A boat from Venice to Padua? Yes, it does sound odd and, to recall Alice, it becomes curiouser and curiouser. The ill-assorted company of passengers includes a student, some lawyers from Murano, a fisherman from the Lagoon, a couple of girls whose profession is older than agriculture, a music-master from Lucca, and a Florentine bookseller who invites five singers on board. All the makings of a Ship of Fools if not of a Marx Brothers comedy. And so it turns out to be. The singers (four from different parts of Italy, the fifth an alcoholic German who passes round the bottle before the proceedings commence), begin with a couple of madrigals.

All four of Arvo Part’s symphonies are released on a single disc for the first time, newly recorded with the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic under the direction of one of Part’s most trusted colleagues, Tonu Kaljuste. Each of the symphonies, as the great Estonian composer has noted, is a world unto itself. Heard in chronological order they also tell us much about Part’s musical and spiritual journey, and the very different ways in which he has exercised his craft. Forty-five years separate his Symphony No. 1 (“Polyphonic”) written in 1963 while he was still a student of Heino Eller, from his Symphony No. 4 (“Los Angeles”) written in 2008, by which time he was (and still is) the world’s most widely-performed contemporary composer, and one whose now famous “tintinnabuli-style” has become an immediately identifiable artistic signature.

For their latest album for Rubicon, the Berlin based Kuss Quartet have programmed Schubert’s quartet ‘Death and the Maiden’ with two contemporary works by composers the quartet have often championed. Schubert’s disturbing, death obsessed quartet, composed in the winter of 1822 when the composer was suffering from syphilis that would eventually claim him at the age of 31, has become one of his most performed works. The opening bars are electrifying, and without doubt, the early romantic age in music had dawned.

After being intermittently active during the mid-'80s, Ian Hunter returned full force to the world of rock & roll with this 1989 album. As usual, Mick Ronson plays an important role, making a substantial contribution to the songwriting and supplying an array of tasty guitar licks. The result is a strong outing that brings Hunter's classically styled rock up to date: the standout example of this is "American Music," a heartfelt tribute to the music that inspired "Hunter" as a child that combines power chords with a slickly harmonized chorus to create a punchy slice of pop-flavored rock & roll. YUI Orta is the slickest-sounding album in Hunter's catalog thanks to the efforts of Bernard Edwards, the producer best known for being half of the creative brain trust behind Chic and producing slick outings for the Power Station and Robert Palmer. This pairing might seem odd in concept but it results in an effective sound that rocks hard but offers enough ear candy elements to make the whole package listener friendly. For instance, Edwards adds a serpentine horn riff to "Cool" that cleverly enhances its soulfulness without taming the song's hard rock edge.

Human's Lib is fueled by the nonstop synth-pop hooks and brightly textured melodies that went on to be a trademark of Howard Jones. His brand of spirited keyboard-and-lyric exuberance lent itself to a large part of the mid-'80s, especially in Britain. The tracks on Human's Lib are energetic and colorful, coming to life the best on "New Song," a number 27 hit for Jones in the U.S., and on the finely structured "What Is Love?," which gave him the number 33 spot on the singles chart four months later. While both of these songs rested at the bottom end of Billboard's Top 40, they went to number three and number two, respectively, in the U.K., with the album going all the way to number one, proving that his techno-pop stylings were better-appreciated on his side of the Atlantic. Outside of the singles, the album still holds well, with efforts like "Hide and Seek," "Conditioning," and "Pearl in the Shell" following through with a buoyant but orderly techno-pop keenness mustered through his clean use of the synthesizer. Although 1985's Dream Into Action is tighter both musically and lyrically, Human's Lib acts as a well-grounded starting point for Jones' future success.

They're his songs, so he can do whatever he wants with them. That seems to be the idea behind My Songs, a 2019 collection where Sting decides to revisit 15 of his most famous songs and tweak them for modern audiences. The inspiration behind the project was an updated version of "Brand New Day," which he reworked at the end of 2018 not only so it'd have a shiny new arrangement for a New Year's Eve gig, but so the track could slide between Ariana Grande hits on a playlist. Happy with the results, he turned his attention to Sting and Police songs you know by heart, re-recording a few chestnuts outright, but usually satisfying his muse by stripping away old studio effects, swapping out lead vocals, and adding instruments and vocal harmonies along with numerous other minute but discernable changes.

The Best of Blondie (released in Germany and the Netherlands as Blondie's Hits) is the first compilation album by the band Blondie. Released in October 1981, the album peaked at #4 in the UK, #30 in the US, and became their only #1 album in Australia. The album was issued in several versions with different track inclusion and running order which varied slightly between North American and international editions of The Best of Blondie, highlighting the popularity of particular songs in different countries. The US and Canadian editions included "One Way or Another", which was not issued as a single in Europe. The international version of the album included three songs that were not on the US release: "Denis", "Picture This" and "Union City Blue".

With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title "In the Garden of Eden" or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which to some listeners sounds like eternity. But that's the essence of its appeal – it's the epitome of heavy psychedelic excess, encapsulating the most indulgent tendencies of the era.

The Berkeley shows by Jimi Hendrix are fairly well known because not only were the shows filmed, but they have been bootlegged pretty extensively over the years as well. Live at Berkeley: 2nd Show marks the first official release of this material, and, like its predecessor, Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight, the show has its strengths and weaknesses. Things start loose, very loose, on "Pass It On," which is actually the music from "Straight Ahead" with some off-the-cuff lyrics, then into "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)." Hendrix's guitar tone is fantastic, and there are some fine moments of soloing, but as far as the songs go, he seems distracted. Things start to pick up with "Lover Man" (check Billy Cox's bass playing here), and Hendrix really seems to find himself while romping through some older material like "Stone Free" and "Hey Joe"…

Dionne Warwick enjoyed a career revival in the late '70s and 1980s when she teamed with such producers as Barry Manilow, Barry Gibb, and even Luther Vandross. They returned her to the elaborately arranged and structured soul-tinged pop that had marked her finest hits, although the lyrics and compositions weren't as consistent as they were during her Burt Bacharach/Hal David period. This album collects the biggest hits from this second phase of Warwick's career, including such triumphs as "Deja Vu" and "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again"; it also introduced a new tune, "Take Good Care of You And Me".

Rammstein's second album, Sehnsucht, finds the German metal band making a great leap forward. While the group still sounds a little unfocused in places, their blend of industrial noise, grinding metal guitars, and operatic vocals is staggeringly powerful. No other European metal band sounds like Rammstein, nor does any American metal group - this is powerful, gothic metal that is unlike anything else in late-'90s metal. Sehnsucht may be an acquired taste, but it's one worth acquiring.