Beacons of Ancestorship is the 7th full-length studio album by American experimental rock act Tortoise. The album is a return to familiar instrumental experimental rock territory after a short excursion into vocal rock territory on The Brave and the Bold (2006) where Tortoise were helped out by Will Oldham. Tortoise continue to play with and twist the rules of rock music by adding electronic and semi-jazzy elements to their music.

Almost two years after its pretty dystopian predecessor ‘Afterlifelines’ Peavy Wagner (vocals, bass), Jean Bormann (guitar) and Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos (drums) unleash a positive, ultra-heavy thrash metal firework which blends that typical Rage sound with contemporary elements and in its entirety represents probably the band’s most diverse work to date.

One of the reasons we have so much Duke Ellington to enjoy on record is that he liked to tape everything - concerts, works in progress, prototypes, and alternate editions. That, plus the quality of his output, has left us with treasures like this - in contrast to MusicMasters' Benny Goodman archival releases, which are generally inferior to his official releases, the label's Ellington vault releases are essential and delightful. Anyone who has taken in Paul Gonsalves' extended solo from the 1956 Ellington Newport performance may want to own this disc, just for the equivalent Jimmy Hamilton tenor sax showcase on "The Old Circus Train" - Hamilton's clarinet gets center stage on "Girdle Hurdle." Other highlights include the moody, languid, but gorgeous "Swamp Goo," a piece intended for the band's 1967 European tour, in its first studio version…

Harmonic Divergence is the perfect companion piece to Steven Wilson’s highly acclaimed 2023 album The Harmony Codex. On this very limited nine track release, music from the original album has been remixed and reimagined by Wilson, alongside longtime bandmates/collaborators and like-minded bands and producers. The result is a warped mirror image of the original, where oblique electronics are replaced by spidery gothic guitar riffs and cyclical piano tracks are mutated and transformed for the dance floor.

A successful attempt to combine the acoustic ideas of Amadeus Reineck on guitar and sitar with the electronic experiments of Michael Lapp on keyboards, while the vocals (by guest singer Caroline McCombs) and bass (Dieter Bauer) are well in the background. The two of them had met in Berlin in 1976 and started to work together until in 1980 they released their LP "Just a Try".
Sadly it would be their only album together. But while Try was and will always be an obscure little project, it was a memorable and lovely moment. Thankfully it was remastered from the original masters and preserved in CD form by the esoteric German label Garden of Delights.

The fourth in Ryuichi Sakamoto's Year Book series. This volume of 5 CDs is of unreleased and rare tracks from 1985-1989. This was a particularly fruitful period for Sakamoto, gaining worldwide acclaim receiving an Academy Award for The Last Emperor soundtrack, several original albums, commercial music and live tours. He was using keyboards such as Fairlight CMI, Emulator II, Yamaha DX7. Tracks include performances with Yuji Takahashi, Kisaragi Koharu, Haruna Miyake, Kazumi Watanabe, a live session at Roppongi Inkstick, the 1989 NHK FM special song, Kaze no Michi, tracks such as his song Rachael performed by Sandii & The Sunsetz song, and unreleased The Garden for designer Tokio Kumagai.

A Hot Summer Night was filmed and recorded live on 6th August 1983, at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA, with an audience of 18,000 fans, during the second-leg of Donna Summer’s 1983 Hard For The Money tour, which supported the recently released She Works Hard For The Money album. Restored from the analogue video tapes, this is the concert’s debut album release and therefore the makes it a perfect sequel to 1978’s Live And More. The set-list includes MacArthur Park, Love Is In Control…, Bad Girls Medley, On The Radio and Last Dance, as well as performances with special guests Musical Youth, her sisters Dara and Mary Ellen on an extended showpiece version of Woman, as well as closing the show with her eldest daughter Mimi, performing State Of Independence.

Klaus Schulze, one of the most illustrious exponents of the kraut-electronic musical current, was born on the 4th of August 1947, right in Berlin, the heart of the entire action. He has also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic band Tangerine Dream as well as cofounding Ash Ra Tempel before a pioneering and prolific solo career of 40+ albums (totalling 110+ CDs) in 30+ years.
In 1969, Klaus Schulze was the drummer of one of the early incarnations of Tangerine Dream for their debut album Electronic Meditation. In 1970 he left this group to form Ash Ra Tempel with Manuel Göttsching. In 1971, he chose again to leave a newly-formed group after only one album, this time to mount a solo career…