John Hull

A scientist's recollection of his life as a junior member of the Manhattan Project, Rider of the Pale Horse recounts McAllister Hull's involvement in various nuclear-related enterprises during and after World War II. Fresh from a summer job working with explosives in the chemistry department of an ordnance plant, Hull was drafted in 1943, after his freshman year in college. Unlike other accounts written by scientists and historians of that era, Hull's narrative offers a realistic picture of the dangerous and messy job that GIs and civilian powder men were asked to do. Life in the workshops where bomb components were constructed was very different from life in the offices where they were designed.

Calculus is another radical step forward for Zorn'two major 20-minute long-form compositions scored for piano trio. Featuring the incredible young pianist Brian Marsella along with the dynamic rhythm section of Trevor Dunn and Kenny Wollesen, this is a complex and exhilarating display of instrumental virtuosity at its most extreme. Drawing upon all of Zorn's musical obsessions, from thorny atonal- ity to touching minimalism, burning jazz, funk, folk, exotica, ambient, noise and more, this is some of the most ambitious and expansive music ever created for jazz piano trio. Passionately performed by three core members of Zorn's inner circle Calculus is an outrageous and kaleidocopic journey into the unknown!

First-ever master-tapes reissue of collectable late 60s UK psychedelic/early progressive LP only issued at the time by Elektra in America. Includes previously unreleased songs and alternative mixes from the December 1968 album sessions. After a single for Decca as mod/soul band The Dimples, the Scunthorpe-based Gospel Garden cut a similarly- fashioned 45 for the Camp label before falling under the spell of emerging underground bands like Family and Jethro Tull. Honing their new sound on the burgeoning college circuit, they were signed by visiting Elektra label boss Jac Holzman and given a new identity: Methuselah. With American songwriter Kenny Young as producer, in December 1968 they recorded a quasi-concept album given the title ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke And John’ after the four-part song suite that dominated Side One. But Elektra failed to give the LP a UK release, and the US issue was delayed until October 1969 – by which time the band had split, with John Gladwin and Terry Wincott turning their backs on electricity to work as Amazing Blondel.

Duncan Honeybourne performs the complete piano music of John Joubert, the eminent composer who sadly passed away in January 2019. Joubert had written to the pianist Duncan Honeybourne to congratulate him on this new, comprehensive recording only days before his passing. The album therefore serves as a fitting tribute to his musical life.