One of the most defining guitarists and singers, Kai Hansen, started to conquer the world in the beginning of the 80s. After his debut - solo - album XXX he played the entire collection of songs at Wacken…

Back in 2012, ethno-ambient musician Makyo released a four track EP "Purnima" made up of his recent live recordings. This was essentially one take recordings of the live five piece Makyo band setup. It reflected the sound that the group and leader Gio had been perfecting in live situations in clubs and events in Japan over the previous year or so. Well received, as most things Makyo are, the EP represented a chance for fans living outside of Japan to experience some of the magic of a live Makyo event. Fast forward to 2014 and Makyo has delivered a remix version of that EP in the form of "Purnima Remixed". This is quite a tantalizing idea as it allows new life to be breathed into the original album while keeping both distinctly separate thanks to a live vs studio based pairing.

There is no other album like Bat Out of Hell, unless you want to count the sequel. This is Grand Guignol pop – epic, gothic, operatic, and silly, and it's appealing because of all of this. Jim Steinman was a composer without peer, simply because nobody else wanted to make mini-epics like this. And there never could have been a singer more suited for his compositions than Meat Loaf, a singer partial to bombast, albeit shaded bombast…

Granted, there are better individual performances of the various symphonies from conductors as diverse as Eugen Jochum, Leonard Bernstein, Trevor Pinnock, and Thomas Fey; but when all is said and done this remains the finest complete set of Haydn symphonies yet recorded, and its basic musicality only seems to grow more impressive over time.