Calogero L'embellie (2009)

This three-album retrospective of bassist Eberhard Weber’s group, Colours, recorded between 1975 and 1980, is striking musically, historically, culturally, and creatively. As American and British jazz musicians were employing electric instruments to create edgier, funkier, and more stridently knotty music, many Northern Europeans were exploring an entirely different sonic universe: creating another pathway in jazz. Weber's work would help to define the ECM imprint's sound. Weber founded Colours in 1974 with saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Mariano, keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus, and drummer Jon Christensen - to be replaced in by John Marshall in 1977. Its 1975 debut, Yellow Fields, put painterly touches into a sonic kaleidescope that explored tonal and harmonic realms with acute compositional and improvisational attention to the space that surrounded jazz…

The second set of the definitive collection of unreleased recordings, unrecorded compositions, one-off events, radio and concert recordings. These four CDs cover the period from 1976 to 1978 and include the legendary Stockholm and Bremen radio concerts, many otherwise unrecorded late compositions. With a substantial 60-page book of information, unpublished photographs, documents, recollections and substantial notes written by Lindsay Cooper, Georgie Born, Chris Cutler, Franco Fabbri, Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson and Chris Wangro.

Classic Berlin School electronic music recorded live in Montana and evokes dreamy images of Yellowstone with influence of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Steve Roach and even Ashra.
Recorded live in 2007 with the Ricochet Gathering Yellowstone 2007. Mario is also well known for his solo works, collaborations and the German electronic music label Manikin. Thomas Fanger has played in many ambient and techno electronic line-ups. He is also in film production. This release contains an epic long Berlin School electronic track akin to Tangerine Dream in the mid 1970's. Rainbow Serpent with Gerd and Frank have long followed in the Berlin School electronic music tradition and this CD features two tracks showing Rainbow Serpent in their prime. Guaranteed to please any fan of this electronic music genre.

It's hard not to feel for Alice in Chains - all the guys in the band were lifers, all except lead singer Layne Staley, who never managed to exorcise his demons, succumbing to drug addiction in 2002. Alice in Chains stopped being a going concern long before that, all due to Staley's addictions, and it took guitarist Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, and drummer Sean Kinney a long time to decide to regroup, finally hiring William DuVall as Staley's replacement and delivering Black Gives Way to Blue a full 14 years after the band's last album. To everybody's credit, Black Gives Way to Blue sounds like it could have been delivered a year after Alice in Chains: it's unconcerned with fashion; it's true to their dark, churning gloom rock; and if you're not paying attention too closely, it's easy to mistake DuVall for his predecessor…

Einojuhani Rautavaara may well be the most popular symphonist alive today. On the occasion of his 80th anniversary, Ondine pays homage to its longtime house composer by releasing the first-ever edition of the complete eight symphonies, in a special box set. Rautavaara is recognized as the greatest Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius. He has often described symphonic music as a journey through human life.