Alexander King 01

It's not as if Albert King hadn't tasted success in his first decade and a half as a performer, but his late-'60s/early-'70s recordings for Stax did win him a substantially larger audience. During those years, the label began earning significant clout amongst rock fans through events like Otis Redding's appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival and a seemingly endless string of classic singles. When King signed to the label in 1966, he was immediately paired with the Stax session team Booker T. & the MG's. The results were impressive: "Crosscut Saw," "Laundromat Blues," and the singles collection Born Under a Bad Sign were all hits. Though 1972's I'll Play the Blues for You followed a slightly different formula, the combination of King, members of the legendary Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the sparkling Memphis Horns was hardly a risky endeavor. The result was a trim, funk-infused blues sound that provided ample space for King's oft-imitated guitar playing.

Alexander Balus brings to completion The King's Consort's series of Handel's four 'military' oratorios (the other three being Judas Maccabaeus, The Occasional Oratorio, and Joshua).
The story is a somewhat embellished retelling of chapters 10 and 11 from the first book of the Apocryphal Maccabees and involves complicated intrigues between the Jews, Syrians and Egyptians in the second century BC. To cut a long story short, Alexander Balus, King of Syria, is eventually defeated in battle by Ptolomee of Egypt and then killed by an Arab; but Ptolomee himself dies just three days later allowing Jonathan, the Chief of the Jews, to remind us of the fate of those who do not believe in the One God.

King Crimson’s 1973 album Larks’ Tongues in Aspic is to be reissued for its 50th anniversary in an all encompassing four-disc set that includes brand new Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and stereo mixes and “the complete recordings of every session recorded for the album”.

Volume three is incidental music from a play called The King of the Jews. Recorded only twice, the second time by Polyansky… But it’s brilliant. This is atmospheric, at times quite engaging, and an excellent example of the art of incidental music—all the more impressive considering the scarcity of models, Russian or otherwise. The introduction is a very nicely crafted exercise in subtle variation of scale, rather than of theme. It is, like much of the work, introspective, often stately, and a little mournful—how could it not be given the subject matter? But the piece as a whole is punctuated with occasional outbursts of grandeur—The Trumpets of the Levites, Entr’acte to Act III, Scene 2 and the Syrian Dance are all dramatic and/or lively enough to engage even the most humorless listener.

This album is organised in seven sets and enables us to discover many sides of a repertoire Jordi Savall explores with the steadiest and most respectful hand.

Jan Nigges gives concerts internationally as a soloist and with his ensemble. In the past three years he has been a guest at the Opus Amadeus Oda Müziği Festivali in Istanbul, the Riga Early Music Centre in Latvia, the Festival d’Ambronay in France, the Centro Musica Antica in Italy, the Narodowe Forum Muzyki (NFM) in Poland, the Stiftung Mozarteum in Austria, the Merano Festival in South Tyrol, the Vesperali Festival Lugano in Ticino and the MA Festival Brugge in Belgium.

DGM has long promised to bring the King Crimson Collectors' Club to 50 discs and we are pleased to announce a combined Club 49/50 to complete this special series. This CD/DVD set is packaged in a jewel case with much not-to be-missed material, including recently discovered live footage. The CD/DVD package features the complete final two shows played on July 11, 1984, partly used for the Absent Lovers release. The CD contains entirely unreleased tracks. The DVD contains both shows in full, as well as two sections of footage filmed by legendary bassist and stick player Tony Levin in 1982. The first footage shows approximately 25 minutes taken from the stage at the Place De Nations Montreal on 5th August 1982 (Please note that the footage is grainy.) The second portion of footage (some grainy, most is much clearer in resolution) is a real gem from shows at The Pier in New York and in Asbury Park, NJ, with backstage footage, narrated by Tony himself, showcasing backstage antics of the band as well as sound check and some cheeky footage of the cars being packed and artists preparing to leave the next day. The second footage runs just over 19 minutes.