Strangers in Paradise (1984) Ulli Lommel

Smokie's final album, 1982's Strangers in Paradise was the ideal follow-up to the now three-year-old Other Side of the Road – musically and lyrically, it's as strong as Smokie ever were, with the title track and "Two Strangers Falling" surely ranking up there with the best of the band's output…

Smokie's final album, 1982's Strangers in Paradise was the ideal follow-up to the now three-year-old Other Side of the Road – musically and lyrically, it's as strong as Smokie ever were, with the title track and "Two Strangers Falling" surely ranking up there with the best of the band's output. But the production was distinctly old-fashioned, as though the entire album had been recorded four or five years earlier, then left in a box 'till the time was right. Or, in this case, wrong. Add a record label that really didn't raise a finger to promote the band, and a musical climate that had long since moved away from the standards that Smokie held so dear, and the band weren't simply out of time, they were out of place as well.

This enticing album of sonatas by Ravel, Enescu, Ysaÿe and Prokofiev emerged from violinist Diana Tishchenko’s victory at the 2018 Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition. Born in Ukraine, and trained in Kiev and Berlin, she has been noted by The Strad for her "power to mesmerize the audience with her large gesture and strong personality”. Her musical partnership with the Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári is extraordinarily close and potent. In the words of the French online journal Toute la musique, they are “not two interpreters playing together, but a true musical entity, an artistic fusion … They played as if each note were being created in real time … deploying an infinitely large palette of colours and nuance – the possibilities were inexhaustible.”