Gin Label

Gin Wigmore is already a huge star in her native New Zealand, but she is virtually unknown in the rest of the world, although she has what it takes to go international: her songs are full of sharp observations about the downside of love and lust, with arrangements that sound big and huge and are built for a superstar on a grand stage, and she knows full well that the way there heads out to the dancefloor. Her songs sound huge, spunky, and feisty, and in some ways she's the midnight dance chanteuse that Britney Spears always seemed to want to be. But then there's Wigmore's voice.

The brand new album from one of the most successful melodic alt-rock bands still making music today, Gin Blossoms! Features a stellar set of new original material including the fantastic lead-off track “Break,” the ferocious rocker “Here Again” and lots more! The Blossoms just wrapped up a US tour celebrating the 25 year anniversary of their seminal, multi-platinum album New Miserable Experience, which spawned the blockbuster singles “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You!”

For their debut album on ATMA Classique, violinist Marie Begin and pianist Samuel Blanchette-Gagnon present sonatas for violin and piano by Claude Debussy and Cesar Franck, as well as Karol Szymanovski's Mythes, Op. 20, a rarity in the modern repertoire for violin and piano.

The new record, titled Ivory, is the Kiwi singer's first collection of new music since 2015's Blood To Bone. Wigmore's previous album, Blood To Bone, won her a nomination for Best Live Act at the 2015 MTV EMA's and the award for Best Female Artist at the 2015 NZ Music Awards. Her past two albums, Gravel and Wine and Holy Smoke, both reached multi-platinum status in New Zealand. Ivory is out in full on April 6.

Once in a while, an album comes along to take your breath away. That is certainly the case with this boxed set, which contains no fewer than 25 CDs tracing the history of jazz piano from early 1899 to the end of 1958. Several years ago, the same record company issued a set ten CDs covering some of the same ground, but this expanded version is even more amazing.