Pierrot lunaire, premiered in Berlin in 1912, is a series of twenty-one short melodramas for voice and five instruments on German translations of poems by Albert Giraud. Here the composer first introduces Sprechgesang (speech-song), a technique that revolutionised declamation. Schoenberg wanted the piece to be ironic, at once tender and grotesque, in the manner of cabaret songs. Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the violinist who is also an occasional actress, had long dreamt of playing and reciting this unique work. It was a pain in her arm preventing her from playing the violin that one day propelled her into the role of narrator: ‘All my life I have felt that I was Pierrot.

"I Will Not Go Quietly" and "The Wind Cries Mary" are just two of the highlights from this stormin' album which includes Don Airey, Bernie Marsden and Mario Parga in the line-up with Graham, Cozy and Ray. Formed in 1987, Forcefield’s ever-changing line-up brought together the mainstays of some of the biggest 80s rock bands. The original members were Pete Prescott, Ray Fenwick and Cozy Powell. Amongst guitarist Fenwick’s credits were The Spencer Davis Group, Fancy and The Ian Gillan Band, while drummer Powell had been a key figure in bands of the calibre of Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Whitesnake and is widely regarded as an all-time rock great.

Michael Chapman's The Man Who Hated Mornings might be seen as comparable to Eric Clapton's Slowhand release of the same year, and the presence of guitarist Mick Ronson (reunited with Chapman after six years spent elsewhere) does ensure that the frets get a fair workout as the album goes on. The comparison, however, has more in common with the mood of the record than any virtuoso concerns – it is Chapman at his most laid-back, and only occasionally stirring himself into first gear. A cover of Dylan's "Ballad in Plain D" is a triumphant highlight, seguing into Chapmans own "Steel Bonnets" instrumental to emerge a shoo-in for any "best-of" Chapman anthology.

By the release of Amigos, the Santana band's seventh album, only Carlos Santana and David Brown remained from the band that conquered Woodstock, and only Carlos had been in the band continuously since. Meanwhile, the group had made some effort to arrest its commercial slide, hiring an outside producer, David Rubinson, and taking a tighter, more up-tempo, and more vocal approach to its music. The overt jazz influences were replaced by strains of R&B/funk and Mexican folk music. The result was an album more dynamic than any since Santana III in 1971. "Let It Shine" (number 77), an R&B-tinged tune, became the group's first chart single in four years, and the album returned Santana to Top Ten status.

Jimi Hendrix's headlining appearance at the Atlanta Pop Festival would be the largest U.S. audience he would ever play to. Most people assume it was Woodstock, which was a larger festival, but by the time Jimi took the stage at around 9 a.m. on Monday morning, the Woodstock crowd was down to about 25,000 stragglers. Estimated between 300,000 and 400,000, the actual crowd at Hendrix's Atlanta Pop performance was hard to pin down due to the fact that many of the festivalgoers turned up after dark, in an effort to stay out of the stifling heat of Atlanta in the summertime. The trio of Jimi, Mitch, and Billy Cox had been touring for about two and a half months solid when July 4 rolled around, and they sound really tight kicking off the show. "Fire" starts the set, and one immediately notices how differently Billy Cox plays it versus Noel Redding. "Spanish Castle Magic" has Jimi trying out some new solo ideas and he really starts feeling it on a very improvisational, extended "Red House." A rare live performance of "Room Full of Mirrors" is followed by an absolutely incredible version of "Hear My Train A Comin'".

A striking musical rapport between Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Dutch pianist Harmen Fraanje is palpable in the duo’s quietly lyrical investigations on Touch of Time. These are delicate melodies and textures, flowing between two musicians, who are deeply in tune with nuances of tone-shadings and the detailed development of a musical idea. In both freely improvised forms and carefully wrought themes, their instruments connect gracefully, picking up and finishing each other’s phrases. Touch of Time, recorded in January 2023 at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, was produced by Manfred Eicher.

May Blitz were formed by vocalist/guitarist Jamie Black who recruited Tony Newman on drums, (ex Sounds Incorporated and Jeff Beck Group), and Reid Hudson (bass, vocals) in 1969. The original lineup featured bassist Terry Poole and drummer Keith Baker, from Bakerloo, but both left before recording anything for the band. Baker had a better offer from Uriah Heep, and went to record "Salisbury" with the band.
The band survived long enough to record two incredibly heavy, powerful and psychedelic albums with strong blues undertones and progressive tendencies, despite the lack of keyboards. These were released on Vertigo, who we also associate with Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep - but the music is probably heavier than either. Their style comes in somewhere around High Tide and the Pink Fairies - but these are really ballparks…

Frequently classified as the first album by the group Mountain, which was named after it, Leslie West's initial solo album featured bass/keyboard player Felix Pappalardi, who also produced it and co-wrote eight of its 11 songs, and drummer N.D. Smart II. (This trio did, indeed, tour under the name Mountain shortly after the album's release, even performing at Woodstock, though Smart was replaced by Corky Laing and Steve Knight was added as keyboard player for the formal recording debut of the group, Mountain Climbing!, released in February 1970.) Pappalardi had been Cream's producer, and that power trio, as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, were the models for this rock set, which was dominated by West's throaty roar of a voice and inventive blues-rock guitar playing. Though West had led the Vagrants for years and cut a handful of singles with them, this was his first album release, and it made for an auspicious debut, instantly establishing him as a guitar hero and setting the style of Mountain's subsequent recordings.

Sonic Alter was originally issued by Kim Cascone on his Silent imprint in 1994. The original Sonic Alter was one of the best selling atmospheric records, and possibly the best on Silent. Many brain-hemisphere synchronization techniques / frequencies are employed.
Michael Mantra (1950-2014) creates Ambient music. More than that, he creates tools for "brain hemisphere synchronization" (after synchronizing the mind and the body, Mantra’s work claims to release endorphins - part of the human body’s natural pharmacy which work at the level of opiates). Mixing modulating high and low harmonic tones (low deep drones and high resonating harmonics) with didgeridoo, ocean waves, rain, water, birds and other natural sounds and instruments, Michael creates a perfect ambient soundscape…

Michael Bolton has been called many things over the years, but never savvy – and that may actually apply, judging by his last few albums. He stopped having giant hits somewhere around the mid-'90s, but it took him only one album to realize that he need to change direction, bringing Tony Rich and Babyface aboard 1997's All That Matters to help him adjust to shifting tides. It was a move that worked, even if it didn't sell all that much, and now, two albums (a forgotten covers album and a bizarre foray into opera) and one record label later, he does a similar thing with Only a Woman Like You, teaming with such adult contemporary stalwarts as Richard Marx, Shania Twain, and Twain's husband, Mutt Lange, for a variety of cuts but, more importantly, paying attention to the trends that get music on the radio.