Providence were the only American band signed to the Moody Blues' Threshold label back in the seventies. The group hailed from the Pacific Northwest, and distinguished themselves by their lack of a drummer, featuring instead nothing but various stringed instruments and a keyboardist. The keyboardist played piano, harpsichord, and sometimes organ, rather than ARP or Mellotron like so many of the band's contemporaries. The band's lone released album was produced by longtime Moody Blues producer Tony Clarke, and the band's music, particularly the vocals, reveal the strong influence of that band. The band recorded original compositions that featured languid string arrangements, sometimes psychedelic guitar as well as acoustic, and a bass that pretty much comprised the rhythm section for the band. Their lyrics ranged from fantasy to nature to hippy philosophy, and tended toward naively-positive themes.

For those whose exposure to Soft Cell has been limited to the glorious and inescapable "Tainted Love," the duo's 1984 swan song This Last Night in Sodom should feature a warning sticker. Singer Marc Almond and keyboardist Dave Ball don't attempt to recapture the Top 40 magic of that hit here. Instead, Almond completes his transformation into an electro-pop Scott Walker, operatically singing self-conscious and jaded songs like "Mr. Self-Destruct," "Little Rough Rhinestone," and "Meet Murder My Angel," while Ball's keyboards explore an icy, nearly Germanic abstraction (in the Kraftwerk/Neu! sense). Anyone intrigued by the prospect of faux-decadent torch songs in the Piaf/Brel tradition should be interested in this electronic hybrid of the style, but if you're looking for "Tainted Love, Pt. 2," it isn't here.

Alexei Lubimov belongs to the great russian tradition of musicians such as Richter, Gilels (Lubimov was one of the last student of Heinrich Neuhaus in Moscow) and to this generation of baroque pioneers together with Gustav Leonhardt, Juijken… He is also a major artist playing russian composers such as Denisov, Schnittke, Silvestrov… and Arvo Pärt…
Alexei Lubimov developed his outstanding international carrier with these three cultures in mind. He was in Brussels in 1968 to play Denisov piano pieces where he met the Kuijken brothers. He played John Cage and Terry Riley during the Soviet Union time.

Ernest Chausson is a most unusual figure in French music, positioned at the crossroads where the romanticism of Berlioz and Franck meet the language of Wagner and the symbolism of the young Debussy. His Poème de l amour et de la mer is a unique score for the period and certainly his greatest work; simultaneously a profane, naturistic cantata, a monologue, and a song cycle, it was composed between 1882 and 1892.

Throughout history men have feared madwomen, burning them as witches, confining them in asylums and subjecting them to psychoanalysis – yet, they have also been fascinated, unable to resist fantasizing about them. For their new disc, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have created a programme that explores the responses of a variety of composers to women whose stories have left them vulnerable and exposed. As a motto they have chosen an aphorism by Nietzsche: ‘There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.’

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band live at Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Nov 1st 1980.

Bob Dylan live at Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, USA, 1st June 1978.

Is Duke Robillard a blues, jazz, swing, or rock musician? That's a question that has plagued many a record store clerk trying to slot the guitarist into a bin that fans might logically gravitate to. But, since Robillard has released albums in all of those genres, he clearly needs multiple locations for his albums, and this one needs to go in all of them. An outlet for his different vintage guitars (some shown on the cover) as well as styles he works in, Guitar Groove-A- Rama is a one-stop album for the Duke Robillard fan who isn't sure which category of music he wants to hear. Kicking off with some dusky Southern swamp rock in "Do the Memphis Grind," the album twists, turns, and wiggles through deep blues, loungey jazz, instrumental surf and pop, a Bob Dylan cover, a tango, and a 16-minute history of blues guitar legends who have inspired Robillard. If it sounds like a lot to bite off, and it is, but due to savvy sequencing and the artist's incredible talents, the project never seems scattershot or eclectic simply for the sake of being so.

Pianist Herbert Schuch marks the 100th anniversary of Erwin Schulhoff’s Piano Concerto, which was composed in 1923 and has not yet attained the recognition it deserves. It’s a work that shows the influence of the jazz styles that had crossed the Atlantic and were then taking Europe by storm. Schuch pairs it here with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, and also includes Schulhoff’s cadenza for the opening movement of the Beethoven work. Discover a world of musical contrasts on this album on which the pianist is joined by the WDR Sinfonieorchester and conductor Tung-Chieh Chuang.