Soundscape UK

This Is Acid Jazz Vol. 7: Steppin' Out (INS514, 50:17) is a low-key affair, showcasing the usual suspects (Shakatak, The JB Horns, Gota) and talents deserving wider recognition (The Sharpshooters, Woody Cunningham). Perfect beat moments: CFM Band's churning Bobby Byrd ("Get on up/Get into it!")/Headhunters/Tom Browne-pastiche "Make It Funky CFM," Cunningham's straight-outta-'70s funk-on-a-slow-roll "Tonite."

This Is Smooth Jazz: The Box Set features a whopping three discs of music, all of it firmly anchored in the smooth jazz idiom. With such a wide scope of performances – a grand total of 36 songs and few repeat performers – This Is Smooth Jazz functions as an excellent introduction to the style. And if you're already acquainted with the laid-back sounds of smooth jazz, this album will at the least enlighten you to some of the many different approaches to the genre. There's no shortage of variety here. Some of the many performers featured on This Is Smooth Jazz include Duncan Millar, Fredrik Karlsson, Yada Yada, Chris Standring, Modern Tribe, Act of Faith, and many more. As mentioned, this collection serves as a wonderful starting point for the neophyte while simultaneously offering a checklist of sorts for seasoned smooth jazz listeners.

Best known for his worldwide instrumental hit "Children," Italian dance producer Robert Miles was responsible for kick-starting the subgenre of dream-trance, a blissfully chilled-out fusion of Vangelis-style neo-classical music and progressive house beats, which helped him to bag a Brit Award and several Top Ten singles in the mid-'90s. Since his last commercial success, the Kathy Sledge-featuring "Freedom," 14 years ago, he's abandoned his celestial piano-based roots in favor of experimental trip-hop on 2001's Organik and ethnic jazz on 2004's Miles_Gurtu, a collaboration with Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu. Seven years on, he returns from the musical wilderness with his fifth studio album, Th1Rt3En, and another new sound that further distances himself from his Euro-dance beginnings.

Although glam had long slipped off the radar by 1981, that year found Suzi Quatro releasing one of her finest albums. With Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (the producers behind her biggest hits) at the controls, Quatro and her band craft a series of songs that blend the hard rock power that fueled her glam rock era hits with a new soundscape that tarts up the songs with some ear attracting new wave hooks.

In a period in which the boundaries between musical genres are rapidly dissolving, there still exist major differences between what we still call a “jazz” band and those of other musical classifications.Perhaps the most significant of these is that longevity in a jazz ensemble will nearly always have an entirely positive effect on the music. That’s clearly a huge factor when listening to the high-caliber international quartet put together over a decade ago by the New York-based guitarist-composer Scott DuBois.

Eye Of Solitude are proud to reveal the fifth album called Slaves To Solitude.

Following the recent release of "Tick Tock", UK artist Seagrave is ready with his first full-length artist album, featuring 9 well-crafted songs in the downtempo and chillout genres.