Mark Russell

Why Not Now is an album by British jazz guitarist Ray Russell. Recorded in 1987 and originally released on the tiny Theta label under the name Childscape, Why Not Now is a unique blend of progressive jazz and space rock that manages to escape the clichés of new age music (despite the presence of some extremely dated synthesizer sounds) in favor of a calm, hallucinatory stillness that owes much to Gil Evans' '50s charts for Miles Davis. Evans, in fact, appears on the album, playing electric piano on his own composition, "The Pan Piper," and serving as the subject of the lovely closer "Sketches of Gil," completed shortly before the master arranger's death.

This autumn, Erased Tapes are set to release ‘Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded’ by composer and producer Peter Broderick and French 12-piece group Ensemble 0; a complete re-recording of Russell’s epic minimalist orchestral composition originally released in 1983. ‘Give It to the Sky’ also includes unreleased tracks by Russell which have been restored and re-recorded, resulting in an 80-minute reanimation that threads several lost songs into a meticulous and gorgeous rendering. The album was recorded live as a group in a small theatre in the Southwest of France with minimal overdubs.

Ken Russell at the BBC, Disc 2 & 3 (2008)
Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966); Dante's Inferno (1967); Delius: Song of Summer (1968)

He is perhaps the most criminally underrated great director of all time. He's earned an Oscar nom, and more early career accolades than many attempting his craft. But thanks to a late in life clash with commerciality, and a stern sense of self-importance, Ken Russell now stands as a pseudo-joke. He remains a great champion of his own Englishness, and has often used unusual platforms (Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, for example) to keep his reputation exposed and intact.

Orange Mountain Music presents this new limited edition 11 disc boxed set - The Symphonies by Philip Glass. This collection features conductor Dennis Russell Davies who has arranged the commission of nine of ten Glass symphonies, leading the orchestras over which he has presided during the past 15 years including the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. This collection is the fruit of a 20 year collaboration between Glass and Davies and showcases a wide variety within this surprising body of work by Glass.