Bonham Tracy City

On this album, the band focuses on the glam rock sound of the mid- to late-'70s (swirling guitars, high-pitched harmonies) on tracks like "Dear Jean (I'm Nervous)" and "The Man Who Ate His Car," but City Boy maintains its soft rock sound with light keyboard touches and soft vocals on songs such as "One After Two" and the title track. Young Men Gone West has an interesting, albeit uneven, mix of songs that doesn't have the same quirky, eclectic feel of the first two albums - but it is a worthy effort nonetheless.

The return of the Memphis soul/funk/jazz trio The City Champs. Members, Al Gamble (St. Paul & The Broken Bones), George Sluppick (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) and Joe Restivo (Don Bryant) have been secretly concocting these tasty, solar expansing nuggets since their last output in 2010.

Contemporary cuts, but with a vibe that resonates with the best modes of 70s mellow soul and AOR – an impeccable selection of tracks that we might have missed otherwise, pulled from a range of releases from around the globe! Some of these are artists that have more presence in the digital market than the physical one, others are maybe older acts that have continued to make great music underground – and together, the 19 tracks in this set deliver plenty of the promised sparkle throughout! Titles include "Fireplace" by Penthouse, "On The Very Low" by Ivan Ave, "Call It Home" by Ginger Root, "1/7 (10*9)" by Julia Wu, "Goddess" by Matt Johnson, "You'll Never Get To Heaven" by Workshy, "Lose June" by Randy Goodrum, "Whatcha Gonna Do For Me" by Young Gun Silver Fox, "Another One" by Mandoo, "BMPD" by Smooth Reunion, "Aim High" by 9m88, "Cauliflower" by Jak Lizard, and "Live Learn" by The California Honeydrops.

Naxos intend to record Vivaldi’s entire orchestral corpus, and Raphael Wallfisch’s integral four-disc survey of the 27 cello concertos inaugurates this visionary, though plainly Herculean undertaking. Soloist and orchestra employ modern instruments; director Nicholas Kraemer contends that authentic protocols can be ably met by contemporary ensembles and, in articulation, style and ornamentation, these pristine, engaging readings have little to fear from period practitioners. Wallfisch’s pointed, erudite and spirited playing is supported with enlightened restraint by the CLS, directed from either harpsichord or chamber organ by Kraemer, whose sensitive continuo team merits high praise throughout. Without exception, these Concertos adopt an orthodox fast-slow-fast three-movement format. Wallfisch, dutifully observant in matters of textual fidelity, plays outer movements with verve, energy and lucidity, such that high-register passagework, an omnipresent feature of these works, is enunciated with the pin-sharp focus of Canaletto’s images of 18th-century Venice, which adorn the covers of these issues.

The Bay City Rollers were a Scottish pop/rock band of the '70s with a strong following among teenage girls. The origins of the group go back to the formation of the duo the Longmuir Brothers in the late '60s, consisting of drummer Derek Longmuir (b. March 19, 1952, Edinburgh, Scotland) and his bass-playing brother Alan (b. June 20, 1953, Edinburgh; d. July 2, 2018, Larbert, Scotland).

City Boy's self-titled debut ranges from blues/funk tunes to mellow AOR songs to progressive, melodic tracks - there's something on the album for most everyone to like. From the Sweet-ish anthem "The Greatest Story Ever Told" to the quirky "Oddball Dance," City Boy is an eclectic, interesting and notable introduction.

This richly rewarding album is Oksana Volkova’s first solo album on Delos, though she appeared alongside the late, great Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Delos’s GRAMMY®-nominated 2017 release of Verdi’s complete Rigoletto. Here she delivers powerful, passionate and ravishing performances of (mostly) well-known French, Italian, Russian and Belarusian arias for mezzo-soprano. The composers include Bizet, Thomas, Saint-Sae¨ns, Gounod, Cilea, Massenet and Mascagni; Russian masters heard here are Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, alongside a rare treat: an arresting aria by Belarusian composer Dmitri Smolsky, whose music is almost completely unknown in the West. Glowing instrumental collaboration, as usual, comes courtesy of Maestro Constantine Orbelian, leading his trusty Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra.