Primitive Knot

The recording of this composer’s extraordinary vocal music was made at Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire, where this one-time organist to Charles I lived and worked for the Hatton family. Thanks to the kind permission of English Heritage, and the generous donations of so many of our supporters, we have the pleasure of bringing the forgotten composer of the English 17th century back into the light. The double album features all of Jeffreys’ works for 4 and 5 voices with continuo, including many world-premiere recordings. It is released on the Prospero Classical label: streaming services on 8 December 2023 & in physical form in February 2024 worldwide.

LEIPZIG is now touted as the “New Berlin”, a mecca for vogueish twenty-somethings who are drawn by the cheap rents in the city and an artistic vibe. In 1989 the former East German industrial hub was said to have the most polluted air in the country, but the city’s illustrious past lives on. Despite extensive bombing of the city in World War II, the famous Thomaskirche and its associated Thomasschule, one of the oldest schools in the world and where the choristers are educated, survive and flourish. The Gewandhaus orchestra, with origins dating to the time of Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1740s, is known as one of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. This recording gives us a picture of musical life in Leipzig some 300 years ago, spanning the consecutive careers of three composers who led the musical activities in the city. The programme demonstrates the connection between JS Bach and his two predecessors. Bach based the general shape of his Magnificat on that of Kuhnau’s, and it was first performed in 1723, the year Bach took over as cantor in Leipzig after Kuhnau’s death. The short Schelle piece provides a rousing advent introduction.

Second, excellent and best-yet release by a three acoustic guitar ensemble who are reminsicent in many ways of the California Guitar Trio, but they've got their own sound…

An all-instrumental group that mixed prog metal and jazz fusion with the more ethereal sounds of King Crimson, Gordian Knot was the project of bassist/stick player/keyboardist Sean Malone with several collaborators including guitarist Trey Gunn of King Crimson and former Cynic drummer Sean Reinert. Gordian Knot also included guitarists Ron Jarzombek and Glenn Snelwar. As well as playing atmospheric and heavy progressive music, the group also experimented on their eponymous debut with Eastern-influenced pieces. Malone soon began working on a sequel with a whole new roster of prog rock guests, including former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford.

Every once in a while, a recording drops straight out of the blue - or in this case, straight out of the cosmos - to quite literally blow minds with its inventiveness, musicianship and downright grooviness. Cosmic Knot’s "Inner Space" is just such a recording. The studio debut by this West Michigan band led by multi-instrumentalist Tom Wall is at once psychedelic and genre-bending, straddling the galaxy between prog-rock, jazz, gypsy swing, jam-band meandering and funky blues while recalling everything from Pink Floyd to Porcupine Tree - and all tuned to a "positivity"-inducing 432 Hz…

HENRY PURCELL'S chamber opera, "Dido and Aeneas," is plentifully represented on disk, but Nicholas McGegan's new recording, with the Philharmonia Baroque and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge is the freshest and most compelling since Andrew Parrott's magnificent account of 1981 (on Chandos). Mr. McGegan's soloists – Lorraine Hunt as Dido, Lisa Saffer as Belinda and Michael Dean as Aeneas – work wonders with the concise characterizations provided by Purcell and his librettist, Nahum Tate.