Earlier this year, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark released All Born Screaming, an album which managed to capture the absolute clusterfuck of emotions that make up being alive in the year 2024 in a compact 10 songs and 42 minutes. The self-produced record is raw and gritty and sensual and experimental and fun. It also showcases Clark as an artist in her peak, in absolute control.

Continuing the recent resurgence of interest in Pamela Harrison's work, this album presents a compelling collection of world premier recordings of her chamber music and songs, curated by the esteemed clarinettist Robert Plane. The album showcases Harrison's distinctive style, characterized by an elegant, understated idiom reflective of mid-20th-century English music. This album features the premier recordings of a selection of Harrison's songs, alongside her chamber works, ranging from large-scale ensemble pieces to intimate miniatures. The performers, a mix of distinguished teaching staff from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and talented recent graduates, bring fresh vitality to Harrison's music, ensuring her legacy endures. Harrison's compositions, often overlooked, are rediscovered here with a sensitivity and clarity that highlight their timeless charm and sophisticated craftsmanship. This release is a testament to Harrison's unique voice and her significant, yet underappreciated, contribution to British music.

The album reflects the programme for Silkroad's inaugural 'American Railroad' tour in 2023. Its 13 tracks include commissioned pieces by Cécile McLorin Salvant, Suzanne Kite, and Silkroad artist Wu Man, as well as new arrangements of songs by Rhiannon Giddens and fellow Silkroad artists Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, and Mazz Swift. Rounding out the album are original compositions and arrangements by Silkroad artists Pura Fé, Sandeep Das, Niwel Tsumbu, and Kaoru Watanabe. American Railroad was recorded live during tour stops at the Green Music Center in Sonoma, CA and Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA.

In Johann Sebastian Bach’s six organ sonatas, three independent voices sound interchangeably. The right hand plays the highest voice, the left hand the middle voice and the feet the bass. A true musician wants to play each voice as if for the first time, responding spontaneously to what the others bring up. To bring such a sung conversation to life with hands and feet, he listens with equal attention and love to all the voices simultaneously. It is a miracle that it can be done. When it succeeds, it all seems simple and natural. A world opens up to the listener, in which it is hardly imaginable that there is anything more beautiful than a trio sonata by Bach.

Looking for a smart, never-out-of-style singer who turns in a perfectly solid collection of Christmas songs, including a few surprises? J.T. is your man on James Taylor at Christmas, which is nicely balanced between pop and jazz selections, with more stately hymn-like fare and balladry. Always fine in his charmingly understated voice, Taylor and company try out the old gospel standard "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and the memorable "Some Children See Him." He smoothly cuts through "Winter Wonderland" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" with a bit of jazz flavor, and reprises Joni Mitchell's increasingly popular Christmas song (even though it's about getting away from the holiday), "River." One of the album's most satisfying delights is Taylor's funky version of "Jingle Bells," sung in a kind of barroom stomp with the most intriguing phrasing since Barbra Streisand sang it in the '60s. Soulful and bright and moody as well (when Taylor sings "In the Bleak Midwinter," you believe it's indeed rough), there's barely a clinker here.

Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan present Brahms' two Cello Sonatas, alongside their arrangement of his Violin Sonata in G Major on the cello. This Brahms portrait is a logical next step after the duo's acclaimed interpretation of Beethoven's complete Cello Sonatas, released in 2022. While Beethoven's sonatas reveal the gradual ascendancy of the cello as the proper solo instrument over the piano, Brahms opens a new chapter in the history of the cello sonata, realizing a glorious marriage of equals between the two instruments. This congenial relationship between cello and piano is further enhanced by Weilerstein and Barnatan, whose musical partnership (in addition to their thriving solo careers) has been a stable factor over the years. Since signing an exclusive contract with PENTATONE, Alisa Weilerstein has released Transfigured Night (2018) as well as Bach's Cello Suites (2020), while also featuring on Old Souls (2019) and Inon Barnatan's Beethoven Piano Concertos Part 1 (2019), on which she performed the composer's Triple Concerto. This album was part of Inon Barnatan's complete Beethoven piano concertos recordings on PENTATONE, of which Part 2 appeared in 2020. 2021 saw the release of his solo album Time Traveler's Suite, while Rachmaninoff Reflections appeared in 2023, followed by Darknesse Visible in 2024. Brahms Cello Sonatas is the second PENTATONE album by Weilerstein and Barnatan. Their interpretation of Beethoven's complete Cello Sonatas appeared on the label in 2022.

“I have long imagined a recital program dedicated to the opposing themes of heaven and hell, spiritual and corporal, saints and sinners,” writes pianist Andrew von Oeyen of his album Angels and Demons. Combining works conceived for solo keyboard with transcriptions of music from the orchestral, operatic and choral repertoires, he takes the “angelic” route with Bach (transcribed in one instance by Busoni), Debussy, Fauré and Messiaen, and the “demonic” route with Liszt, Saint-Saëns and Edward MacDowell. As he leads the listener on a journey into the darkest corners of human emotion, but also towards rapture and catharsis, the American-born pianist proves an assured and inspiring guide. After all, in the words of the Chicago Tribune, “He leaves you convinced that he can do absolutely anything he likes with a keyboard.”

To the Rising Moon is Stephan Micus' 26th solo album for ECM. It features instruments from Colombia, India, Xinjiang (China), Bavaria, Cambodia, Egypt and Borneo, but taking centre stage is the Colombian tiple, slightly smaller than an acoustic guitar. The sunny plucked sound of the tiples alternates with darker bowed strings which bring a more meditative mood. It's only in the final track, "To the Rising Moon", that the two worlds of the plucked tiples and bowed strings finally come together. It's like a hymn to something that is eternally up there in the night sky, something consistent while there is so much turbulence in the world below. Once again, Stephan Micus takes us on a unique musical journey to places unknown that couldn't have been created or played by anyone else.

»In dulci jubilo« – besondere Weihnachtslieder mit dem Windsbacher Knabenchor und der lautten compagney BERLIN
Der Windsbacher Knabenchor gilt als eines der besten Ensembles seiner Art. Seit seiner Gründung im Jahre 1946 steht er für die Synthese von Musikalität, Vielseitigkeit, Genauigkeit und Reinheit des Klangs. Ludwig Böhme ist seit 2022 der neue Künstlerische Leiter der Windsbacher. Das neue Weihnachtsalbum, zu dem sie sich für einen besonderen Klang mit Musikern der lautten compagney BERLIN zusammentaten, ist die erste Aufnahme unter seiner Leitung.

In 2024, Warner Classics celebrate ten years of success with Camille and Julie Berthollet. They present a compilation album: '10 ans!'. Discovered in the French 'Prodiges' TV show in 2014, the Berthollet sisters became real cross-over stars in France, releasing 7 albums in 10 years. '10 ans!' features hits, showcasing their eclectic talent, including Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', Karl Jenkins 'Palladio', Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee', Scott Joplin's 'Ragtime'.

Throughout his decades-long career, Oscar Peterson accomplished the near impossible: greatness with every note played and the acquisition of new generations of fans worldwide, regardless of the obstacles life threw at him. In 1994, only one year after suffering a stroke that rendered his left hand weakened, Peterson took the stage in Munich to prove to his collaborators, fans, and himself, that his earned title of "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington still rang true. By reinventing his playing style at 68 years old, he demonstrated his undiminished inventive prowess and mastery of piano gymnastics.

Raff completed the score of Die Eifersüchtigen (‘The Jealous Ones’) a few weeks before his death. He wrote the libretto himself and was scrupulous in differentiating his characters through their music and adopting a precise formal construction. With tight organisational control, a strong grasp of musical and dramatic relationships, and speech melodies based entirely on German prosody, Raff’s final opera is marked by clarity, concision and economy of means.

Guns N' Roses are the bridge separating 1980s and 1990s hard rock, the band responsible for ushering in an era of grim, gritty rock & roll. Where such peers as Mötley Crüe reveled in the decadence of Sunset Strip sleaze, Guns N' Roses focused on the grimy underbelly of the urban jungle, with guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin cranking out mean riffs that matched the dark fantasies of Axl Rose, the vocalist who led GNR with a serpentine charm. Rose countered his nasty tendencies with a romantic side, one that flourished on "Sweet Child O' Mine," the soaring ballad that went to number one in 1988, turning the band into superstars in the process. Over the next few years, GNR's 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction, sold in monstrous numbers, with "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City" both reaching Billboard's Top Ten and "Patience," from the 1989 EP GNR Lies, also reaching that exalted position.

"Gladiator II" by Oscar-winning director Ridley Scott is the long-awaited sequel to an epic saga of power, intrigue and revenge in ancient Rome.

Brenda Lee's 1964 release is the perfect pop/country Christmas album! You'll find some classics, some new tunes that are now classics all delivered in Brenda Lee style. This album was released when I was almost 2 and has been on turntable for Christmas ever since. Perfect blend for the season.