Drum From 31 December 2015

RAINBOW'S tour of Japan in March 1984 would be their final set of live shows before they disbanded in April that year with Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover joining the Deep Purple Mark II reunion. This show from the famous Budokan in Tokyo captures the band in scintillating form performing tracks from across their career including a stunning version of "Difficult To Cure" with full orchestra and other classics including "Spotlight Kid", "I Surrender", "Catch The Rainbow", "All Night Long", "Can't Happen Here" and more.

Call it postminimalist, totalist, or maximalist, the orchestral music of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon is big, loud, frenzied, and assertive, jam-packed with stylistic references, dense with inventive orchestration, and overflowing with virtuoso activity. Dystopia, performed by David Robertson and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a kaleidoscopic portrait of the city of Los Angeles, created in collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. This live recording of the work's premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, January 12, 2008, captures the energy and spontaneity of the music, which at times is quite reminiscent of the hubbub of the Shrovetide Fair in Stravinsky's Petrushka, though one must imagine that the listening experience with the film was overwhelming. In contrast, Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not so much a wall of sound as a multi-layered gloss on its original material, an echo of Beethoven's music warped and reshaped through glissandi, microtones, clusters, montage, and other modern techniques.

December holds in its hands many worlds of celebration as the month unfolds with Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas and the eve of the New Year. Over the centuries a great deal of music has marked this time of year, but very little has been added to the canon in recent decades. Gordon Getty inspired us with his composition of delightful new Christmas carols to invite a group of American composers to celebrate the season in music. The result is a rich and tuneful recording of new holiday classics for you to share with your friends and families. We hope that you enjoy this festive and joyous music throughout the season and for many years to come.

Anneli Dreckerґs ethereal voice first became known through the music of her band, Bel Canto, back in the late 80s. Only 17, Anneli left her Arctic hometown of Tromsш with band members Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) and Nils Johansen, for the pulsating indie scene in Bruxelles. Signed to the legendary Belgian label Crammed Discs, Bel Canto captured the zeitgeist of European electronic music. Their first two albums, "White Out Conditions" and "Birds Of Passage", were released internationally and won the Norwegian grammy award three times. With her characteristic singing style, often compared to other wonderful singers such as Lisa Gerrard and Liz Frasier, Anneli has collaborated with artists such as Hector Zazou, Jah Wobble, Gavin Friday, DJ Krush, Tim Simenon, Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins, Guy Sigsworth and Ketil Bjшrnstad.

Preoccupations is a Canadian post-punk band from Calgary, Alberta, formed in 2012 under the name Viet Cong. The band consists of Matt Flegel (vocals, bass), Scott Munro (guitar, synth), Daniel Christiansen (guitar) and Mike Wallace (drums). The group's musical style has been described as "labyrinthine post-punk".