David O'connell

One of the key German composers before Bach with more than 500 surviving individual pieces, Heinrich Schutz wrote mainly church music, and is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the early Baroque. Although he lived most of his long life in Germany, in his twenties Schutz made two visits to Venice. The first was between 1609 and 1613 when he was taught by Giovanni Gabrieli; and the second in the late 1620s to meet and possibly study under Monteverdi. The two trips greatly influenced Schutz's music as he absorbed and began to combine the ornate and theatrical Venetian style with the more understated Lutheran tradition in which he grew up. This album explores his solo cantatas alongside examples of the brilliant and virtuosic Venetian style instrumental music.

"On the Outside tour, Bowie quietly served as a grounding point for Reznor; he offered, in his music and his performances, the potential of a future. … Bowie and Reznor designed an interim sequence to bridge their sets. There would be no NIN encore. Instead Bowie, then his band, would join NIN on stage, and then NIN would depart, leaving Reznor singing with Bowie's band. The concert featured on this remarkable 2CD set finds the entourage playing at The Riverport Amphitheatre in St Louis, Missouri, on 11th October 1995.

Paul Juon was born in Moscow, of Swiss parents, in 1872, studying there with Arensky and Taneyev; Rachmaninov, a fellow student at the Moscow Conservatoire, dubbed him ‘the Russian Brahms’. Woldemar Bargiel, Clara Schumann’s half-brother, was his main teacher at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin before Juon himself became a member of the staff. There are indeed echoes of Brahms in Juon’s early music but there is also a fondness for Russian folksong and a mastery of counterpoint, which all feed into his urgent, late-Romantic lyricism.

Thierry David is a French composer and producer releasing albums of new age, ambient-electronic, world, lounge music since more than two decades. The world of this legendary producer is a mysterious one. Subtly developing keyboard motifs, trip-hop and downtempo electronic grooves take you on a journey toward inner peace. Hidden within this slowly unfolding, deeply evocative record lies Thierry David's secret world, waiting to be discovered…

The years have only been kind to the album considered David Ackles' masterpiece when it was released. Ackles combined an early-'70s singer/songwriter sensibility with a theater music background that placed him as much in the tradition of Brecht-Weill and Jacques Brel as Bob Dylan. Not only are his songs fully realized, dramatic statements, but Ackles proves himself a warm, accomplished singer. When this album got no higher than #167 in the charts, Ackles' fans were heartbroken. Decades later, American Gothic remains one of those great albums that never found its audience. It waits to be rediscovered.