Few productions in the Metropolitan Opera's repertory have been so unanimously admired as Richard Wagner's Tannhauser. The New York Times, reviewing the telecast performance of Tannhauser, observed:"One of the most gorgeous and gloriously romantic productions in the Met's repertory …the scenic designs are both breathtakingly grand and painstakingly subtle." The individual performers garnered praise from other critics: "you may just about explode with the musical excitement that conductor James Levine and his cast generate."

Valley of the Sun: Field Guide to Inner Harmony Review by Paul Simpson
Valley of the Sun was established as a publishing company in the 1960s by Scottsdale, Arizona resident Dick Sutphen, who was referred to as America's leading past-life therapist. He started releasing self-hypnosis tapes during the 1970s, and by the beginning of the '80s, his imprint was also producing meditative, synthesizer-based music free of narration. The label was still active well into the 2010s, but its golden era was approximately 1977 to 1990, and Numero's Valley of the Sun: Field Guide to Inner Harmony focuses on this fertile period.

A charismatic presence, [Casals] embraces each work with the passion of a devoted horticulturist tending his most precious flowers … I can't think of any other interpreters who so successfully underline the sheer inventiveness of Beethoven's writing.

Funky funky California – and a great set of rare grooves from the 70s! The folks at Luv N Haight records are up to their old tricks – digging through the crates for the kind of hard-to-find funky tracks that first gave birth to the fame of the Ubiquity label. The set traces a sound that barely shows up in the history books – the harder funky sound of California in the 70s, a scene that was mostly underground, and which stood in stark contrast to the smoother sounds coming out on major labels at the time. A few of the artists on the set might be familiar through other Luv N Haight reissues, and there's others here that we've never heard at all – grooving in hard and heavy styles that spread across the Sunshine State from East LA to Funky Frisco to Oaktown – a total of 14 tracks that include "Freaky To You" by Sweet Stuff, "Losing You" by Cordial, "Love & Affection" by Ike White, "Freedom Time" by Linda Tillery, "Patience" by Rokk, "Party Time" by Roy Porter, "Carnaval" by Oquesta Esencia, "Wobble Cha" by Cool Benny, "Feelin Alright" by West Coast Revival, "Where Do We Go From Here" by Cool Sounds, "Hang On In There" by Mike James Kirkland, "Daydreamer" by Adele Sebastian, and "A Real Thing" by Sons & Daughters Of Life.

From There To Here: Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits compilation released by American country music group Lonestar. In addition to chronicling the greatest hits from their first four studio albums, the album includes three newly recorded tracks "My Front Porch Looking In", "Walking in Memphis" (a cover of the 1991 Marc Cohn song) and "I Pray", as well as a second recording of their 2001 single "I'm Already There". "My Front Porch Looking In" and "Walking in Memphis" were both released as singles.

Parlophone harnesses the power and excitement of the group’s early years with a new 16-track collection that mixes remastered versions of studio and live recordings including hits such as Roxette, Cheque Book, and Sneakin Suspicion. Three years after the definitive four-disc box set All Through the City comes the single-disc consolidation I'm a Man: The Best of the Wilko Johnson Years. The delay springs from two intertwined events: Wilko's successful (and public) battle with cancer and the 2014 hit album he recorded with Roger Daltrey during the fight. This opened up a market for a new Wilko-specific comp in the Feelgoods' catalog and, at 16 tracks nearly evenly balanced between studio and live, I'm a Man is pretty good. Presumably because the focus is on Johnson and his slashing Telecaster, there are some odd omissions – no "She Does It Right" or "I Can Tell," no "Stupidity" – but that hardly diminishes from what is here, because every cut is high-octane rock, proof that for a brief period of time Dr. Feelgood were serious contenders for the title of best rock & roll band on the planet. It's so good, in fact, that you'll wind up wanting more, so it's a good thing there's a box out there that has it all.

Digitally remastered two CD set containing a pair of albums (plus bonus tracks) from the R&B/Soul vocalist. When Leon Haywood soared into the R&B Top 20 with Keep It In The Family in 1974, it marked the breakthrough for this singer and musician who had spent the previous decade paying his dues working in the road bands of Sam Cooke and Big Jay McNeely, and achieving minor solo success with 45s on Imperial and Decca. Leon reaped his reward on joining 20th Century Records at the birth of the Dance Music era in the mid -'70s as his R&B hit singles crossed over into the Hot 100, inspiring the release of two notable albums, Back To Stay and Keep It In the Family. The bonus tracks include a selection of contemporary hit singles and their b-sides on 20th Century.

Borbely says “Why am I attracted to such ‘insurmountable peaks’ as Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge? I have always been captivated by researching complex musical structures and the regularities of music as language. Working on such a monumental and searchingly demanding work is challenging for me primarily because it is at this level that I can confront my own limits, my own “finiteness”. It becomes evident here that we, humans, can only aim at Perfection but will never be able to achieve it. This is the reason I never feel that my interpretation is “ready”. I would even abhor the idea. Why? Because one’s approach to a work will never be and can never be final. Bach’s music is also a continually forming, changing, infinite “game”, renewing itself again and again. Bach placed musical variability into divine invariability.

Isola echoes the jazz futurism of the 1970s. Ralph Towner and Eberhard Weber’s excursions for ECM, Brian Eno’s self-generating experiments, the fourth world mysticism of Jon Hassell, as well as Pike’s own recent forays into spiritual improvisation and electronics as both a solo artist and as part of the UK’s Szun Waves (with modular synth master Luke Abbott).

Hive Mind is extremely happy to present to you the second volume of the explosive collaboration between two legendary collectives of the ecstatic music underground. In 2017 Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple embarked on an extensive tour of South America. During the tour they carved out time to record and play shows with Argentine 'disembodied' music provocateurs Reynols and the results of these improvised sessions are a unique and exhilarating leap into the infinite… ecstatic, shamanic, truly free psychedelic music, beyond language and beyond all rational thought.'

2020 saw the release of the first instalment in this three-disc traversal of Beethoven’s violin sonatas – a disc which has garnered distinctions such as Choc de Classica and Cum Laude (Luister), with performances that ‘wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit’ (Gramophone) in ‘recordings that are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ (BBC Music Magazine). As Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen open the second disc, they do so with the iconic Spring Sonata, Op. 24. Completed in 1801, the work proved immediately popular with a second edition appearing only months after the first publication.

Pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell and cellist Henri Demarquette find common ground between Philip Glass and Rachmaninov in this release that revels in both composers passion for sonic storytelling. Presenting a program of personal, dramatic and spiritual music, Mosell and Demarquette perform these selections with intimate ardor.

This is a live 2 Blu-Ray recording of the 2019 Marillion Weekends and features footage from both the Port Zelande and Leicester shows…

Reynols is back! More than fifteen years after their separation, the most insane combo of the galaxy and beyond will therefore continue to surprise us. And what a return since they are accompanied by some no less eccentric friends, namely the group Acid Mothers Temple.