Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1967 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. The group's core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and featured Stone's brother and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone, sister and singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Gregg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham. Formed in 1967, the group's music synthesized a variety of disparate musical genres to help pioneer the emerging "psychedelic soul" sound. The work of Sly and the Family Stone greatly influenced the sound of subsequent American pop, soul, R&B, funk, and hip hop music.

The Limited Edition Apple Records Box Set (17 Discs) includes 14 individual artist albums with bonus tracks, the new Best of Apple Records “Come And Get It” collection, a 2CD collection of 37 un-released tracks from Badfinger, Billy Preston, Jacki Lomax and Mary Hopkins and a 16 page booklet. All housed in a cardboard box that artistically replicates the original Apple Records crate.

War is the third studio album by Irish rock band U2, released on 28 February 1983. The album has come to be regarded as U2's first overtly political album, in part because of songs like "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day", as well as the title, which stems from the band's perception of the world at the time; Bono stated that "war seemed to be the motif for 1982." War has received critical acclaim. In 2012, the album was ranked number 223 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Though the bass line of a certain celebrated Canon may have made Pachelbel the most frequently heard classical composer in the world, this sparkling program shows he was not just a "one hit wonder." It is built around suites for two violins and continuo from a collection called the Musikalische Ergötzung. The title means "musical delight," and indeed one cannot but be ravished by the extraordinary sonic hedonism displayed in these works. A few songs written for special occasions add further spice to this delightful recording featuring tenor Hans-Jörg Mammel and the ensemble Gli Incogniti led by Amandine Beyer.

Sandra Feva may be an unfamiliar name to those who didn't follow indie soul scene in the early 80s, but she certainly was not unknown to real soul enthusiasts at the time. On the contrary, it seemed that every connoisseur rated her very high, and compared her to Gladys Knight, Betty Wright, Margie Joseph and other songstresses of the same calibre. Fellow Soul Express scribe Heikki Suosalo wrote in early 1983 that he "hasn't heard a better album by a female singer this decade", John Abbey in Blues & Soul considered Sandra on a par with Gladys, and Clive Richardson cites in the liner notes of this reissue release that "here was a new voice to match the newly-solo Gladys Knight and the vibrant Patti LaBelle".

The four-piece from Oakland, California built up considerable momentum on the back of their sophomore album, Velvet Incandescence, which arrived in April 2023. Returning with Bioluminescence, the new year heralds a new chapter for the band. Creatively spearheaded by guitarist Tony Thomas (also of Botanist) and vocalist Chelsea Murphy, Dawn Of Ouroboros conjures up an atmospheric blend of black and death metal. Whilst Chelsea’s distinctive vocals both scathe and soothe, there is a vicious underpinning of progressive and propulsive extremity that unites their sound into something cohesive and alluring. An abyssal, claustrophobic thread runs through to the sound of the album itself - expanding and contracting as the songs undulate and pulsate. Dawn of Ouroboros are illuminating the path forward as they approach the release of Bioluminescence. Once again they find themselves with much to celebrate as an even brighter future beckons.

Buena Vista Social Club is the debut album by the eponymous ensemble of Cuban musicians directed by Juan de Marcos González and American guitarist Ry Cooder. It was recorded at Havana's EGREM studios in March 1996 and released on September 16, 1997, on World Circuit. Despite its success, it remains the only standard studio album exclusively credited to the Buena Vista Social Club. Buena Vista Social Club earned considerable critical praise and has received numerous accolades from music writers and publications. In 2003, the album was ranked number 260 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, one of only two albums on the list to be produced in a non-English speaking country. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The album was awarded the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album and Tropical/Salsa Album of the Year by a Group at the 1998 Billboard Latin Music Awards.

A well-rounded exploration of every shade of blues Ford does so well: Chicago-style ("When I Leave Here"), jump blues ("The Miller's Son"), jazz-blues balladry ("Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"), and Texas shuffle ("Tired of Talkin'"). Ford's buttery lines and burnished tone (and his boyish voice) are captured in all their glory by producer Danny Kortchmar. Solidly anchored by bassist Roscoe Beck and drummer Tom Brechtlein, Ford solos liberally, taking the fast funk of "Think Twice" over the top with a burning series of rapid-fire runs and well-tooled turnarounds. Slowing down for a languid version of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You," Ford plays it raw and soulful, recalling B.B. King. He then turns up the pace on "Strong Will to Live," closing out the album with a signature solo full of fire and drama.

Mark Murphy's 2005 Verve album, Once to Every Heart, focused on the veteran jazz vocalist's rare, even singular ability with ballads and torch songs. Produced by Till Brönner, the great flügelhorn player, it was an album that brought Murphy's name back toward - if not into - the jazz mainstream and offered another side of his work to the ever hip European DJs who revere his catalog. Love Is What Stays is a deeply satisfying and, in places, even astonishing reflection on time and its passage. Memory, reverie, regrets, victories, hipster mysticism, and wonderfully canny theatrically poetic wordplay all come to bear in these songs. Released 50 years after his debut - when he was already being hailed as one of the music's great singers - it is more adventurous and downright wily in its aims than anyone could have hoped for. And those aims? They are reached with relative ease. The group of players is no less wide ranging: Lee Konitz makes an appearance…

Quasi Parlando is an important addition to ECM's documentation of the work of Tigran Mansurian, an often breathtaking account of highly original contemporary chamber orchestra music. Issued in the wake of his 75th birthday, the album presents four works for soloists and strings, and marks the ECM debut of the Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, winner of the 2013 Gramophone Awards 'Record of the Year'. It opens with the Armenian composer's fiercely-concentrated Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and String Orchestra, and proceeds to new music performed by its dedicatees: the lyrical Romance, dedicated to Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and the intensely expressive Quasi Parlando, dedicated to German cellist Anja Lechner. Both are world premiere recordings, as is the Violin Concerto No 2, subtitled Four Serious Songs, which concludes the programme. Throughout, the soloists deliver committed performances, as does the Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the direction of Candida Thompson.

The Winding Sheet is a studio album by alternative rock artist Mark Lanegan. It was released in 1990 on Sub Pop. The album was Lanegan's first solo work, and is notable in its departure from the characteristic sound of Screaming Trees, the band he fronted from 1985 until 2000. While the work done in that group was much more energetic and fit into the burgeoning grunge genre of the late 80s/early 90s, The Winding Sheet has a much more stripped down sound, defining Lanegan's solo work largely for the rest of the decade. The album was a modest success. The term "winding sheet" is a synonym of shroud. "The Winding Sheet" is also the title of a traditional sea shanty that was the basis of the well known "Streets of Laredo". The album showcases Lanegan's adept skills as a lyricist and his deep, soulful voice. Highlights include "Mockingbirds," "Ugly Sunday" and the haunting "Wild Flowers." On "Down in the Dark" good friend Kurt Cobain sings while on the folk classic "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" Cobain contributes guitar and vocals and Krist Novoselic plays bass. Nirvana would later also cover "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" on their Unplugged album.

Berlin, 6.12.2024. On January 1, 2025, Maestro Riccardo Muti will conduct the New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic for the seventh time in the world-famous Golden Hall of the Vienna Music Club. Worldwide, there are only a few concerts that are expected with such great excitement as the New Year concert from Vienna. This year, it is broadcast to over 90 countries and reaches an audience of millions of people.

1989 (Taylor's Version) is the fourth re-recorded album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 27, 2023, via Republic Records. It is a re-recording of Swift's fifth studio album, 1989 (2014), and follows Speak Now (Taylor's Version) as her second album in 2023. Announced on August 9, 2023, at the final Los Angeles show of the Eras Tour, the album is a part of Swift's response to her 2019 masters dispute. The 21-track 1989 (Taylor's Version) contains re-recorded versions of 16 tracks from the deluxe edition of 1989 and five previously unreleased "From the Vault" tracks.

Before the Golden Age of Americana on Record, immigrants from the dissolving Ottoman Empire were singing their joys and sorrows to disc in New York City. The virtuosic musicians from Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant living in the U.S. who recorded between WWI and the Depression are presented here across two discs along with a third disc of masterpieces they imported as memories on shellac-and-stone. The intermingled lives and musics of Christians, Jews, and Muslims represent Middle Eastern culture as it existed within the U.S. a century ago.

5th in a successful series of 6CD Boxed Sets concentrating on Progressive/Rock/ Electronic bands and artists from the 60’s & 70’s German Krautrock era! Released in 2013, this is an amazing collection of Krautrock archive recordings, and a great way to start to build a nicely varied collection of tracks by known and perhaps previously unknown artists and bands that you might have heard of but never taken the time to investigate. The unique collection covers German Rock from the seventies from various Krautrock groups, and within you will find Electronic Music, Hard Rock, Jazz, Psychedelic and Progressive-Rock, simply everything that was listed under the “Krautrock” term, many of which are not easy (or almost impossible) to find now in their original form…