Powerbook 2023

7th March 2023 marked the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the all-time great debut albums, The Hurting by Tears for Fears featuring the hit singles ‘Mad World’, ‘Change’ and ‘Pale Shelter’. I have remixed the album for the occasion in Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround and instrumental stereo, all fully approved by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. The Dolby Atmos mix is available for streaming on supported platforms, but the 5.1 and instrumental stereo mixes are included (along with the Atmos mix) on a standalone blu-ray audio disc issued by Virgin/UMR and exclusively for sale via Super Deluxe Edition. The blu-ray additionally features the original stereo master. As if that wasn’t enough my stereo mixes of two recently rediscovered earlier recordings of ‘Mad World’ & ‘Watch Me Bleed’ made at sessions with producer Mike Howlett prior to the album versions will also be exclusive to the blu-ray. These tracks were found on the multitrack reels, possibly having never been mixed before. Even Roland and Curt had not heard them for 40 years!

The Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet; founded in 1950; comprised the principal woodwinds and French horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra. They made their recording debut for Columbia in 1953: four players from the ensemble were joined by pianist Rudolf Serkin in the Beethoven and Mozart Quintets in E-flat. Serkin; a frequent soloist with the orchestra; had been so taken by the artistry and tonal colors of its first-chair winds that he approached them about making a record together. So began the group’s history at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in Manhattan. It would span 15 years; during which the ensemble naturally focused on the many outstanding works scored for standard woodwind quintet. But guest performers often joined them on recordings as well as in concerts; extending their repertoire to include not only composers of their own time; but even music outside the classical sphere written by the legendary jazz trumpeter Ornette Coleman.

The complete collection of their singles from across 35 years of the duo's acclaimed career.

Between January and April 1975, classically trained, award-winning jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman - whose prodigious resume includes playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, writing and arranging for Count Basie, and scoring most of Woody Allen's films - went to RCA's Studio A in New York City and made the definitive recording of ragtime legend Scott Joplin's piano works.

Scherchen was one of the leading conductors in the middle part of the 20th Century, especially valued for his pioneering performances of the contemporary music of his time. He was essentially self-taught as a musician, and became a violist in the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic when he was sixteen. In 1911 he was an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg in the preparation of Pierrot Lunaire for performance. Following its Berlin premiere, the piece was taken on a tour in which Scherchen conducted.

Igor Stravinsky was one of music's truly epochal innovators; no other composer of the 20th century exerted such a pervasive influence or dominated his art in the way that Stravinsky did during his seven-decade musical career. Aside from purely technical considerations such as rhythm and harmony, the most important hallmark of Stravinsky's style is, indeed, its changing face. Emerging from the spirit of late Russian nationalism and ending his career with a thorny, individual language steeped in 12-tone principles, Stravinsky assumed a number of aesthetic guises throughout the course of his development while always retaining a distinctive, essential identity.

The boxed set underscores Nicks' longevity as a solo artist. Six of her eight studio albums were Top 10 hits in the U.S., including her solo debut, 'Bella Donna' (1981), which topped the Billboard 200 in 1981.

THE COLLECTION II spotlights Van Halen’s second incarnation, with singer Sammy Hagar, guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Michael Anthony. The upcoming set includes newly remastered versions of four multi-platinum studio albums, along with a selection of rarities recorded between 1989 and 2004. All the music in the set was mastered directly from the original master tapes, a process overseen by the band’s longtime engineer, Donn Landee.

The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a "riot" or "near-riot", though this wording did not come about until reviews of later performances in 1924, over a decade later. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.