Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of an expanded 2CD re-mastered edition of the classic 1977 album A Major Fancy by Barclay James Harvest guitarist and vocalist John Lees. Although originally released in 1977 by EMI’s Harvest label, the album was recorded between December 1972 and January 1973 at Abbey Road studios and Strawberry Studios in Stockport. Produced by Wally Allen of the Pretty Things, the album sessions featured a host of notable guest musicians including Eric Stewart and Kevin Godley (of 10cc), Skip Allen (Pretty Things), Gordon Edwards (Pretty Things) and Rod Argent (Zombies & Argent). The sessions for A Major Fancy also gave birth to the classic Child Of The Universe along with impressive material such as Untitled No. 1 - Heritage, Long Ships, Witburg Night and Kes (A Major Fancy)…

The ultimate live album from the masters of Polish prog. Recorded in June 2024 in Warsaw, ‘Live ID.’ is the culmination of the ‘ID.Entity’ cycle, with 12 tracks totalling over 110 minutes. Live ID. not only features thrilling performances from Riverside's latest and most acclaimed studio album, which made it into the major international Top Albums charts, but also revisits catalogue favourites such as ‘#Addicted’, ‘Panic Room’ and ‘Conceiving You’.

Opening Remarks is the first of just a handful of recordings Ted Dunbar made as a leader, as he delayed committing to a full-time music career until giving up his pharmacy practice in 1972. While Dunbar is a better-than-average guitarist, it is his writing that makes this album worth acquiring. He couldn't have better accompaniment to make his first LP, with Tommy Flanagan on piano, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Leroy Williams. Although the session consists exclusively of originals, the musicians seem to work through Dunbar's charts effortlessly. Highlights include the bittersweet but mellow ballad "Hang in There," the breezy "Lazy Lane" (a barely disguised reworking of the chord changes to "On Green Dolphin Street"), and the loping bossa nova "Tonal Search." This long unavailable LP is well worth tracking down.

This album by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra playing on period instruments under the direction of Aapo Häkkinen includes Ludwig van Beethovens complete incidental music to Goethes Egmont. This complete music includes parts sung by soprano Elisabeth Breuer as well as spoken texts narrated by Robert Hunger-Bühler.

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

Grace Jones teamed with the great reggae production duo of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on this 1980 album, and made the transition from straight dance and club act into quasi-pop star with reggae and urban contemporary leanings. The single "Private Life" was one of her best, and the overall album had more energy and production gloss than previous LPs that had been aimed completely at the club market. It helped that Jones seemed enthused about the session and really put herself into the songs.

Cave Of Clear Light is a 3CD Anthology that tells the story of the Underground years of the Pye record label and its Progressive imprint Dawn Records. Often unfairly seen as a poor relation to the Progressive and Underground releases by major labels such as Decca, Harvest, Vertigo, Island and United Artists, Pye Records also released many albums and singles by artists who were at the forefront of the Underground rock explosion of the late 1960 s and early 1970 s. Cave Of Clear Light re-appraises the labels output and features tracks by artists such as Donovan, Status Quo, Man, Atomic Rooster and Fruupp, also including many rare tracks by highly collectable artists such as Jonesy, David Mcwilliams, Stray, Paul Brett's Sage, Fire, Titus Groan, Demon Fuzz, Noir, Comus, Gravy Train, Writing On The Wall and many more…

Joyce Di Donato and Maite Beaumont are outstanding as the devoted couple tormented by Tiridate’s abuse of power. Their flexible and agile voices are ideally displayed in the opening scenes of Act 2 – Beaumont’s sublime ‘Quando mai’ followed by Di Donato’s powerful ‘Ombra cara’. Patrizia Ciofi is suited to the moods of the Tiridate’s long-suffering wife. Dominique Labelle is the most rounded and ideally equipped Handel soprano in the cast: the music effortlessly trips off her tongue in ‘Mirerò quel vago volto’…

Following their hugely successful cycle of Vaughan Williams’ nine symphonies, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Andrew Manze in this album of the composer’s most popular shorter orchestral works. This disc features Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending and The Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, as well as the rarely performed orchestral version of The Serenade to Music.

For the upcoming 500th anniversary of the death of the great Franco-Flemish composer Pierre de la Rue (around 1460-1518), the vocal ensemble The Sound and the Fury, which specializes in early music, has recorded a selection of the composer’s artistic masses for the label FRA BERNARDO, which impressively reflect the high standard at the court of the music-loving and music-savvy Margaret of Austria. The Pierre de la Rue masses on this recording have one thing in common: they are all based on monadic models, thus in keeping with the most traditional of cyclic mass composition models, the cantus firmus mass.

When The Omega Syndicate burst onto the scene in 2004 with their exhilarating debut “Analogue Waves” they quickly made quite an impression and many friends into the bargain. In a UK scene often accused of being lacklustre and amateurish, The Omega Syndicate have flown in the face of any such criticism with their exciting and dynamic fresh sounding take on the traditional Berlin School sound. Although they are creating long tracks with synths, sequencers and Mellotrons, what they produce is wholly original and while it can be said firmly and squarely to be “Berlin School”, it doesn’t always sound like a clone of Schulze or Tangerine Dream.

With her mix of blues, soul, and rock, plus the just tangible presence of her native Mississippi gospel background, Zora Young can be a powerful performer when the material is there. On the best cuts from Tore Up from the Floor Up, her third album and second for Delmark, she shows a kind of hard-earned wisdom and an assurance in her vocals that rises well above mere shouting, and tracks like the moody, dynamic "Toxic" and the romping title tune (both of which are Young originals) show her to be a solid songwriter as well. She also turns in fine readings on a pair of covers, turning atmospheric on Muddy Waters' "Two Trains Running" and giving B.B. King's "I'm Gonna Do the Same Thing They Did to Me" a saucy, determined sheen…

The 3rd Essen Pop & Blues Festival took place in the Gruga Hall between 22 and 25 October 1970, featuring bands such as Guru Guru, Xhol, Embryo, Fotheringhay, East of Eden, Q 65, Gun, Quiver and Taste. Roland Verheyen, a staff member of promoter Konrad Mallison, recorded the entire festival directly from the soundboard. About a half of the tapes had meanwhile been used for other recordings, but a large part of the original recordings has survived. Garden of Delights has acquired the rights to these tapes. A lot of studio processing without any noticeable changes in the sound had become necessary to make the Guru Guru gig suitable for release. The 36-page colour booklet contains everything a collector might be looking for: a detailed history of early Guru Guru, an 11-page discography, reprints of covers and partly unpublished band photos.

Having already recorded for ECM as a member of Azimuth - the band also included her husband, pianist John Taylor, and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler - it seemed only a matter of time before Norma Winstone would contribute her fine and very original vocal talents to a solo disc for the label; hence listeners have 1987's Somewhere Called Home. It's not only a watermark of Winstone's career but, in the long line of modern vocal outings released since the romantic vocal tradition of Fitzgerald and Vaughan ended with free jazz and fusion, the disc stands out as one most original yet idyllic of vocal jazz recordings. Joined by Taylor and British saxophone legend Tony Coe, Winstone imparts equal measures of intimacy and drama to the proceedings…