Tim O'connor

Timothy John Pearson Renwick (born 7 August 1949 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England) is an English guitarist. He is best known for his association with Al Stewart in his early career and for his long-standing role as lead guitarist for the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver. He also performed with Pink Floyd on their 1987 and 1994 tours, as well as accompanying the band at their Live 8 performance. Tim Renwick is the first solo album by English guitarist Tim Renwick, released in 1980. Gary Brooker was among the guest artists playing on the album.

With his eighth album MORLA, ECHO award winner Tim Allhoff shows curiosity, self-confidence and a stylistic diversity that reflects his various musical influences. For many years he has been one of the most important pianists on the German scene. The magazine JAZZTHING calls him the "Piano Shooting Star of the Republic" and the SÜDDEUTSCHE congratulates him, at the latest with this release, on his "ascent into the royal class of solo pianists".

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a new re-mastered 3CD and DVD clamshell boxed set anthology celebrating the career of celebrated synthesiser and electronic ambient music pioneer TIM BLAKE.

WINDPOWER from composer Eric Biddington highlights the versatility of the saxophone through the proficiency and musicality of the players, the Saxcess Quartet, in a collection of 11 original works. With multiple orchestrations and movements spanning 34 tracks, Biddington’s compositions are on full display with works for solo saxophone as well as sax trio and quartet. From tender and emotional to lush and energetic, Biddington’s compositions explore every nook and cranny of musical possibility. The dextrous and emotive performance by the Saxcess Quartet unites the pieces into a whole, providing a pleasing continuity throughout the varied arrangements and orchestrations.

Coming 40 years after he first started performing in bands in his native North West of England, Butterfly Mind is the most surprising release yet from Tim Bowness. From the short, sharp shocks of Always The Stranger and Only A Fool to the long-form ambition of the sensuous Dark Nevada Dream, the cinematic Electro-Ballroom of Glitter Fades and the dystopian paranoia of Say Your Goodbyes Parts 1 and 2, Butterfly Mind delivers a thrilling fusion of Art Rock invention, Post-Punk energy and epic soulful ballads. Tim’s seventh solo album features the stellar rhythm section of Richard Jupp (in his first major session since leaving Elbow) and Nick Beggs alongside a spectacular guest list including Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Dave Formula (Magazine), Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator), Martha Goddard (The Hushtones), Gregory Spawton (Big Big Train), Mark Tranmer (The Montgolfier Brothers / GNAC), Saro Cosentino (Franco Battiato), Italian Jazz musician Nicola Alesini, US singer Devon Dunaway (Ganga), Stephen W Tayler (Kate Bush) and, marking his first studio work with Tim for nearly three decades, former No-Man violinist Ben Coleman. Produced by Tim Bowness and Brian Hulse (Plenty), the album was mixed and mastered by Steven Wilson.

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.

The first album by the trad folk duo of Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, Folk Songs of Olde England, Vol. 1, is as interesting for what came of it as for what it is. This album, recorded in 1968, led directly to the formation of Steeleye Span, whose early albums were an electrified variation on this album's traditional acoustic British folk-rock. It could also be argued that Hart and Prior's example was influential in Fairport Convention's decision to move from a California-style folk-rock sound into something more uniquely British. In light of what came after, Folk Songs of Olde England, Vol. 1 sounds a bit tentative and at times slightly twee (Prior's voice has not quite matured into the rich, expressive instrument it would soon become), but on their own merits, these sensitive renditions of traditional British folk favorites like "Maid That's Deep in Love" or "A Wager a Wager" are respectful of tradition but not bound to it, performed with an infectious enthusiasm quite similar to what the Young Tradition were doing around the same period.

This anthology covers Tim Story's work between 1979 and 1986, serving up 18 pieces. Because there is no attempt to provide the pieces in chronological order (though the notes do indicate which album each piece comes from), there is no sense of Story's development as a composer - a later piece focusing on piano may well be followed by a more electronic piece. "Abridged" is a collection of small, floating still-life pieces, absorbing by dint of their lack of drama. Story's work draws the listener in, somehow capturing the attention by refusing to demand it - it's as easy to let the music fall into the background as to concentrate on it as a foreground element.

Tim McGraw has revealed two digital deluxe versions of his #1 album HERE ON EARTH – HERE ON EARTH Ultimate Edition & HERE ON EARTH Ultimate Video Edition, coming April 16th.