The Unsung Heroines of Congolese Rumba

Sir Elton John, born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, has been for a great part of the past five decades, one of the dominant forces in rock and pop music, especially during the 1970s, when he produced hits like "Your Song," "Rocket Man”, "Bennie and the Jets," and "Crocodile Rock." He has sold more than 250 million albums and over 100 million singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. He has also won five Grammy awards and one Academy Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him number 49 on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. John has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In The Many Faces of Elton John we will embark on a journey that will give us a profound insight into the career of one the pop music's most legendary superstars.

Joy Division is one of the definitive bands from the rock culture. With their dark poetic inception and a sound marked by a new way of thinking about how music should be created, the Manchester band served as a model for countless artists. Today, just as it marks 35 years of the death of Ian Curtis (the legendary singer and lyricist of the group) The Many Faces Of Joy Division shows the hidden world behind the group, their rare recordings, side projects, their influences and the Manchester scene where the band bloomed. With a wonderful cover art, remastered sound and extensive liner notes, The Many Faces of Joy Division is an album not only for fans but for anyone who wants to understand the influence (and enjoy the music) of a truly transcendent bad, which made beauty out of sadness.

One of the first of the blissed-out rave acts to storm the charts, and also one of the longest lasting, the Future Sound of London deserved a good singles compilation, and fortunately they get one with the Virgin retrospective Teachings from the Electronic Brain. Their highest moments were virtually always their singles, and short-form tracks offer a much easier path to understanding the music of Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain than their occasionally bloated LPs. Teachings from the Electronic Brain neglects nothing of real value, beginning with their first chart hit ("Papua New Guinea") and grabbing the best tracks from their albums Accelerator ("Expander"), Lifeforms (the title track), the live-in-the-studio ISDN ("Far-Out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman," "Smokin' Japanese Babe"), and Dead Cities ("We Have Explosive"). Best of all, licensing requirements prevented the addition of material from 2002's half-baked The Isness.

For nearly 74 years from the death of J.S. Bach in 1750 to Mendelssohn’s fifteenth birthday in 1824 the Matthäus Passion had all but disappeared. Young Mendelssohn’s prized birthday gift - a bespoke a copy of the Passion - was to change music history when five years later he mounted its first performance in the nineteenth century in Berlin. Today it is inconceivable to imagine music without Bach, but in the 1820s his music had been relegated to no more than the exercise-book for students of counterpoint.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, the fantastic metal quartet formed by members of Feuerschwanz, Amaranthe and Ad Infinitum, love to explore unseen lands and dive into the adventures of worldwide heroic characters. Sharing their stories with a dedicated fanbase, they now announce their debut album, Metamorphosis, out May 12, 2023 via Napalm Records. With this album, the unit around Ad Infinitum vocal queen Melissa Bonny and Feuerschwanz guitar virtuoso Hans Platz dip their soundscapes into mystical worlds, reinterpreting famous soundtrack themes and writing their own songs dedicated to their favorite characters.