Vi Bilagare From 29 November 2016

Different Light were formed in Malta at the end of 1994 by Trevor Tabone, Mark Agius Cesareo, Richie Rizzo and Trevor Catania. Loads of gigs were played throughout 1995 and an early version of 'In the Grey' was recorded for a compilation album. 'All About Yourself', the band's first album, was recorded in April 1996 and released in June of the same year. The band spent the rest of the year touring Malta to promote the album. Mark Agius Cesareo left the band in early 1997 and was replaced by Jeremy DeMaria. The band supported 'Fish' (ex Marillion) in a festival n Malta in September 1998. A mini-album (EP) called 'A Kind of Consolation' was released at the end of 1999 with David Cassar Torreggiani on guitars. At this point, Different Light split up and so ended the first chapter…

The voice of Spandau Ballet’s first solo holiday offering! As front man for Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley led the acclaimed band through the 1980s with 15 Top 10 singles (including the #1 smash “True.”) The band took a 20 year hiatus before reforming in 2009, again hitting the U.K. Top 10 with their reunion album, Once More. Following an acclaimed documentary (directed by Julien Temple) and a successful tour, Hadley stepped out with The Christmas Album, his first holiday offering, showing the same adventurous spirit, while doing what he does best—making every song his own. Including standards like “White Christmas,” “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” The Christmas Album moves effortlessly into the ’50s with Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph,” the ’70s with “I Believe In Father Christmas” (Greg Lake of Emerson Lake & Palmer), The Pogues’ “Fairytale Of New York” from the ’80s, and into the current century with Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” as well as originals.

The two CDs forming Vol. 2 are also based on a new collection and edition of the extant musical materials. The order of the pieces on the recording initially adheres to the sequence of the chorale settings in the musicological edition. The result includes programs with special thematic Christmas, Passiontide, Easter, Psalm settings, and catechism songs. This new recording is an invitation to listeners everywhere to rediscover Pachelbel's versatility as a keyboard composer.

It's the late Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121, that get the big print on the cover of this release by the awe-inspiring baritone Matthias Goerne, but actually the music on the album falls into a neat early-middle-late classification scheme. The group of middle-period settings of poetry by Heinrich Heine doesn't even get graphics on the cover, but these are fascinating. Brahms wrote a lot of songs, but you couldn't do better than the selection and performances here for a cornerstone collection item. Beyond the sheer beauty of Goerne's voice is an ability to shift gears to match how Brahms' style evolved. If you want to hear his real slashing, operatic high notes, check out the Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, settings of poems by the minor poets Georg Friedrich Daumer and Karl August Graf von Platen. These rather overwrought texts add up to a kind of slimmed-down Winterreise, and they catch the spirit of the still-young Brahms with his strong passions, elegantly controlled. The Heine settings, which come from several different sets of lieder, are not that often heard and are in some ways the most compelling of the group here.

Primarily known as an avant-garde jazz drummer, Tyshawn Sorey is also an adept classical composer whose music doesn't so much straddle genres as leap over them. Whether playing with his own groups, like his trio with pianist Kris Davis and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, or with such luminaries as trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, Sorey has proven himself a mutative player with a sympathetic ear for highly impressionistic group interplay. So sympathetic, in fact, that he often melds so deeply into the overall group sound that you're left with less a sense of Sorey's own playing than of the group's.

In 2014, original Kaipa members Roine Stolt, Ingemar Bergman (drums) and Tomas Eriksson (Bass) re-grouped under the name Kaipa Da Capo to play the old music from the first three albums as well as brand new music. To complete the team they called Mikael Stolt (vocals, guitar), brother of Roine, and Max Lorentz (keyboards). After a series of concerts in 2015 the group started the recording of a new album in June 2016.
Each track has its own idiosyncrasies, each its own classic prog band reference point - so the influence of Yes, Caravan, King Crimson, Genesis and Camel can be heard at various points…

Referred to as "the great white hope of progressive rock" by Rolling Stone; UK were one of the most influential and acclaimed supergroups of the 1970s. Originally formed in England in 1977 by keyboardist and electric-violinist Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music, Frank Zappa); vocalist and bassist John Wetton (King Crimson); guitarist Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine); and drummer Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, Genesis), UK represented the final statement of the classic progressive-rock era…

On Air is a compilation album by the British rock band Queen. It was released in November 2016 in a two disc CD format, a six disc deluxe CD format and a 3LP vinyl release. The two disc format features the complete BBC studio sessions; the six disc format adds a disc featuring several songs from three live concerts spanning between 1973 and 1986 and three discs featuring various interviews broadcast on Capital Radio and BBC Radio 1…