The flashy style of hip-hop-inspired contemporary R&B neologized by journalist Barry Michael Cooper – in an October 1987 Village Voice feature on innovative producer and Guy leader Teddy Riley – gets a surprising and thoughtful overview through a two-disc volume in Hip-O/Universal's extensive Gold series. It's not definitive, but it's representative. More significantly, it's a rare anthology capable of wowing casual listeners on a nostalgia trip, as well as collectors. Rather than merely compile album versions and single edits of the biggest hits in the Universal-distributed catalog, Hip-O goes deep with some dubs, extended mixes, and remixes. For every two massive crossover hits (such as Keith Sweat's Riley-produced "I Want Her" and Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative") there's a forgotten R&B hit or a buried gem, such as Jeff Redd's "You Called and Told Me" – an exemplary but low-charting single rightly considered a classic by NJS fanatics. Some might be surprised by the presence of Al Green, but he appears with a track produced by Al B. Sure! and Kyle West, who don't get enough credit for their contribution to the style's genesis and development.

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls" and "get it on together." "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers" bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme.

Limited Edition of 300 numbered copies incl. a 12 page booklet with the complete tracklistings and information. What an incredible listening experience this way! Three mixes for each song: front, back and center speaker mixes! The center and back speaker mixes reveal a lot - buried instruments or vocals now clear and sweet! You will hear things you never heard before!

It's no understatement to call Elvis Presley the chief catalyst of the rock 'n' roll era. Presley earned his nickname ''The King'' by releasing dozens of course-altering singles over the course of his influential career. During the 1950s, Presley's records spent a collective 53 weeks in the No.1 chart position. On 24 Karat Hits, two dozen of the King's greatest recordings have been painstakingly compiled using the original 1, 2 and 3-track tapes. All the hits are here from Heartbreak Hotel to Suspicious Minds. Elvis as weve never heard him before.

The U.K.'s Edsel label gives the first two Heatwave albums – Too Hot to Handle and Central Heating, brilliant releases that reached the Top Five of Billboard's R&B albums chart, crossed over, and marked the arrival of major songwriter, arranger, and keyboardist Rod Temperton – some much-needed attention. There are five bonus tracks, including the extended version of "The Groove Line," the "Special Disco Version" of "Boogie Nights," and the decent "Too Hot to Handle" B-side "Slip Your Disc to This." One unfortunate gripe: a split-second timing error on the indexing mark between Too Hot to Handle's "Boogie Nights" and "Ain't No Half Steppin'."

Japanese reissue, part of Universal's 'Disco Fever' 2018 campaign for the Japanese market.

Girder Music presents fully remastered audio on both CD and 180 gram color vinyl of the first two Petra albums 1974 and Come and Join Us. It took us years working with Word|Curb records to make these releases happen, but we did it.

A new chapter, a new-line-up, a newly minted sound; Miki Berenyi Trio's debut album Tripla is a landmark record for its three creators: Miki Berenyi, KJ 'Moose' McKillop and Oliver Cherer. The album's richly layered, imaginative and uniquely slanted strain of dream pop is an often euphoric and sometimes melancholic mix of guitars and electronica, fronted by Miki's instantly recognisable vocal, overlaid with an often profound and sometimes abrasive or yearning view of the world. Miki Berenyi Trio, or MB3 for short, is named after its lead singer - a direct way to convey the presence of the former singer/co-guitarist of Lush, and one of the most instantly recognisable faces of the '90s - but the songwriting is entirely a three-way collaboration, as the album title describes: acknowledging the mother tongue of Miki's father, Tripla is Hungarian for 'triple'.

On her PENTATONE debut Reine de coeur, star soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller brings the German and French art song traditions together, focusing on song cycles by Robert Schumann, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Francis Poulenc, accompanied by pianist Juliane Ruf. The album presents a highly personal anthology of songs that address love and loss, and the heights and depths of the human soul. While Schumann’s Sechs Gesänge Op. 107 and Sechs Gedichte und Requiem Op. 90 offer the quintessence of the Romantic German Lied, Zemlinsky’s turn-of-the-century Walzer-Gesänge introduce the listener to a later and less well-known chapter in the genre’s history.

Allan Clayton demonstrates his exceptional versatility with a Liszt programme of eighteen songs, all of which—in contrasting ways—make prodigious technical and musical demands of the performers.

We badly need a complete set of Zelenka's orchestra works, as Arkiv's edition has long vanished into the remainder bins, and this one (previously issued as three separate CDs) fits the bill nicely. Although the players use "authentic instruments", their sound is comparatively warm and gentle, though this doesn't mean that they don't handle with aplomb the insanely virtuosic horn parts in the Capriccios, or the bubbling wind writing in the Concerto. The inclusion of the overture from Melodrama de S. Wenceslao makes an interesting bonus, with its fascinating opposition of simultaneous duple and triple rhythms.

Le sonate per violino e basso continuo di Giovanni Antonio Guido (1675-1728 ca.) costituiscono un’importante testimonianza della diffusione della sonata italiana in Francia nella prima metà del Settecento. Nato a Genova, Guido si trasferì a Napoli verso la fine del XVII secolo per entrare a studiare come violinista presso il Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini. Completato il suo apprendistato intorno al 1690, entrò a far parte della Cappella Reale di Napoli, ma intorno al 1702 fu tra i primi musicisti napoletani a trasferirsi a Parigi. Le sei sonate pubblicate a Parigi nel 1726 e dedicate al Duca d’Orléans, si caratterizzano per una felice sintesi del virtuosismo italiano e dell’eleganza francese, uno stile che avrà un’influenza decisiva sui musicisti della generazione successiva.

A type of music that sometimes draws on jazz, sometimes on contemporary music, but without merely just creating a collage. On the contrary, it is rather the singularity of a coherent voice which forms this alliance. Tom Bourgeois offers us paradoxical music with Lili, very constructed and also free at the same time. A very alive sound reminding us that love transcends gender and years

Classica is the third studio album by Italian band Novembre.
After the sudden change in sound of the sophomore album Arte Novecento, the leading Italian atmospheric metal group Novembre is back with the next album. The gently subtle touches from the previous release are replaced with a direction that could be initially witnessed in the debut album Wish I Could Dream Again - contrast between two polar parts - crushing Death Metal with ferocious growls and mellow, often acoustic, passages. However, Classica is not a return to the roots, and songs sound drastically different, yet keep that touch, which Novembre are instantly recognised for.

Lea Maria Fries emerges from Switzerland's expanding music scene with her debut album'Cleo'. Predominantly written and composed by the artist, with production coming from her bassist,Julien Herne. This deep and delicate work is full of stories recounting an artist's quest to write her own future. Tales told with confidence, maturity and sensitivity.