Cerrone

As of 2020, disco pioneer Marc Cerrone has been professionally making and performing music for nearly 50 years. His vast discography, spanning dozens of albums, has included Afro-beat-influenced funk, suspenseful soundtracks, adult contemporary pop, and French house. He will always be revered for his influential early solo albums, however, particularly the 1977 classic Supernature, which had an almost progressive rock-style sci-fi concept involving scientist-created mutants rebelling against humankind. While much of his later output is more populist, aiming at the radio or dance clubs, DNA is a more socially conscious, exploratory epic that recalls the space-disco subgenre more than any of Cerrone's past work.

Saxophonist Julian Velasco headlines an inventive, virtuosic, and diverse album of contemporary classical works for soprano, alto, and tenor sax as winner of Cedille Records’ first Emerging Artist Competition, a juried event celebrating the independent classical label’s 30th anniversary of championing Windy City artists of world-class talent.