AEOLUS presents the second volume of the Louis Couperin Edition with Bob van Asperen. The recording was made on the 1681 Vaudry harpsichord in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and is currently the only audio document available of this famous instrument. The SACD contains harpsichord suites composed by Louis Couperin, who lived in Paris in the 17th century. Among the pieces is the famous "Tombeau de Mr Blancrocher".

Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced what is regarded as perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon. Having penned iconic songs such as "Gloria," "Brown-Eyed Girl," and "Moondance," Morrison has, from the very beginning – as frontman for Irish blues rockers Them during the early 1960s to a solo career that has lasted more than 50 years – been subject only to the whims of his own muse. His solo recordings, beginning with the mystical, jazzy folk of Astral Weeks in 1968, cover extraordinary stylistic ground, yet retain a consistency of vision and purity of execution unmatched among his contemporaries. His swinging meld of jazz, pop, folk, blues, and Celtic soul fueled the albums of his Warner Bros. period from the late '60s (Moondance) to the early '80s (Common One).

The most beautiful country & western songs by The Osborne Brothers, Arthur Smith, Paul Warren & Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass and many more on one compilation!

Time Was, Wishbone Ash's two CD-live anthology, was assembled by the band and the labels Castle and Sanctuary. Consisting of two previously released live recordings, only half of this is even worth hearing. The first disc, Live: Time Line, sounds like a bunch of geezers on their last legs and features only guitarist Andy Powell and bassist Martin Turner from the original lineup. Poorly recorded, tiredly played and utterly boring, it sounds more like a corner bar Wishbone Ash tribute band than the real thing – which of course it's not. In fact, the only case that ever needs to be made for bands not reuniting is this one. Disc two, originally issued as King Will Come: Live, is prime Ash. Recorded in the U.S. and Canada from 1973 through '76, at the height of their powers, this date showcases a restless, hungry, fully adventurous unit with Powell, Turner, drummer Steve Upton, keyboardist Graham Maitland and guitarist Laurie Wisefield. While the recording itself isn't stellar it's far more than passable and will be a welcome addition to the catalog for punters who didn't get it the first time around. The title track, "Blowin; Free," "The Warrior," "Balled of the Beacon," "Doctor," and "Moonshine" are all here, as well as nine others. This set makes plain the reason they ordered the performances in reverse: if King Will Come: Live had been first, no one would have ever even played Live: Time Line. As it is, folks who encounter Live: Time Line first may feel so ripped off by its horror, they may never stumble upon the treasure that is King Will Come: Live.

Released 27/11/08. At long last, 23 years after its original release, Marilyn’s one and only album “Despite Straight Lines” is finally reissued. This is the first time on CD for this album. The album features Marilyn’s four best selling singles including the number 4 smash “Calling Your Name”. The album has 8 bonus tracks that include 2 mixes of “Calling Your Name” 12″ promo mixes of “Cry And Be Free” (Gospel and Streisand styles) and the extended version of “Baby U Left Me In The Cold”.
The CD booklet includes a UK Discography with all the accompanying sleeves and a biography of Marilyn’s career. Marilyn emerged from the New Romantic movement in London at the end of the 1970’s. As a face on the scene he forged a strong friendship with Boy George. An appearance in a Eurythmics video brought Marilyn extensive press attention and he soon signed a deal with Phonogram. Success was to follow with a string of self and co-written tunes but all too soon problems set in and Marilyn’s career was over prematurely. His songwriting and artistic style means he’ll always enjoy the status of being an 80’s icon.

Opening slowly with the dark, swampy "Born on the Bayou," Bayou Country reveals an assured Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that has found its voice between their first and second album. It's not just that "Born on the Bayou" announces that CCR has discovered its sound – it reveals the extent of John Fogerty's myth-making. With this song, he sketches out his persona; it makes him sound as if he crawled out of the backwoods of Louisiana instead of being a native San Franciscan. He carries this illusion throughout the record, through the ominous meanderings of "Graveyard Train" through the stoked cover of "Good Golly Miss Molly" to "Keep on Chooglin'," which rides out a southern-fried groove for nearly eight minutes.

There has been no shortage of Cream compilations over the years – as a matter of fact, they far outnumber the group's actual albums, of which there were merely four (true, they were recorded during an insanely productive two-year lifespan) – but 2005's Gold is arguably the best of the lot. Released as part of Universal's ongoing Gold series, Cream's installment spans 29 tracks over the course of two discs, with the first CD being devoted to their studio work (it weighs in at 21 tracks) and the second devoted to live recordings (it runs only eight songs, which illustrates how much they improvised in concert).

During the early and mid-'70s, Wishbone Ash were among England's most popular hard rock acts. The band's sound was rooted in energetic hard rock, with a strong progressive rock influence in their extended compositions, inventive melodic sense, and the epic-scale soloing from their various guitarists (most notably Andy Powell, the group's sole constant member). Despite extensive personnel changes throughout their existence, Wishbone Ash maintained a distinct sound and a prolific longevity that earned them a lasting following. The group's most popular and best-regarded work came in the early '70s with their first four studio albums (1970's Wishbone Ash, 1971's Pilgrimage, 1972's Argus, and 1973's Wishbone Four), while they enjoyed a popular resurgence with 1987's all-instrumental Nouveau Calls, took a detour into electronic music with 1999's Trance Visionaries, and delivered a strong late-career effort with 2014's Blue Horizon.

50 songs and 75 years of musical dreams, schemes and themes drawn from the first series of the highly acclaimed Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan. This fully authorised release is packaged with a 48 page booklet.
What, I wonder, do we dream of when we dream of Bob Dylan? And, more intriguingly, what does Bob Dylan dream of when he dreams of us? This is what I think: he dreams of a small boy called Robert who lives in a small city, an industrial centre in a rural landscape. It’s a nowhere town that was once called Alice but had its name changed when an enormous hole was dug where its new name used to be. That giant hole was – and still is – the biggest of its kind in the world, an open-cast iron mine.

In November 1984 Sir Colin Davis conducted a performance of Messiah in Munich which, says the booklet which comes with these records, ''was a revelation to public and performers alike''. The surprising fact is that Messiah was previously almost unknown there. Enthusiasm was such that a recording was quickly organized with the same soloists. At rehearsal Sir Colin told the chorus to forget the B minor Mass; ''this is the world of Italian opera'', and as a result many of the choruses ''dance with a vitality born of freshness and discovery''.

This fascinating and thoroughly entertaining 3CD set is now available!
Here's what I had to say about it on All Music Guide:
"The idea of ‘banning’ a song from being broadcast over the airwaves is a familiar story here in the U.S., especially when it comes to offensive lyrics. Many of the decisions made by the FCC have been no-brainers and have met with some resistance but were, for the most part, justifiable. But in the UK (especially during the years covered on this three CD set), the BBC’s judgments on what was inappropriate for airplay made U.S. radio sound like a crowded brothel during happy hour!

The Refectory Hall at Leeds University is, judging by the wealth of talented band who have played there, an important venue in northern England. Pink Floyd played there three times. The first time was on November 8th, 1969 and doesn’t have a tape source. The February 28th, 1970 show, which is featured on Dying Of Boredom, is complete and the final appearance in Leeds, which was on January 23rd, 1971, has a fragmentary tape with “A Saucerful Of Secrets” and the blues encore. A previous commercial release of this tape can be found on Leeds 1970 (Ayanami-243) but Sigma is the first silver release of this tape. It is very good and clear but a bit “flat” and lacking in dynamics. It contains all of the music played the taper paused between songs cutting off many of the song introductions. Despite these limitations it is still a very nice document from the first couple months of the new decade.

Une intégrale de la musique pour guitare de Robert de Visée, par le guitariste canadien David Jacques, spécialiste en musique ancienne, sur une guitare cinq chœurs Claude Guibord, d’après un model Stradivarius de 1700.

A triple box set sampler taking 50 tracks released by Polydor Records between the 1967 and 1974, including songs by by Audience, Arthur Brown, Jack Bruce, Cream, Pink Fairies, Soft Machine, The Who, Tony Williams' Lifetime, John McLaughlin and many more, including some early recordings by familiar names.

Recorded in October 2007, just over half a month after the release of her hits collection Crystal Visions, The Soundstage Sessions finds Stevie Nicks running through her hits – both solo and Fleetwood Mac tunes – in front of a small studio audience. This performance, which was also released simultaneously as a DVD, is suitably intimate and respectful of Nicks' original recordings, right down to how "Stand Back" and "If Anyone Falls in Love" are slathered in synthesizers that overwhelm the otherwise subdued arrangements.