivory Joe Hunter, and Kieran Kane flow beautifully into each other as the artist masterfully blurs the lines between genres.

Head Hunters is the twelfth studio album by the American pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, released October 13, 1973, on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during evening at Wally Heider Studios and Different Fur Trading Co. in San Francisco, California. Head Hunters is a key release in Hancock's career and a defining moment in the genre of jazz. In 2003, the album was ranked number 498 in the book version of Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2007, the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry, which collects "culturally, historically or aesthetically important" sound recordings from the 20th century.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

Agricola is not a regional soft drink from the Corn Belt, but a composer whose works were considered almost the equal of Josquin's by chroniclers of the sixteenth century. Born around 1446, he was a near contemporary of Josquin's great predecessor, Jacob Obrecht, and like his Flemish contemporaries he went south to seek fame and fortune through employment with Italy's powerful nobles. Recordings of his works have been few and far between, so any addition to the discography is welcome, and the pair of masses included here are both historically important works.

With this new recording, La Reverdie explores the well-known collection of medieval songbooks known as Carmina Burana. The manuscript features a series of texts, mostly in Latin, compiled between the 12th and early 13th century at the request of an anonymous abbot of Kloster Neustift in the southern Tyrol. Already the object of many recordings, these refined songs are presented here in an absolutely new approach. This recording focuses on the amorous and, above all, moralizing poems, partly because of the topicality of their messages. Performed in universities and ecclesiastical circles throughout all of Europe, they are a sort of highly refined ‘clerical entertainment’, lacking neither irony nor tender nostalgia.

Legendary artist Alicia Keys has just announced she will be releasing a deluxe edition of her latest album “Keys” called “Keys II”. The updated version of the album will release on August 12th and will include two new songs featuring Brent Faiyaz and Lucky Daye respectively. The deluxe edition will also feature two remixes of the superstar’s hit song “In Common” which has never appeared on an album previously.

Despite its title, Definitive Collection by Meat Loaf contains tracks drawn from only the first three of the six studio albums he had released by 1995: Bat Out of Hell (1977), Dead Ringer (1981), and Midnight at the Lost and Found (1983), all recorded for the Cleveland International imprint of Epic Records. The 75-minute disc includes five of the seven tracks from Bat Out of Hell, among them the hits "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth," and "Bat Out of Hell"; six of the eight tracks from Dead Ringer, among them the hits "I'm Gonna Love Her for Both of Us" and "Dead Ringer for Love"; and four of the ten tracks from Midnight at the Lost and Found, among them the hits "If You Really Want To" and "Midnight at the Lost and Found." The disc concludes with "I Love You So I Told You a Lie," a track from Ted Nugent's 1976 album Free-for-All on which Meat Loaf sings lead vocals. In addition, the package includes an extra 35-minute CD that contains the four Bat Out of Hell songs contained on Meat Loaf's 1987 concert recording Live (aka Live at Wembley). Thus, all of the singer's 1977-1983 U.S. and U.K. hits are included, along with some key album tracks. But given how much more popular Bat Out of Hell was than its successors, it might have made more sense to include that album in total and reduce the number of selections from the others. And with Meat Loaf also enjoying hits on Arista/RCA in the mid-'80s, plus his 1993 comeback with Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, this collection hardly seems definitive.