The album is focused on the core trio of Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne, and Bev Bevan who were the remaining members of rock group The Move. The Move were still releasing singles in the UK at the same time as this project was undertaken, but interest was soon to be abandoned in Wood's former band. The sound is unique on this recording in comparison to the more slickly produced ELO albums of the subsequent Lynne years, incorporating many wind instruments and replacing guitar parts with heavy, "sawing" cello riffs, giving this recording an experimental "Baroque-and-roll" feel; indeed, "The Battle of Marston Moor" is the most baroque-influenced track on the album. …

Anders Wigelius is a smashing young vocalist who caught the ears of producer Daniel Flores when he sung the ubiquitous Journey anthem, “Don’t Stop Believing” on TV. Anders is a devoted fan of the classic melodic rock genre that had its peak in the 80s with bands like Richard Marx, Toto, Journey, and Foreigner. He honed his chops playing in an AOR covers band called Gamblers, before forming Wigelius. Fundamental to good AOR is good melodies and hooks, catchy choruses and nice guitar solos. It's all here.

Barry Douglass Schubert series has reached Volume 3 with this unique programme, featuring two of the composers masterpieces as well as two ingenious transcriptions of his Lieder by his friend and admirer Liszt. Occasionally echoing Beethovens Variations in the same key (WoO 80), the Sonata in C minor melts into one of Schuberts most daring, lyrical, and unpredictable developments, alternating unexpected harmonic variations, pulsating rhythms, and purely dramatic passages.

Sie machten den Kasatschok in deutschen Diskotheken salonfähig und wurden von Ralph Siegel eigens für die Teilnahme am Grand Prix gegründet: Vor 30 Jahren stürmten Dschinghis Khan die Hitparaden. Schlagerpapst Ralph Siegel bewies schon vor 30 Jahren ein Händchen für Bands mit Wiedererkennungswert. 1979 gründete und produzierte er die Kultband Dschinghis Khan, deren Superhits Dschinghis Khan und Moskau bis heute auf keiner guten Schlagerparty fehlen dürfen. Für ihre ausgefallenen Choreografien und Kostüme erhielt die Band 1980 sogar einen Bambi.

With the publication of E Mark Windle’s book House Of Broken Hearts, the city of Nashville’s black music scene is being studied in detail for the first time since Kent issued the CDs “Uptown Down South” and “Music City Soul” in the late 90s. To coordinate with the book we are releasing another compilation of Nashville soul, this time concentrating on the work of multi-talented songwriter, producer and arranger Bob Holmes. Those earlier CDs featured Excello/A-Bet and Poncello/Ref-O-Ree recordings respectively. This new collection also draws from those sources, plus Bob Holmes’ personal tapes and other third-party licenses. The time span is 1965 to 1980.

From Spain to Mexico and Brazil, the RNCM Wind Orchestra, under the conductors Clark Rundell and Mark Heron, here celebrates the strong Latin tradition of wind bands in an exhilarating programme. The album prominently features works by one of the most iconic composers for winds, the Brazilian Villa-Lobos. Their liveliness, freely changing modalities, ease of flow, and likeable sonorities are a striking compositional signature, the unusual Concerto Grosso exploring a unique sound world with concertante discussion among the four wind soloists and the wind band.

Mit ihrem brandneuen Album LASS DEN SCHLAGER IN DEIN HERZ starten die Gruppe WIND und DA Music in diesem Jahr ihre Zusammenarbeit. Eindrucksvoll beweist die erste Singleauskopplung EIN TAG AM MEER, dass hier kreative Köpfe und leidenschaftliche Musiker für den Schlager brennen. Die Gruppe WIND liefert einen eingängigen, ziemlich frischen und modernen Schlagertitel, dessen Sound- und Wortwahl die Kälte vertreibt und Lust auf Sonnenstrahlen macht - ganz im Stile der Formation um Frontmann Andreas Lebbing, dessen unverwechselbare Stimme in diesem Song von seinen Kolleginnen sehr charmant eingebettet wird. NUR MIT DIR IST JEDER AUGENBLICK EIN TAG AM MEER - die Zeile bleibt ganz problemlos im Kopf, der Beat kommt entspannt und zugleich groovend daher.

Die Hundskrippln sind eine junge und talentierte Band aus dem Raum Ingolstadt. Den witzigen Bandnamen haben die jungen Musiker allerdings nicht selbst erfunden, sondern im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes geerbt: “ ‚Die oidn Hundskrippln‘, das sind drei Herren aus der Generation vor uns”, erklärt Gitarrist Michael Hecker. Das Trio spielte bayerische Musik ausschließlich auf dem heimischen Starkbierfest, bis sie irgendwann drei jüngere Musiker aus dem Dorf dazu holten und anfingen, größere Volksfestbühnen zu erobern. Als sich die erste Generation der Hundskrippln 2012 zurückzog, machten die drei jungen Mitglieder Bassist Franz Eichhammer, Keyboarder Christian Winkler und Gitarrist Andreas Semmler weiter und holten mit Schlagzeuger Christian Besel und den Gitarristen Michael Hecker und Thomas Eberl weitere, altbekannte Freunde aus der Gemeinde in die Band – die zweite Generation der Hundskrippln war geboren.

Pulling on influences from the 60s pop of The Byrds, The Beatles and The Beach Boys, through to the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with dashes of Petty and Springsteen thrown in for good measure, perhaps the most remarkable thing is that what shines through all of this is the quality and originality of the songwriting. The songs deal with wide-ranging issues and personal truths, from the aptly titled opener 'Soon Enough' through the biographical tale of Danny's family in 'Wilson General Store' and the politically-charged rallying cry of 'Hate Won't Win' to the social commentary of epic album-closer 'Lifeboat (Take a Picture of Yourself)'.

Tom Misch highly anticipated debut album ‘Geography' is released via his own label Beyond The Groove / Kobalt Music Recordings. ‘Geography’ is an exploration of a musical landscape, named after a passion of Tom’s which was never pursued, dances between genres including Disco, Soul, Hip-Hop and Jazz, a true testament to Tom’s diverse sound and genre fluidity.

The genesis of this recording was Dan Laurin’s idea to commission a concerto for recorder and symphony orchestra. He had performed a number of such works already, but felt that the new, more powerful ‘Eagle’ recorder developed by the maker Adriana Breukink could help with avoiding the usual problems with balance between soloist and orchestra. Having interested the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in the project, he then approached the Italian composer Vito Palumbo – and the ball was set in motion!

Hailing from Manchester, England, indie rock quartet the Courteeners received regular comparisons in the U.K. press to the leading lights of three previous waves of Mancunian Brit-pop: the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Oasis. The band's alternately jangly and bombastic brand of indie guitar rock bears the influence of all three acts, as well as comparisons to contemporaries like Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian. Featuring vocalist Liam Fray, lead guitarist Daniel Conan Moores, bassist Mark Cupello, and drummer Michael Campbell, the Courteeners formed in Manchester in 2006, when the 22-year-old Fray – already known around town for his acoustic singer/songwriter gigs – brought three of his childhood friends together to form a proper band.

Mozart’s horn concertos are so well-known that for many listeners the sound of the horn and Mozart are virtually synonymous. Mozart was not the first composer to write solo concertos for the horn, however, and works from earlier on in the eighteenth century give a quite different perspective on the instrument.

Albert Camus once wrote 'when I describe what the catastrophe of modern man looks like, music comes into my mind the music of Gustav Mahler'. If asked to specify a particular work, it is quite possible that Camus would have proposed Symphony No. 6 in A minor the symphony that Bruno Walter claimed portrayed 'a terrifying, hopeless darkness, without a human sound'.

Makeness is pleased to announce his debut album, Loud Patterns, coming out April 6th on Secretly Canadian. Crafting tracks which make a virtue of disparate influences, Kyle Molleson manages to pull off something difficult: songs which have been tirelessly worked on, although sound loose-limbed and to-the-point. Loud Patterns is noticeably indebted to house and techno; there are 4/4 rhythms, and a no-nonsense directness that harks back to the Detroit pioneers. Channeling avant-garde experimentalism and an outsider's interest in pop, Kyle embraces the distance between those two poles. Cosmic Slop, an underground institution in Leeds, was another touchstone. As Kyle recalls, "That place was definitely an awakening in terms of dance music." It boasts a hand-built, peerless soundsystem, a near-pitch black dancefloor and a music policy that ranges from Dilla instrumentals to Detroit house. Loud Patterns arrives after a series of releases that have established his particular, in-between approach to dance-minded music. He put out two EPs on Manchester-based imprint Handsome Dad, a one-off single with Adult Jazz and self-released Temple Works EP; Whities also released a limited-edition white label of a Minor Science dub of one of his tracks.