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At the 1978 Montreux Jazz Festival, a variety of artists (including keyboardist Warren Bernhardt, tenor-saxophonist Michael Brecker, guitarists Steve Khan and Larry Coryell, trumpeter Randy Brecker and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri) recorded a dozen funky selections which were originally released on two Arista LPs. Michael Brecker in particular is in good form. The results are not essential but offer listeners a time capsule of where R&B-oriented fusion was in 1978.

Graham Bonnet is a hard rock legend with a pedigree to back that statement up. His stints with Rainbow, MSG, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri prove he is one of the finest rock vocalists of his generation. Fresh off a stint with Michael Schenker Fest, Graham is preparing to return with a new Graham Bonnet Band album, "Meanwhile, Back In The Garage". Crafted with Kurt Jameson guitar (Joey Tafolla performs all rhythm and lead guitars on this album except for track 3, which was performed by Kurt James), Beth-Ami Heavenstone on bass, Jimmy Waldo on keyboards, and Mark Benquechea on drums, "Meanwhile, Back In The Garage" sees Bonnet showing why he has been and still is one of the premiere vocalists in hard rock! FOR FANS OF: Michael Schenker's Temple Of Rock, Alcatrazz, Yngwie Malmsteen, Rainbow.

Polar Sequences (1996). A collaboration between Biosphere's Geir Jennsen and Bobby Bird of Higher Intelligence Agency, commissioned by the Norwegian government for live performance at the 1995 Polar Music Festival. Suitably frosty melodies and glacial textures provide the framework for compositions utilizing the natural environment of the Arctic Circle for inspiration and source material (snow falling, ice cracking and splitting, the clang of cable car mountain lifts, etc.), to often remarkable effect. Sparse beats occasionally bubble up, but the focus is definitely on the icy edge of Arctic life…

A double CD of music for violin + piano and vibraphone, composed and played by two young American composers and members of the ensemble Ordinary Affects, who have recorded music by the Jürg Frey, Magnus Granberg, Nomi Epstein, Michael Pisaro, Eva Maria Houben and others. The second disc contains an exquisite new work by Morgan Evans-Weiler, while the first presents for the first time the beautiful music of JPA Falzone, who acknowledges a connection with Feldman. “Feldman’s approach to writing asymmetrical patterns has long fascinated me. His work represents a kind of considered haphazardness in defiance of formalised systems.” (JPA Falzone)

Truly one of the highlights in an excellent catalog of work, Stolen and Contaminated Songs isn't even a proper "album," but a collection of outtakes from the Love's Secret Domain sessions. And what sessions they were to have such a wealth of superb material that was leftover. Showcasing Coil's diversity, the album veers from the orchestrated classicisms of "Original Chaostrophy" and "Corybantic Ennui" to the slow, mutant lounge shuffle of "Omlagus Garfungiloops" and the utter despair of "Who'll Fall?" The last track there is a highlight, a detuned guitar and phone line noises underscore a harrowing answering machine message from someone who's friend has just committed suicide. Haunting in its execution and utterly compelling…

The amazing soprano Lucia Popp largely owes her success to her unforgettable roles in the grand German Romantic repertoire by Richard Strauus & Richard Wagner. She was also known to be a brilliant performer of lighter lyrical works, with which such composers as Franz Lehár, Johann Strauss or Carl Zeller triumphed at the Theater an der Wien or the Wiener Staatsoper, ultimately entertaining the Austrian high society to a great degree. This exquisite collection of Viennese bonbons is accompanied by Sir Neville Marriner, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with the Ambrosian Opera Chorus featured in choral excerpts from The Merry Widow, Giuditta or Casanova.