A collaboration between Yes singer Jon Anderson and other like-minded musicians, In Elven Lands is a celebration of the mythical worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, featuring an imagining of Elvish music using medieval instruments, early music techniques, and Elvish and Anglo-Saxon lyrics. There's also a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Nevermore," done in typically archaic style.

Searching for a way to retool their sound, Judas Priest attempted to accentuate their melodic side on Turbo by incorporating synthesizers and '80s pop-metal stylings ("Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days" sounds more like Poison (albeit with synths). The restrained songcraft sometimes pays dividends, especially on the PMRC-bashing "Private Property" and "Parental Guidance," and the synth-driven leadoff track "Turbo Lover," the latter of which is easily the best song on the record, and a successful reimagining of the Priest formula. But often, the band simply sounds directionless, unsure of exactly which path to accessibility it should follow; moreover, the synth-guitar backing and overly polished production give the album an oddly mechanized, processed feel…

After seven albums, Chris Rea was finally beginning to get the hang of what makes a commercial success. He had not changed his style throughout the 1980s, but now it was 1985 and the synth pop sounds and new romantics were both long gone – and in their place were stadium-filling anthemic rock or power ballads. Shamrock Diaries was a mix of soft ballads like "Chisel Hill" and "One Golden Rule" along with saxophone-led uptempo numbers such as the title track and the feel-good song of the summer, "All Summer Long," which would have made an ideal single had Magnet decided to release it. Shamrock Diaries was written very much with family in mind, particularly considering the two singles released: "Stainsby Girls" was a tribute to his wife, Joan, who had attended Stainsby Secondary Modern School; and "Josephine" was written for his eldest daughter.

~ All Music

The last album with Rob Dean, Gentlemen Take Polaroids was also unquestionably the album in which Japan truly found its own unique voice and aesthetic approach. The glam influences still hung heavy, particularly from Roxy Music, but now the band found itself starting to affect others in turn. Even the back cover photo says as much – looking cool in glossy, elegant nightwear, the quintet had a clear impact on Duran Duran, to the point where Nick Rhodes obviously was trying to be Sylvian in appearance. Musically, meanwhile, the swooning, hyper elegant Euro-disco sheen of Quiet Life was polished to an even finer edge throughout, the title track and the obvious descendant of "Quiet Life" itself, "Methods of Dance," in particular sheer standouts. Sylvian's sighing, luscious croon is in full effect on both, and the arrangements are astonishing, Karn's fretless purring between Jansen's crisp, inventive, and varied drumming, Barbieri's icy keyboards filling out the corners. What makes Gentlemen Take Polaroids even more of a success is how the group, having reached such a polished peak, kept driving behind it, transforming their exquisite pop into something even more artistic and unique.

One of the Canterbury scene's most revered bands, Hatfield and the North made up for the brevity of their career with some fascinating music. Always adventurous, the quartet had the keen sense to realize that only the most hardened jazz fans respond to numerous key changes and exceedingly complex time signatures, and thus enlivened their live set with the odd gnome smashing, suggestive lyrics, and jokey song titles. It worked a charm, with the band quickly amassing a large, loyal following at home in Britain and across the continent. On their eponymous debut, Hatfield stunningly succeeded in translating both their sense of fun and their musical brilliance onto disc.

In its new GENUIN CD "Die Weihe des Hauses" (The Consecration of the House), the Philharmonie Südwestfalen / Landesorchester NRW presents the entire diversity of a modern symphony orchestra. The occasion for this CD is the orchestra's move to its new domicile, the Haus der Musik in Siegen. Chief conductor Nabil Shehata chose orchestral music from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day for this production, making full use of his orchestra's strengths: Beethoven's overture to "The Consecration of the House", with its almost baroque sonority, Tchaikovsky's passionate and virtuosic 5th Symphony, and Andres Reukauf's lively and playful "Südwestfalen-Fanfare" (South Westphalia Fanfare) span a wide range of the repertoire that the powerful state orchestra offers its audience.

Saxophonist and composer John Klemmer was restlessly following some inner call in the late 1960s through the late '70s. Aside from his big-boned tenor sound and his trademark unique Echoplex on certain tunes, he was making music that crossed numerous jazz, pop, rock, soul, and Latin genres. 1978's Arabesque is a case in point. Co-produced by the saxophonist and Stephan Goldman, Klemmer used a pool of studio players on this date in addition to a small band. Drummer Lenny White and bassist Abe Laboriel made up his trio, while pianists Roger Kellaway, Pat Rebillot, and Victor Feldman alternately held down the piano chair. The most telling thing about this date is Klemmer's employment of some of the best Brazilian percussionists in the game in Airto Moreira and Alex Acuña…

As a young man, the composer Hans Gál experienced an artistic turning point, as the worlds of late Romanticism and New Music collided during the First World War. Everything was in motion. During this turbulent time, Gál shaped his own style with ingenious formal progressions.

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased.

By all outward appearances, The Best of Caravan Live seems to fit the description and packaging of a budget release. Indeed, this is what all but the most inquisitive enthusiasts must surely have thought when passing up the French two-LP set in 1980. In actuality, the music contained within these grooves is a performance by Caravan from the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, September 1, 1974. The band used this gig to prepare for their inaugural North American tour. Additionally, the performance was documented in hopes of using the best bits as a promotional tool for their upcoming shows. However, the tapes remained dormant for nearly two years. Then in 1976, the epic "For Richard" was judiciously extracted and subsequently included as an unreleased bonus on the double LP Canterbury Tales retrospective…

Kate Bush's strongest album to date also marked her breakthrough into the American charts, and yielded a set of dazzling videos as well as an enviable body of hits, spearheaded by "Running Up That Hill," her biggest single since "Wuthering Heights." Strangely enough, Hounds of Love was no less complicated in its structure, imagery, and extra-musical references (even lifting a line of dialogue from Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon for the intro of the title song) than The Dreaming, which had been roundly criticized for being too ambitious and complex.

Dancing Fantasy partners Curtis McLaw and Chris Williams had previously worked together in the Blue Knights; this particular project was a smooth-jazz variation on their fascination with German synth experimentalists like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. Dancing Fantasy started their career at German electronic label IC Digit in 1990, had an overnight success with the debut album „Midnight Blvd.“, that entered Billboards NAC Top 10, songs like „Cry Nature“ and „Voodoo Jammin´“ brought heavy rotation air-play on all important US jazz and new-age radio stations. After the first album's commercial success, the duo continued the studio project with their next release, „California Grooves“ in 1991. This album garnered an even bigger success than their debut - spawning songs like „Good Morning America“ and „Malibu“…

Clear Air Turbulence is the second studio album by British jazz rock band Ian Gillan Band, released in 1977. The album was initially worked on during the period July 1976 to September 1976. A UK tour was promoted, though all of the dates were postponed until April 1977 in order that the new album could be rerecorded and remixed at Kingsway Recorders, London. Ian Gillan became dissatisfied with the final mixes of the album and this delayed its eventual release. What eventually became the album Clear Air Turbulence was remixed at Kingsway before release, but the original mix had taken place at Rockfield Studios in Wales.[4] In 1997 the original mix was released by Angel Air Records under the title The Rockfield Mixes and represents a "cleaner" (or at least earlier) version of the album.

Storytone arrived at the end of a year that already saw another new Neil Young album – that would be A Letter Home, a collection of folk covers recorded at Jack White's Voice-O-Graph direct-to-vinyl recording booth at Third Man Records – which itself was only the tip of the iceberg that was Neil's 2014. That spring, Young launched a high-end digital audio system called Pono, which was followed by the summer news that he was divorcing Pegi, his wife of 36 years, an event that led to a fresh feud with David Crosby that then led to Young saying he would never play with CSN again and, if that weren't enough, Young also published his second book, Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars, just prior to the release of Storytone.