Bitter Sweet

Roxy Music mastermind Bryan Ferry recently collaborated with Netflix on the German period drama Babylon Berlin, an experience that served as the inspiration for a new solo album called Bitter-Sweet. Due out November 30th, the album will, like 2012’s The Jazz Age, be credited to Bryan Ferry and His Orchestra.

With Bitter Sweet Blues, Gaye Adegbalola has produced an album that starts off where her work with Saffire the Uppity Blues Women left off, and jumps into a new, adventurous space. An expanded cast of musicians and more personal lyrics are some of the benefits to going solo, and Adegbalola makes use of both well. Each song has either humor or power, sometimes both. The only thing that seems incongruous is the mixture of songs with wildly varying moods and topics. While satirical woman-power songs like "Big Ovaries" are empowering and funny, when paired with "Nightmare" – a powerful, personal song about child molestation – the effect is somewhat gross. The feminist politics of both songs mesh rather well, but it is difficult for the listener to shift from laughing at bawdy sexuality to somber empathy in just a few tracks. Overall, though, this is a fine first solo effort that resonates with spirit and emotion.

British crossover jazz, funk, and pop outfit Shakatak are a sophisticated ensemble who have enjoyed a long career. With a sound steeped in contemporary jazz and R&B, they found success with both instrumental albums and pop vocal productions. Formed in London in 1980, Shakatak originally featured keyboardists Bill Sharpe and Nigel Wright, guitarist Keith Winter, bassist Steve Underwood, and drummer Roger Odell…

Franco-African jazz singer Cecile Verny, who entered the German jazz charts in Spring 2005 at #13 with her album European Songbook, has set yet another milestone with The Bitter and the Sweet, continuing the tradition for which her ensemble has long been celebrated. Verny applies African roots, French song tradition, and smooth jazz "scat-robatics" to unite the rhythmic, pulsing compositions of her quartet. Here, her incredible voice sounds more personal than ever. Excellent musicians accompany her, highly inspired and very skilled, and their performances demonstrate modern jazz at its best.

Universal will celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Verve‘s Urban Hymns in September with a reissue campaign that includes a 5CD+DVD super deluxe edition and a massive 6LP vinyl box set. All formats feature a remastered version of the album (the work of Chris Potter and Metropolis’ Tony Cousins) and the super deluxe edition box set adds four further CDs offering B-sides, remixes, session tracks, BBC Sessions and two discs of unreleased live performance from the era, including the May 1998 hometown show in front of around 35,000 fans at Haigh Hall, Wigan.

This is the first expanded edition re-issue of Marc Almond’s 4th solo album, “The Stars We Are”, since its original release in September 1988. This re-issue is a three disc set that, on its first disc, couples the original 10-track album with its initial release’s CD and cassette only bonus tracks and with the B-Sides of its associated singles. A second CD features all known extended and remix versions of the album tracks. A third disc, a DVD (Region 0, PAL), compiles all six of the promotional videos filmed for the album, including the Tim Pope directed ‘Bitter-Sweet’ and the alternate U.S. version video of ‘Tears Run Rings’ as directed by Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson of Coil and Throbbing Gristle fame.