Mandara of Buddhist Paradise is a live concert album and multimedia project by the Japanese New Age/synthesizer group Himekami, led by Yoshiki Hoshi. Released in July 2025, the album captures a performance at the Motsuji Temple in Hiraizumi, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its historic "Pure Land" paradise garden.

Hiraizumi Reminiscence (平泉追憶) is an album by the Japanese New Age musical group Himekami, released on June 29, 2025. Produced and composed by Yoshiki Hoshi—the son of the group's founder, Yoshiaki Hoshi—the album draws inspiration from the serene and historical atmosphere of Hiraizumi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Japan.

Dean Wilden and Tony Decker are Fargo. Their home is Salt Lake City, Utah. People who meet them or hear their music find that fact incongruous, for thinking of Salt Lake City brings to mind the Tabernacle with its mysteries and its majesty and the descendents of Brigham Young quietly living their lives by that oddly isolated sea in the heartland of America. Somehow it's hard to imagine young contemporary singers-composers at work against this backdrop.

Sandman began life only months after Duit On Mon Dei was completed and featured many of the same participants, but the album had a completely different feel than Duit. Besides the excellent “(Thursday) Here’s Why I Did Not Go To Work Today” (a co-write with Danny Kortchmar), Sandman‘s creative highlights are three tracks featuring longtime arranger Perry Botkin, Jr.: The beautiful “Something True” (a co-write with Botkin), the jokey, a cappella “The Ivy Covered Walls” and the daring “Will She Miss Me,” featuring a gypsy violin and an aggressive Botkin string arrangement that’s unique to Harry’s catalog. Unfortunately, there were no hits. For Nilsson’s next LP, That’s The Way It Is, RCA demanded an outside producer and more cover songs aimed at the charts. Harry agreed.

Knnillssonn was Harry’s personal favorite at the time of its recording, plus the music itself is pretty impressive to boot. With his voice having recovered from the Pussy Cats sessions with John Lennon, Nilsson set out to write a complete album of original material, handle the production duties himself and make a proper comeback record.

While music traditions are often defined by established and protected sets of characteristics, popular music in South Africa betrays a willingness to adapt homegrown styles and an enthusiasm to adopt new influences.

This event commemorates the 1250th anniversary of the birth of Kobo Daishi (Kukai), a revered Japanese Buddhist monk who founded the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Kobo Daishi is a significant figure in Japanese history, known for bringing back wisdom and cultural practices from the Tang Dynasty to Japan. His teachings and the spiritual practices he established, such as the famous 88-temple pilgrimage in Shikoku, continue to influence Japanese society to this day.

In the last few years, not a lot has been heard from Duncan Mackay – a keyboard player whose résumé includes such platters as “The Best Years Of Our Lives” by COCKNEY REBEL, “I Robot” by ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, “Nude” by CAMEL, and Kate Bush’s “The Kick Inside” alongside a string of remarkable solo works – but that doesn’t mean the veteran hasn’t been busy lately. Apart from contributing to albums from THE GATEKEEPERS, he collaborated with renowned South African guitarist Mauritz Lotz – and now the results of their joint creativity are out.

Gaia Onbashira is a musical exploration of respect and how it relates to ancient traditions. Gaia loosely translates to Goddess of the Earth or Mother Earth and Onbashira is a festival that occurs every seven years in Japan. During the Onbashira festival, eight individuals are chosen for spiritually cleansing. The participants ascend a mountain and attempt to spiritually connect with the heavens through the trees. These trees are then allowed to fall down the mountain and eventually become posts and the foundation of a ceremonial shrine. Through these events, these individuals learn to become more in touch with their spirits.

What is hubris? It is Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, a folly Harry Nilsson crafted after winning a Grammy for "Everybody's Talkin'." Riding upon the goodwill generated by the award, he decided to compress and edit his first two (quite brilliant) albums into one record. He remixed tracks, erased old vocals, over-sang some new ones, edited sections out of certain songs, and slowed others down. Apart from the intros and outros, there are no brand-new items, just old tunes presented in slightly new, slightly off-putting ways. If you're not familiar with the debut, this will be pretty enchanting since the two records weren't that far apart stylistically and, let's face it, he was working with pretty terrific source material.

Gino Paoli was an Italian singer-songwriter. He wrote a number of songs widely regarded as classics in Italian popular music, including "Il cielo in una stanza", "Che cosa c'è", "Senza fine", "Quattro amici" and "Sapore di sale".

The envelopes are thick, slightly worn at the corners from their journey, the stamps bearing unfamiliar cities and languages. Opening them in the quiet of the morning has become a small ritual, sliding out the disc, reading the liner notes, wondering what sound from what corner of the world is about to fill the room. On this particular morning, the journey leads north, to the jazz scenes of Scandinavia, and to a collective of strikingly accomplished musicians gathered under the name Lexingtone. Among them stands the trumpeter Erik Palmberg, a player whose approach suggests not only technical command but also a restless curiosity about the history he has inherited.

Gregorio Zucchini, Floriano Canale, and Antonio Mortaro. What unites these three composers? At least three shared traits: they all lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, they are the shining stars of their respective compositional traditions (Benedictine, Augustinian, and Franciscan), and through their customary wanderings, these monk-composers worked in various Venetian mainland territories, including Brescia.

Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas & Five Selected Songs is a classical album by clarinetist Joshua Anderson and pianist James Winn, released on April 10, 2026. Published by Centaur Records (CRC4196), the recording features Brahms' two cornerstone clarinet sonatas alongside five lieder transcribed specifically for clarinet and piano by Joshua Anderson.

Jean-Marie Machado returns to the piano trio format with Como as Flores, an album inspired by the work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888 -1935), music of clarity and poetry, underpinned by timeless, subtle dances and beautiful stretches of rhythmic trance.