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Emigrés from the British underground hip-hop scene, Wiseguys Touché and Regal made some of the most intense productions in the world of upfront big-beat techno. Releasing their material on Wall of Sound Records.

"Kokomo" was a popular brand of coffee early in the 20th century, and was the subject of Francis "Scrapper" Blackwell's first recorded blues in 1928. When slide guitar specialist James Arnold revamped this number as "Old Original Kokomo Blues" for Decca in 1934, little did he know that this would soon become his permanent handle – Kokomo Arnold.Kokomo Arnold was born in Georgia, and began his musical career in Buffalo, New York in the early '20s. During prohibition, Kokomo Arnold worked primarily as a bootlegger, and performing music was a only sideline to him. Nonetheless he worked out a distinctive style of bottleneck slide guitar and blues singing that set him apart from his contemporaries……

A collection of classic recordings from the 1920s and 30s featuring many all-time great performances of early American rural music. This series is a fascinating overview of traditional American musical styles from the Civil War to the 1920s…..

Florent Schmitt was well known as a critic and composer during his lifetime, but his compositions fell into neglect after his death. Difficult to pigeonhole, he has been called everything from conservative to neo-romantic to revolutionary, and Dutilleux wrote of him that he ‘gave back to the French school certain notions of grandeur’. The three works on this CD are all remarkable in their own ways – for their rhythmic exuberance, their rich and varied orchestration, their imaginative use of traditional harmonies, and in the case of Le Palais hanté and La Tragédie de Salomé for their exploration of the dark side of humanity.

Long before punk was relegated to slogans on a Hot Topic T-shirt or a watered down pop craze with the mall crowd, bands like the Sex Pistols represented themes of rising up from the underground, rebellion, and at times, all out anarchy. Though the act only released one proper studio project in the form of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, it's become a legendary slice of the genre as it was truly meant to be represented and once again takes the focal point of the current incarnation's latest DVD. There'll Always Be An England celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of that acclaimed album with John Lydon leading the aging (but still entertaining) pack on top of his game.

Portico Quartet announce Monument, the electronic driven follow-up to their acclaimed ambient-minimalist suite Terrain, presenting the band at their most direct.