Angel Wav

Considered one of the finest counter tenors of his generation, Ryland Angel makes the switch from the rarefied world of Baroque music – which established him as an international star – to the land of pop classical on his lushly produced major-label debut. While some of the press materials tried to link him to more pop oriented singer/songwriters like Aaron Neville, James Taylor and James Blunt, Angel's stunningly beautiful, ethereal and transcendent voice will appeal just as much to fans of Josh Groban. But while Groban always aims for the big pop hook and crescendo, Angel is a little more traditional, letting most of these tracks build their feelings slowly, drifting over a colorful ambient landscape.

Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators.

Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda. Fresu graduated from the Conservatory of Cagliari in 1984, in trumpet studies under Enzo Morandini, and attended the University of Musical and performing arts in Bologna. Fresu has taught at the Siena Jazz National Seminars, as well as jazz university courses in Terni, and is the director of Nuoro Jazz Seminars in Nuoro, Italy. Fresu composes music for theatre, poem, dance, radio, television, and film.

The time had come, Angel Olsen realized in the fading summer of 2018, to take her new songs out of the house. Olsen’s 2016 marvel, My Woman, had been a career breakthrough, but it catalyzed a period of personal tumult, too: a painful breakup, an uneasy recovery, an inadequate reckoning. At home in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Olsen penned songs that finally grappled with these troubles, particularly love - how forever is too much to promise, how relationships can lock us into static versions of ourselves, how you can go through hell just to make someone else happy. These heartsore explorations shape Whole New Mess, Olsen’s first solo album since her 2012 debut and an emotional portrait so intimate and vulnerable you can hear her find meaning in these crises in real-time.

This box set features the six albums Angel released on Neil Bogart’s legendary Casablanca Records label, in addition to a seventh disc that contains mono mixes, single edits, soundtrack contributions, and other rarities.

“Avenging Angel” is Craig Taborn’s distinguished contribution to the great solo piano tradition at ECM, a powerful, purposeful and rigorous album, which rises to the challenges of the format and transcends them. The disc explores the textural dimensions of sound, builds new structures, uncovers a rugged lyricism. Recorded in the optimal acoustics of the recital room at Lugano’s Studio RSI, with Manfred Eicher producing, it’s Taborn’s first disc under his own name for ECM, following on from inspired sessions with Roscoe Mitchell, Evan Parker, David Torn and Michael Formanek.

Anyone who associates "Texas Flood" only with Stevie Ray Vaughan has never auditioned Larry Davis' version. Davis debuted on vinyl in 1958 with the song, his superlative Duke Records original remaining definitive to this day despite Vaughan's impassioned revival many years down the road. Davis grew up in Little Rock, AR, giving up the drums to play bass. Forging an intermittent partnership with guitarist Fenton Robinson during the mid-'50s, the pair signed with Don Robey's Duke label on the recommendation of Bobby Bland. Three Davis 45s resulted, including "Texas Flood" and "Angels in Houston," before Robey cut Davis loose. From there, Davis was forced to make the most of limited opportunities in the studio. He lived in St. Louis for a spell and took up the guitar under Albert King's tutelage while playing bass in King's band.

Maya Hawke is a musician, songwriter, actor and producer - She has released two lauded albums of music to date, Moss (2022) and Blush (2020), both of which showcase her natural gift for songwriting and storytelling, as well as a knack for striking visual presentation with sleeve designs of her own creation - "Therese," the lead single from Moss, garnered global attention with its mesmerizing Brady Corbet-directed video - and tens of millions of streams - and saw Maya make an impressive network TV performance debut on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.