Maaike Nicola – A Portrait Of Maaike (1989)

This double album offers a portrait of the violinist Amandine Beyer drawn from the recordings she has made for ZZT. The first CD selects highlights from her chamber repertoire, including works by Jean-Féry Rebel, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Nicola Matteis, and Robert de Visée. The second is devoted to the concerto, with compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Arcangelo Corelli. This programme is an ideal introduction to the multiple facets of Amandine Beyer’s talent and to the grace and joie de vivre of her music-making. It also provides an opportunity to discover one of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi op.6, a preview of the complete set to be released on ZZT in the autumn of 2013.

Tastes and sounds were changing quickly in the late '80s, which prompted New Order's most startling transformation yet - from moody dance-rockers to, well, moody acid-house mavens. After the band booked a studio on the island hotspot of Ibiza, apparently not knowing that it was the center of the burgeoning house music craze, New Order's sure instincts for blending rock and contemporary dance resulted in another confident, superb LP. Technique was the group's most striking production job, with the single "Fine Time" proving a close runner-up to "Blue Monday" as the most extroverted dance track in the band's catalog. Opening the record, it was a portrait of a group unrecognizable from its origins, delivering lascivious and extroverted come-ons amid pounding beats…

Tastes and sounds were changing quickly in the late '80s, which prompted New Order's most startling transformation yet – from moody dance-rockers to, well, moody acid-house mavens…

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of the classic 1989 album A Question Of Time by Jack Bruce. The album was a marked return to prominence of Jack Bruce and featured a collection of marvellous material. With an impressive cast of guest musicians such as Ginger Baker, Tony Williams, Allan Holdsworth, Bernie Worrell, Vernon Reid & Albert Collins, Jack produced an album which is regarded as one of his finest. This Esoteric reissue has been re-mastered from the original master tapes, features a new essay and restores the original album artwork.

After a career as a local bluesman and blues promoter in Texas and Oklahoma, Gary Coleman found his niche when he signed over his first album, a self-produced outing originally issued on his own label, to the fledgling Ichiban company out of Atlanta in 1986. Since that time, both Coleman and Ichiban have made their marks in the blues field: not only did Coleman release half-a-dozen of his own albums, he also oversaw production of the bulk of Ichiban's hefty blues catalog, bringing to the studio a number of artists he'd booked or toured with in his previous career (Chick Willis, Buster Benton, and Blues Boy Willie, among others). A singer/guitarist on-stage, Coleman often took on a multi-instrumentalist's role in the studio. His music remained true to the blues and to the King legacy saluted in his "B.B." moniker and in his acknowledged debt to fellow Texan Freddie King.