Peter Phillips

Private Parts and Pieces is officially the fourth (though technically the third) solo album from guitarist Anthony Phillips. Unlike his previous releases, this one was assembled as a collection of instrumental music, rather than as an explicit attempt at a commercial album. It was first released in the U.S. in November 1978. The April 1979, UK release was a limited edition sold with the first 5,000 copies of Sides. Although the album itself came at an awkward time for Phillips, whose contract with Arista had run its course, the non-commercial Private Parts and Pieces format proved successful or useful enough to him to become a series of albums in its own right. While Phillips had previously credited a good deal of his non-guitar work under pseudonyms, on this album the credits were straightforward. Peter Cross did the artwork for the album. The 1990 CD reissue of Private Parts and Pieces included two new, solo recordings of material that dates from Phillips' time in Genesis.

Few ensembles are as difficult to write about as the incomparable Tallis Scholars. Inevitably, you just string together an array of superlatives and hope that other reviewers haven't gushed about the same attributes using the same words in precisely the same order. The ensemble's recording of the Christmas Mass and the antiphon Ave Dei patris filia marks both its fourth recording of works by Renaissance master Thomas Tallis and one of Gimell's last albums to be made during an unhappy affiliation with Universal Classics. (The label has since reverted to independent status, distributed in the United States by Harmonia Mundi.) As has been the case with other Tallis Scholars projects, the singers have rediscovered missing manuscripts and have put together the first modern performance editions of both of these works. Their complete mastery of their chosen subject, combining keen scholarship and transcendent beauty, makes this a radiant recording. The clarity and luminescent tone that conductor Peter Phillips achieves with his singers are simply superb. The recording, made at their frequent locale of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Norfolk, is a faithful one–but don't miss any opportunity to hear them live.

Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a 5CD clamshell boxed set anthology by legendary guitarist, composer and instrumentalist ANTHONY PHILLIPS. Anthony was a founding member of Genesis alongside Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks with whom he recorded the albums From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass. After leaving the group in 1970, Anthony studied orchestration and harmony externally at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After passing his LGSM exams, he taught music at Reeds School and Peper Harrow whilst continuing to compose and record in his home studio.

Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a 5CD clamshell boxed set anthology by legendary guitarist, composer and instrumentalist ANTHONY PHILLIPS. Anthony was a founding member of Genesis alongside Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks with whom he recorded the albums From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass. After leaving the group in 1970, Anthony studied orchestration and harmony externally at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After passing his LGSM exams, he taught music at Reeds School and Peper Harrow whilst continuing to compose and record in his home studio.