For any band to follow up on a success is not an easy task, and even in the best circumstances, coming back from the massive success of "Dark side of the moon" could have been an impossible task for Pink Floyd . Unfortunately, when they returned to the studio in January 1975, conditions were far from favorable within the group, for various reasons, in particular the fact that, after having adapted their lives to their worldwide success, the members of the group found themselves more disoriented than satisfied. The problem was made worse by a growing disconnect between bassist Roger Waters and the rest of Pink Floyd, especially guitarist David Gilmour.
A joint venture between Sony Classical and WDR, Michael Stegemann's The Glenn Gould Trilogy: A Life is something truly different and noteworthy. The three-disc set beautifully melds excerpts of Gould's performances, spoken interviews, narrated text, and personal correspondence into a surprisingly coherent whole. Listeners who find it annoying to try to listen to music while someone is talking over it should still give this trilogy a try.
This group evolves in leaps and bounds. We guarantee you've never heard a jazz piano trio sound like this album–not even this band on its previous album, the much-praised World Construct. That said, there is a through line from the first Matthew Shipp Trio album, 1990's Circular Temple (reissued in 2023 on ESP). The adventure continues!
Orkest de Volharding is one of the longest established European new music ensembles, created in 1972 by composers Louis Andriessen and Willem Breuker to perform one work, Andriessen's piece De Volharding. Its sister ensemble, Hoketus, has long fallen by the wayside, but Orkest de Volharding (literally the Perseverance Orchestra) presses on in a prodigious outpouring of concerts and recordings. They remain little known in the United States, despite having recorded works of Andriessen, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Torke for major labels distributed in America.