On May 13, 2000 the Chicago Underground Quartet played one of the most searing and transcendent sets of music I’ve ever witnessed, as part of the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music. Cornetist Rob Mazurek, guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Chad Taylor, and bassist Noel Kupersmith performed with a fiery singularity of purpose, ripping through its set like a bulldozer, albeit a machine marked by nuance and soulfulness. The following year the same line-up—which had previously made two albums for Delmark as the Chicago Underground Trio despite, with Parker nominally billed as a guest—dropped its eponymous debut on Thrill Jockey, serving up one of the strongest entries in the city’s modern history. Little did anyone know it would be nineteen years for the follow-up to surface.

Le Concert de la Loge and Julien Chauvin continue the Haydn adventure with the Paris symphonies no.84 and no.86. The conductor and his period instruments orchestra complete the programme with the beautiful Stabat Mater, one of Haydn’s most performed ones during his lifetime. Composed in 1767 during the Sturm and Drang period, the Stabat Mater’s strikingly sober and plain expression (« Fac me vere tecum flere ») doesn’t exclude some outstanding passages, as in the « Sancta Mater, istud agas ».

Coming off a double Oscar win for his Breakfast at Tiffany's score, Henry Mancini produced this score for the Howard Hawks-directed, John Wayne-starring safari comedy. This is at first a fun blend of jazz and Afro-exotica, jungle drums mixed with a classic bop combo. Elsewhere, however, the soundtrack opts for some pleasant, but very Western jazz, only stopping for the African instrument-sampler "The Sounds of Hatari," which features some nice treated piano.

And Once Again was the fourth solo studio album released on Polydor Records from Soul singer, songwriter, musician, producer and actor Isaac Hayes.

This album with recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s works for the French horn is devoted to the memory of former principal hornist Frank Struck: the Horn Concertos and the fabulous Horn quintet for French Horn and strings.

Involved was Starr's fifth LP for the Gordy imprint on Motown Records. Starr and the session musicians play as hard and explosive as they can, marking this album out as one of the rawest recordings ever released under the Motown banner.

Taken from keyboardist David Garfield’s new EP, 'Guitar Heroes OTB, Vol. 3,' the cover opens with a dynamite EVH solo.

Franz Schubert established the musical genre of the Moments Musicaux: small, characteristic piano pieces that attempt to capture the moment or make it eternal.

Bruce Springsteen live at 1997-05-18 Palais des Congrès Acropolis, Nice, France.

György Vashegyi’s new recording of Rameau’s Dardanus superbly demonstrates the Dijon-born composer’s genius, but also the mastery which Vashegyi – with his Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir – has acquired in the music of the Late French Baroque. In conjunction with the preparation of a fresh edition for the Rameau Opera Omnia of the May 1744 version of Dardanus (under the aegis of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles), Vashegyi conducts from a score prepared by the composer (and his librettist Leclerc de La Bruère) following the work’s rejection by Paris Opéra audiences in 1739, with the intention of reinforcing the “tragédie”’s dramatic action.

'Recepticon' is a collection of 14 new songs by the prolific UK Producer Luke Vibert under his legendary alias, Wagon Christ. Packaged up with stellar new artwork by his old Cornwall mate Celyn Brazier. 'Recepticon' is here to save 2020.

Based in West Wales, UK. Instrumental psyche-space-rock band whose work blends early psychedelic outings, occasional heavy riffing, and electronic ambient musings. The core band in UK is currently: Pete Bingham on guitars & electronics, Glenda Pescado on bass, Meurig Griffiths on drums, Lee Relfe on sax and Lord Armstrong Sealand on theremin & synths.

Recorded live at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, TN on 12/31/20.

AD 93 presents a collection of ambient masterpieces from the legendary Biosphere (Geir Jenssen). Having pioneered his style of “arctic ambient” music since emerging in the early 1990s, Jenssen lands on a new aesthetic for Angel’s Flight. Many of these recordings were originally composed for choreographer Ingun Bjørnsgaard's contemporary dance performance 'Uncoordinated Dog' in 2019, compiled here to form an album of wintry beauty.

Normally we try to avoid audience recordings as, all too often, those in front of the stage can come across as being louder than the band ON the stage. Back in 1993, at the rather beautiful old Trocadero Theatre, the audience did their best to triumph in the loudness battle so this release is far from being sonically perfect. However, there's a quality to the playing and a certain clarity that earns it a place on this page. It's a transitional set of songs too, featuring a few rarities. Just turn it up and step right inside, but PLEASE …do be quiet!