Hyperion have come up trumps again with another delightful disc of out-of-the-way music. The brainchild of Graham Johnson, it is subtitled "150 Years of English Women Composers", with notes by Sophie Fuller, author of a book due out next year entitled The Pandora Guide to Women Composers. In the course of the programme the performers uncover a host of imaginative, impassioned and/or joyful songs that have lain for too long literally unsung, and revived others that were hugely popular until very recent times. Let me say at once that they couldn't have more perceptive or loving or enthusiastic interpreters than Johnson and Johnson, who excel even their own high standards of singing and playing.
Explorer Levison Wood sets out to walk the length of the world's highest mountain range, from Afghanistan to Bhutan, The challenge comes after the explorer's trek along the full length of the Nile in 2013.
Innovatively fusing traditional ethnic musics with state-of-the-art rhythms, the work of Deep Forest was best typified by their 1993 smash "Sweet Lullaby," which brought together the contemporary sounds of ambient techno with the haunting voices of the Pygmies of the central African rain forest…