Ritchie Blackmore is beyond doubt one of the all-time great guitar players. From his pop roots with The Outlaws and his many session recordings in the sixties, through defining hard rock with Deep Purple and Rainbow in the seventies and eighties and on to the renaissance rock of Blackmore s Night, Ritchie has proved that he is a master of the guitar across a multitude of styles…
These three quartets from opus 33 define the archetype of the 'Classical' string quartet, a genre that would henceforth blossom independently of its patrons. Haydn makes of it a music that is light, subtle, intentionally humorous, concise and radiant, capable of leaving private drawing rooms for popular concerts. Mozart immediately detected its originality as would the classic composers of the…20th Century.
Lionel Loueke's Heritage deftly intertwines modern jazz constructs with traditional African themes in a highly personal exploration of these two cultural streams which define Loueke's upbringing and musical identity. The result is a gracious, elevating and welcoming sound that still challenges preconceived notions.
Thoughtfully composed, the album's ten pieces together present an intimate - sometimes philosophical - complex musical meditation on the concept of heritage. Tunes like "Ouidah," inspired by the village where Loueke's mother was born and a center of the slave trade, find their origins in the concrete. Others, like the off-kilter "Farafina" and the introspective "Chardon" are more impressionistic in nature…
Laura Cox is exactly what she promises to be: a badass rock’n’roll lady who makes her guitar produce sounds that are about to shake the world in a groundbreaking fashion. With this, she is catapulting herself among the ranks of the great female guitarists. Seriously, could you think of anything cooler than Nancy Wilson, Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper), The Runaways or Joan Jett, just to name a few. The second, upcoming album, “Burning Bright”, is “high voltage rock´n roll”, in the style of AC/DC and DANKO JONES meets JOAN JETT, mixed with Southern and Blues influences. Taking this into account, Laura define her style as “Southern Hard Blues” – a mix of bands she grew up with!
There may be people out there who don't regard BLIND GUARDIAN's "Imaginations From The Other Side" as a classic heavy metal record, but those people are wrong and deserve to be publicly scorned for their foolishness. "Imaginations " remains a lot of fans' favorite album by the Germans, not least because it seemed to confidently define the band's sound at a point when melodic bombast and theatricality were, with mainstream rock and metal folk, about as popular as genital warts.
Since they started in the early 1970’s, ECM has been giving the world one excellent jazz piano disc after another–significant names include Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Paul Bley, more recently Anat Fort, Bo Stenson, and now Julia Hulsmann. Leading a trio on her ECM debut, THE END OF SUMMER, Hulsman displays a graceful, muted, and melancholy air. In the manner of Stenson and Bley, Hulsmann expresses maximum emotion and mood using the fewest (but well-placed) notes. Unlike the aforementioned gentlemen however, Hulsmann favors almost folk-like, affable, and concise melodies. Her bassist and drummer seem subdued at times, but they’re constantly lending the tunes a sense of forward motion.
THERION have always been a band that have challenged themselves to explore new paths, while remaining true to their musical core values. For their 17th studio album, “Leviathan”, mastermind Christofer Johnsson and his collaborator Thomas Vikström have created something that has been previously unthinkable to the guitarist and the singer. "We have done the only thing that was left of all the different angles to explore", explains Christofer. "We have decided to give the people what they kept asking for. 'Leviathan' is the first album that we have deliberately packed with THERION hit songs."
The story of Cast begins in 1978 when the first golden era of Progressive Rock was agonizing, when the keyboardist Alfonso Vidales had the idea of creating a Rock band that blended Symphonic passages in order to keep his beloved Prog alive. Very little information can be found about the first 16 years of their existence, until 1994 when "Landing in a Serious Mind" is self released, an album that presents us a serious Symphonic band with an original sound.
1994 and 1995 are years of great activity for Cast, the band releases 5 albums. After two more albums and three years, the band signs with Musea for the release of "Imaginary Window" in 1999, an album that shows us a band that leaves behind the few Neo Prog leanings to embrace fully the Symphonic genre…
In his first American album, Antonio Carlos Jobim presents a dozen of his songs, each one destined to become a standard - an astounding batting average. Jobim, who claimed to have been out of practice at the time of the session, merely plays single notes on the piano with one hand, punctuated by chords now and then, sticking to his long, undulating melodies with a few passages of jazz improvisation now and then. Yet it is a lovely idea, not a gesture is wasted. Arranger Claus Ogerman unveils many of the trademarks that would define his Creed Taylor-produced albums with Jobim - the soaring, dying solo flute and spare, brooding unison string lines widening into lush harmony; flutes doubling on top of Jobim's piano chords - again with an exquisitely spare touch.