Yes Heaven And Earth

Formed in 2008, AGENTS OF MERCY was originally a side-project by Roine Stolt (guitars, bass, vocals) of The Flower Kings fame, whrere the goal was to create a low key, mostly acoustic based type of music…

2010 release from the veteran keyboardist and Prog legend, a collection of songs written by some of the world's finest composers. Always With You contains compositions from the new and old, all of which have been recorded by Rick in his own inimitable style…

Last Autumn's Dream is a hard rock band formed in 2002 by vocalist and keyboardist Mikael Erlandsson from Sweden and guitarist Andy Malecek from the German hard rock band Fair Warning. Last Autumn's Dream is one of the best melodic hard rock band's in the last decade and they have released some really stunning albums.

For the record, Anderson / Stolt – that’s Jon Anderson long standing singer although not currently an active member of Yes and Roine Stolt, guitarist in The Flower Kings and member of numerous progressive rock themed bands, most notably the transatlantic prog supergroup…Transatlantic. Their new joint undertaking, ‘Invention Of Knowledge’ seeks to expand even their own seemingly limitless boundaries…

Ghanian composer, singer, guitarist, arranger, producer, and bandleader Ebo Taylor came to the attention of DJs in the U.K. and throughout Europe in the early part of the 21st century. His legend spread among hip-hop and dance music producers in the United States as well, resulting in a sample from his slamming track "Heaven" in Usher's hit "She Don’t Know." The seminal Strut imprint issued Taylor's first transglobal offering, Love & Death in 2010: it was a smash in club circles internationally. Strut has gone one better with Life Stories: Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1973-1980, compiling two discs of Taylor's solo work and that of bands he's led, taken part in, or produced. The music here leans most heavily on Taylor's solo albums. It kicks off, of course, with the infectious, groove-laden "Heaven," but this isn't the high point…

Kai Hansen formed Helloween in 1984, playing guitar and singing on the speed metal band's first four albums. He left in early 1989, however, and founded Gamma Ray with vocalist Ralf Scheepers (formerly with Tyran Pace). The duo intended to record a one-off project that Hansen originated while in Helloween, so they recruited bassist Uwe Wessel, drummer Matthias Burchardt, and several other musicians…

I do think that this Decca set is arguably the best compilation reissue of such a bulk of Handel work which has been released in a long time, just in time to commemorate the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the passing of il caro Sassone. There is a lot in this box, absence of libretti notwithstanding. The enclosed booklet is essential to navigate you through the track listings and timings and little else but a small general essay on GFH.

By John Van Note