UK quartet Starsailor are getting very busy indeed. Their anthemic new single 'Listen To Your Heart' is available now and bodes well for their upcoming new album 'All This Life' due September 1st via Cooking Vinyl. This will be the first album of new material from the band in nearly a decade (2009 to be exact). To support the album the band will be touring the UK in October.

Martin Lang returns for his second album for what Lang and his producer and liner notes writer Dick Shurman both call this an “ensemble album.” There is a team behind the effort, with Oscar Wilson fronting the band with his sublime vocal style on five tracks, Rusty Zinn singing on two tracks and Martin singing on the first and last tracks. Five of the cuts are instrumentals and showcase Lang on harp and Billy Flynn and Zinn as guitarists. Illinois Slim and Jimmy Upstairs share the bass duties and Dean Haas is on drums throughout. Dave Waldman also tinkles the keys on a couple of tracks.

A hundred years after her birth, there are still plenty of lessons to be learned from listening to Ella Fitzgerald. But that s not the only takeaway that Regina Carter has gleaned from Ella s storied career. On her new album, Ella: Accentuate the Positive, the virtuoso violinist reveals the many aspects of Fitzgerald that have influenced her own remarkable path in music. That translates to an album that avoids the more obvious song choices in favor of more obscure though no less rewarding tunes from deep inside Ella s bountiful catalogue. Instead of trying to echo Fitzgerald s own choices and arrangements, or attempting the near-impossible task of evoking her beloved voice on the violin, Carter has done what has always set her apart followed her own dauntless instincts, resulting in a singular new take on both familiar and hidden classics.

This is one of Abdullah Ibrahim's most colorful band recordings. With a 12-piece group that includes altoist Carlos Ward, trombonist Craig Harris and bassist Cecil McBee along with some lesser-known names, Ibrahim performs eight folklike originals that pay tribute to his life growing up in South Africa. "The Homecoming Song," "Anthem for the New Nation" and especially "The Wedding" (a beautiful hymn) are particularly memorable.

Chopin is best loved for his solo piano music however there have always been question marks over the orchestration in his concertos. In the first concerto, which was in fact the second to be composed, both soloist and orchestra deliver a first rate performance. Chopin’s second concerto is lighter and more piano dominated. Here the soloist Kun-Woo Paik sounds happier and more involved than in the first concerto.

Diva de Lai is coming on to the new music scene as an innovative band that is looking to mix two unique styles, Rock and Opera. Dylan at the Opera is a concept album composed of original Bob Dylan songs rearranged in different rock styles with operatic vocals and represents their latest release.

Before anything else is said, it has to be admitted that the 1963 recording with Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter is beyond all argument the greatest set of Beethoven's cello sonatas ever recorded. Nevertheless, for the single best recording of Beethoven's cello sonata, it should be this 1965 recording by Pierre Fournier and Wilhelm Kempff. Because while Rostropovich and Richter are the greater virtuosos, their virtuosity is also inevitably the prism through which Beethoven's music radiates and his music is colored by their virtuosity.

If These Trees Could Talk are back with another album, another hour of noble, tragic, and cinematic post-metal. There is nothing radically new, no startling changes, but this is better, and I think it is largely because the production is improved. The Ohio band's slow, simple, layered sound here is deep, rich, and reverberant, like a cathedral. The cathedral of the Earth, perhaps, given that the central theme of the band is climate change and the environmental crisis. Despite no vocals or lyrics, that theme has always been clear from the band's name, from the names of the songs, and from the graphics. Tragedy is not enough, we also need to be angry, and to translate our compassion and anger into effective action. That's my reservation about ITTCT's music. But on its own terms, it sounds great. It's not a suitable soundtrack for activism, but perhaps the band's cinematic sound can be used for actual soundtracks, like Explosions in the Sky.

Fire Records are thrilled to announce that they have signed one of their favourite bands, Australian psychedelic pop outfit Blank Realm. Their new album Go Easy initially came out on a limited edition, vinyl only run via the awesome tastemaker label Siltbreeze and in Australia on the equally wonderful Bedroom Suck, but now through Fire it will be getting the widely distributed release it deserves in March, on CD and Pink 180gram 12″ LP. Blank Realm are one of the most popular bands in the booming Australian underground and have morphed in to a modern day Royal Trux, as Pitchfork described them in their review, they create: “a bluesy waltz in which Sarah Spencer’s snarl hits Jennifer Herrema levels.”

American Dream (stylized on digital releases as american dream) is the upcoming fourth studio album by American rock band LCD Soundsystem. It is set for release on September 1, 2017 through DFA Records and Columbia Records. It was first announced on January 5, 2016, the day after it was revealed that the band was reuniting after a disbandment lasting nearly five years. American Dream acts as the band's first album in seven years, following This Is Happening (2010). Prior to the album's release, LCD Soundsystem performed at large music festivals as well as smaller shows to promote their reunion. Two album tracks, "Call the Police" and "American Dream", were released together as the album's lead single on May 5, 2017.