4×4 Magazine From April 2016

Konchordat hail from Kent in the UK. They are a progressive rock band in the 'English' tradition; their music has been described as "majestic and often epic in scale." On their debut album 'English Ghosts' the music is led by main stays Steve Cork (basses, keyboards), Lee Harding (voice, keyboards) and Stuart Martin (guitars, keyboards, vocals). The album 'English Ghosts' scored 7/10 in a review by Geoff Bartom in Classic Rock Magazine (Feb.2010, issue 141). " The 20-minute title track is stately and masterful…" Their second album - The New Crusade - saw a personnel change, with Stuart taking over lead vocal duties as well as guitar. Their the third album 'Rise To The Order' was released by Bad Elephant Music on April 29th 2016.

57th & 9th is the twelfth solo studio album by British singer-songwriter Sting, his first rock album in 13 years, released on 11 November 2016. The album sold over 600,000 copies worldwide in 2016. Japanese exclusive edition of "57th & 9th" release from Sting additionally includes six Japan only bonus tracks, which are live ones taken from a concert held in November 2016 at Bataclan in Paris and available as CD format for the first time.

Paper is the debut solo album from Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson. This album contains brand new material along with songs that were initially written for Robinson's 2002-2003 project, Hookah Brown. Robinson handled guitar, bass, and other instruments as well as taking over the lead vocals, with the gaps being filled in by Joe Magistro (drums), Eddie Harsch (keyboards, credited as Eddie Hawrsch), Donnie Herron (fiddle, violin) and his son Taylor Robinson (percussion).

Insurgentes is the first full-length solo album released by Steven Wilson. The album was recorded all over the world in studios from Mexico City to Japan and Israel, between January and August 2008, and first released in November 2008 as a special deluxe multi disc mail order version. A retail release followed in February 2009. The album is named after the Avenida de los Insurgentes, the longest avenue in Mexico City near which part of it was recorded.

As one of the world's foremost interpreters of Baroque keyboard music on the modern piano, Angela Hewitt has established a fine reputation for impeccable playing and fresh musical insights. Listeners who cherish her award-winning recordings on Hyperion of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach have already experienced her exquisite playing, and they will be delighted to hear this selection of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, Bach's contemporary and an innovator whose compositions influenced the development of the Classical sonata. Some of these selections are well known, particularly the Sonata in C major, Kk159, the Sonata in D major, Kk96, and the Sonata in E major, Kk380, which are often anthologized, though Hewitt hasn't packed this disc with greatest hits (with 555 sonatas to choose from, there are many less familiar that deserve attention). Hewitt's performances are thoughtfully phrased, polished in tone, and rhythmically precise with a modicum of rubato, and she is alert to the subtleties that make this music so beguiling. Hewitt recorded these 16 sonatas in the Beethovensaal in Hannover, where she made her first Bach recordings for Hyperion 20 years previously, and the acoustics are nearly ideal for her style.

This cd is not for sale and has been licensed by ECM to be sold together with April 2016 issue of Musica Jazz magazine.

You might think that Handel's Water Music, HWV 348-350, arguably the most familiar piece of Baroque music (the Four Seasons of Vivaldi can give it a run for its money, but its popularity is more recent), has received every possible interpretation. And you would be wrong, as the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin have shown in this Harmonia Mundi release, precisely recorded in Berlin's Teldex studio. You get a steady parade of innovations here, marked overall by, but not in the least restricted to, blisteringly fast tempos that turn the horn-dominated movements into tests of virtuosity. Unexpected dynamic contrasts and the unusual rhythmic treatment of the "Overture" to the Suite No. 1 (sample track one) are other novelties, but this veteran group is not out for shock value. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin operate without a conductor, and their coordination in these crisp prestos is worth the price of admission in itself. Their ability to act as one in really unusual shapings of each individual movement is remarkable, and the treacherous horn parts are near perfection in the hands of Erwin Wieringa and Miroslav Rovenský.