What can anyone add to the praise that has deservedly been heaped on Robert King and the King's Consort's 11 discs of the complete sacred music of Vivaldi? Can one add that every single performance is first class – wonderfully musical, deeply dedicated, and profoundly spiritual? Can one add that every single performer is first class – absolutely in-tune, entirely in-sync, and totally committed? Can one add that every single recording is first class – amazingly clean, astoundingly clear, and astonishingly warm? One can because it's all true and it's all been said before by critics and listeners across the globe.

Nostalgia can hurt. I've just been watching "A Hard Day's Night" with my 16 year old daughter for the first time since I saw it at Derby Gaumont in 1964. It's brought back the thrills and possibilities of life that it revealed to me as an eleven year old boy; but it's also left a dull pain in my soul. Whether it's regret at being unable to relive those vital times, or the mistakes and missed chances that have passed since then, I can't tell; but it's a bittersweet sensation. This then is an appropriate time to review the 6T'S CD and re-live the first years of my and Randy Cozens' soul club: the "Hard Day's Night" of my life.

Violinist Gidon Kremer and his namesake chamber orchestra present works by three composers on this delightful Nonesuch recording. The CD opens with a version of Aarvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa that comes across as a more expressive, less "mystical" arrangement and interpretation than previously encountered. Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko play the solo violin parts, Reinut Tepp plays the prepared piano, and conductor Eri Klas leads the chamber orchestra in this work, which was originally dedicated to and premiered by Kremer, Grindenko, and Klas in 1977.

Colombian singer/songwriter Marta Gomez is a wonderful, enigmatic talent. Her voice has the lulling softness that evokes Brazil's female vocal icons, yet there's a depth to her writing that goes far beneath the surface. She's also something of an expert on Latin rhythms – there are 13 different ones on this disc, all of them rooted in different cultures, from Colombian bambuco to Argentine chamame. But everything is so perfectly put together that you forget the academic side, pulled along by the music and voice. Recorded over just three days, it's a small masterwork. It doesn't matter if you don't understand Spanish, as Gomez evokes delicate moods in her work, each piece beautifully arranged and shaded, with a very live sound.

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett’s Gothic opera The Mines of Sulphur is reminiscent of suspense thrillers from Edgar Allan Poe to Alfred Hitchcock. Love, longing, and dark as well as light comedy abound in this macabre tale of greed and retribution set in a haunted manor house in the West of England. The title of the tale, taken from Shakespeare’s Othello, refers to the theme of gradual corruption.

Survivor is the second solo album by The Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive's guitarist and singer Randy Bachman, released in 1978 on Polydor. It is a concept album about the rock and roll stars who have come and gone.

That Certain Thing is the third album by guitarist Snowy White, released in 1987. It was the last album before White's change of direction towards blues music with the Snowy White Blues Agency. CD releases in 1997, 2002 and 2005 featured two extra tracks. Terence Charles "Snowy" White is an English guitarist, known for having played with Thin Lizzy (permanent member from 1980 to 1982) and with Pink Floyd (as a backing guitarist; he was first invited to tour with the band through Europe and the United States in 1977, and during The Wall shows in 1980), and more recently, for Roger Waters' band. He is also known for his 1983 solo offering "Bird of Paradise", which became a UK Singles Chart Top 10 hit single.

Eagerly anticipated album by Georgia’s Giya Kancheli (“the most important composer to have emerged from the former Soviet Union since the death of Shostakovich.” – Time Magazine), released in the year of his 70th birthday. This disc features one of Kancheli’s most ardent champions, the great violinist Gidon Kremer., who plays in duo with his old comrade, Russian pianist Oleg Maisenberg on the 26 minute 'Time… and again”, and leads the Kremerata Baltica on “V & V” for violin, taped voice, and string orchestra.

Fashion Pink were considered Baden-Baden’s Super Group. Rusch modelled himself on Jimi Hendrix and was the first to play a Fender Stratocaster including a Marshall-tower. Fashion Pink were the first in the region to play so called progressive underground music, mixed with jazz elements and free-jazz intermezzos. However, this line-up was only short-lived, since Helmut was drafted by the German Armed Forces and Jürgen left the band due to differences about the music. He was replaced with Rainer Bodensohn, who had originally learnt to play the guitar, but later on chose the transverse flute as his main instrument and also played bass. Before Helmut left the band in October 1969, Fashion Pink were the first of many bands to give a guest performance with the radio station Südwestfunk (today SWR) in Baden-Baden, and so this promising up-and-coming band recorded songs in Südwestfunk’s recording studio U1…

Essentially the Allman Brothers Band's Gold collection is an expanded version of both the Universal Masters and 20th Century Masters collections. It contains two discs that total 30 cuts and cover the band's catalog from 1969's Allman Brothers Band to 1975's Enlightened Rogues. There are five cuts from the first album, including the original studio version of "Whipping Post," and four from Idlewild South, including the studio read of "Midnight Ride." The cuts from At Fillmore East number four with the inclusion of the 13-minute "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," and five from Eat a Peach, including "Melissa," "Blue Sky," and "Ain't Wasting Time No More."

Leaving To Nothing (1995). This album is truly authentic to the best of what was being recorded in the mid to late 1970s electronic scene. It's where rock meets electro. This recording is almost haunting. It's as if the talented musicians who recorded this album were transported through time and just started jamming. If you like Floyd, Parsons, Carlos, Tomita, Vangelis, Baumann, Tangerine Dream, or any of the other notables of that era…

Melding heavy rock guitars, driving punk sensibilities, and pretty melodies, Foo Fighters rose to become one of the biggest acts to emerge out of the alt-rock boom of the 1990s. Led by singer Dave Grohl, the former powerhouse drummer for Nirvana, Foo Fighters initially debuted as a solo project in 1995. However, as their lineup expanded, they steadily racked up success after success, filling stadiums around the world while staying near the top of the charts with hits like "My Hero" and "Everlong" off 1997's The Colour and the Shape. Once the band's lineup coalesced around the time of its third album, 1999's There Is Nothing Left to Lose, Foo Fighters' sound also gelled into a recognizable signature built upon the heavy, yet melodic, loud-quiet-loud template of the Pixies and Nirvana; a modern rock sound anchored by Grohl's love of classic guitar rock. It was commercial without pandering and creatively restless without being alienating, a sound with wide appeal delivered by a band that was happy to tour and record the way bands did back in the '70s. Accolades followed, including winning Grammy Awards for 1999's There Is Nothing Left to Lose, 2002's One by One, and 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, all of which also charted in the Top Three of the Billboard 200.

Finally, someone put together a high-quality, well-thought-out, and official Soft Machine anthology. Fans have had to wait a long time for this, and Sony International obviously felt the weight of that responsibility. Culled from their ABC/Probe releases through their CBS/Columbia material, these selections are given the grand treatment of faithful (and illuminating) 24-bit remastering by Sony International, as well as a comprehensive and heavily illustrated 16-page booklet detailing the Soft's colorful musical history. There is nothing in the way of long-lost live material here, nor are there any rare, basement tracks - save the inclusion of the band's first single, whose A and B sides appear here, probably for the first time officially - but there are already several widely available compilations that focus on Soft Machine obscura exclusively, and Sony leaves it to them to enlighten the fanatics who are hungry for the rarest of the rare…

On his seventh offering, and his first since 2001's Texoma, Okie beatnik cum Austin songwriter Jimmy LaFave listens deeply to the tender whispers of his Muse and lets flow with his most personal offering to date. LaFave has always given us song pictures of an America that has either disappeared or is on the verge; he has celebrated its highways, its people, and its heart. He has also given us some choice love songs. But on Blue Nightfall he has gone deep into the latter theme and has come up with a beauty. It's not that he's ignored his other concerns; there are road songs and topical tunes as well. But it's in LaFave's love songs that listeners get to hear a depth and vastness that feel new. LaFave's voice is his greatest asset and he uses it to great effect here, and his production is spot-on throughout. The title track, "Revival," "Sweet Sweet Love," "When You Were Mine," and "Rain Falling Down" are all broken-hearted ballads, colored in woven and textured acoustic and electric guitars accented by Radoslav Lorkovik's accordions, pianos, and organs, and supported by a taut yet subtle rhythm section in bassist Will Landin and drummer Wally Doggett.

For the staging of Odipe à Colone Antonio Sacchini could count on the support of Marie Antoinette Queen of France, who wanted to inaugurate, with this opera, the new theatre of Versailles on 4th January 1786. Due to inadequate machinery and some poor performances, however, success was not what had been expected. To console Sacchini of the near-failure, the Queen promised him to have Odipe repeated under better circumstances in the autumn, at Fontainebleau with the company of the Opéra, but the terrible events of the necklace affair made her too vulnerable to impose her choice. Already gravely ill, the composer took the news very badly: he died a few days later, in the night of October 8th, 1786. The première of Odipe à Colone took place on 1st February 1787 at Paris’s Opéra, in front of a full house. It was a triumph. Odipe à Colone kept reaping exceptional success up until 1844, reaching almost 600 performances and enthusing renowned composers such as Piccini and Berlioz.