Very Interesting 2021

The career of Buke & Gase, the duo of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, has one of the more idiosyncratic arcs of any band of the past two decades. Formed in 2008, they became a cult obsession shortly after the release of their first demo EP, with the left-field indie rock of that release and their first LP Riposte earning the attention of luminaries like The National and Lou Reed, and praise from the likes of Pitchfork and Radiolab (which featured the group on three episodes) and NPR (where they played one of the very first Tiny Desk Concerts).

Celebrated musician, bandleader and television host Jools Holland has amassed an almighty line-up of musicians, each a master of their individual instrument, for his new album PIANOLA. PIANO & FRIENDS. A loving tribute to the black and white keys that have become synonymous with Holland and his show-stopping stylings.

LEVERKUSEN 2010, the fifth and latest release in the continuing series of classic live recordings by Allan Holdsworth, is due November 5 from Manifesto Records.

For most of his life Eric Craven has kept a very low profile, concentrating on his teaching career and quietly developing his ‘non-prescriptive’ composing method, a sort of aleatory style but which allows the performer varying degrees of freedom. His earlier cycle of short pieces, ‘SET’, was recorded after Craven was persuaded by leading pianists to make his work available.

This album features the first ever recordings of Sam Hayden's complete music for solo piano, performed by contemporary music specialist and indefatigable champion of new music, Ian Pace, a pianist with a formidable reputation for mastering the most challenging of new repertoire. The centrepiece is Haydens monumental 7-movement cycle, Becomings (Das Werden) I-VII (2016-18), the most recent work on the album and the most ambitious and demanding in terms of scale and sheer virtuosity. Becomings is accompanied by two shorter acoustic works, still time (1990) and Fragment (After Losses) (2003). . A different soundworld is provided by Piano Moves (1990) for amplified piano. His solo piano works have in common constant transformation, existing at the extremes of gesture, polyphony, density, register, dynamic range and textual juxtaposition, very much reflecting an aesthetic alignment with modernist traditions and very much at the cutting edge of the avant-garde, while retaining an open and interesting experience for even less adventurous listeners. Hayden has received commissions from many ensembles and the BBC and is Professor of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Second Coming are an old school horn rock band originally on Mercury Records (also the label behind the even better horn rock band Aura)…

Il matrimonio segreto is the only opera that has ever had the honor of being repeated in full at its premiere, so very much did the comical musical goings-on please its distinguished audience. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Innsbruck Early Music Festival Weeks, the conductor Alessandro De Marchi again at long last led a performance of Cimarosa’s most popular opera in historical performance practice and in original sound.