Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. is the fourth album by the Monkees. It was released on November 14, 1967, during a period when the band exerted more control over their music and performed many of the instruments themselves (previously forbidden by Colgems Records). However, although the group had complete artistic control over the proceedings, they invited more outside contributions than on their previous album, Headquarters, and used session musicians to complement their sound. The album also featured one of the first uses of the Moog synthesizer in popular music. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. sold over three million copies, becoming the band's fourth consecutive album to reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200.

SANAM return with Sametou Sawtan, a powerful follow-up to their acclaimed Mais Um debut. Produced by Radwan Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), the album blends Arabic folk tradition with psych, krautrock, free jazz, electronic distortion and gothic atmosphere. Its title, meaning “I Heard A Voice,” reflects the album’s core theme: the power of sound and poetry to evoke distance, intensity, and transformation.

Nearly a decade ago, music fans were entranced by a viral clip of two young women playing improvisatory music on mandolin. The video quickly made the rounds across the Internet, with viewers drawn to their virtuosic performances on the small instruments. Known as the Mandolin Sisters, the duo’s mesmerizing skill integrated the rippling resonances of the mandolin within the ever-deep world of Carnatic music — a journey of sound that made time melt away.

After two albums inspired by vast northern landscapes, the forces of nature, and an ever-present sense of duality, Glass Museum shifts gears. The Brussels-based group—originally formed in 2016 by pianist Antoine Flipo and drummer Martin Grégoire—welcomes bassist Issam Labbene as an official third member, opening up a richer, more immersive sound and setting its sights on the rhythms of the modern city.

In her new album "Intimacy", zither soloist Sarah Luisa Wurmer (*2002), winner of the Fanny Mendelssohn Prize 2025, combines old and new music to create a multi-layered dialog of sound. The centerpiece is Suite No. 6 in D major BWV 1012 by Johann Sebastian Bach in her own arrangement for alto zither. In between are four works written especially for the project by Dorothea Hofmann, Leon Zmelty, Eva Kuhn and Julius von Lorentz, which illuminate intimacy, touch and vulnerability from different perspectives. The final piece is Steve Reich's "Piano Phase" in an arrangement for zither duo. With technical precision, tonal sensitivity and a transcultural repertoire, Sarah Luisa Wurmer opens up new spaces of expression for her instrument and invites us to experience music anew as a place of encounter.

French multi-instrumentalist and producer Gautier Serre has been operating under the name Igorrr for twenty years, yet each new record still resonates with startling freshness and radical vitality. His steadfastly unclassifiable fifth album, Amen, maintains this impact, blindsiding listeners with a new set of exploratory curveballs and continuing to surprise and unnerve even the most attuned enthusiasts.

As a boy, Francesco Cavalli was a member of San Marco Basilica’s Chapel, then directed by Claudio Monteverdi, from whom he probably received tuition. In time Cavalli’s fame as an operatic composer spread across Europe and he succeeded Monteverdi in San Marco to reach the apex of success in Venice. He also wrote sacred music, published in two great printed collections. The first collection, published in 1656, contains his Missa a 8 voci Concertata, an imposing and magnificent work of exceptional complexity for eight soloists, two four-voiced choirs and many instrumentalists. In this recording it is performed in the context of an All Saints’ Day liturgy by Ensemble Locatelli, directed by Cavalli scholar, Bruno Gini.

François and Sylvain Rabbath have turned six years of touring into a joint album that patiently and intensely distills a variety of musical flavors gathered from around the world.

Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, is one of the most popular violin concertos in solo violin repertoire and, along with the Scottish Fantasy, the composer's most famous work. It has been recorded often.

Pianist Nicolas Stavy, who has already made recordingsdevoted to works by Boris Tishchenko (BIS-2189) andDmitri Shostakovich (BIS-2550), now presents the firstinstalment of a complete survey of Alfred Schnittke'scompositions for solo piano. This recording presentsworks from various periods of the Russian-Germancomposer's career - from the 1950s, which thecomposer described as the 'years of obscurity', to the1990s, a time shaped both by world fame and seriousillness. While Schnittke wrote relatively little music forthe piano, each work reflects - or sometimes anticipates- the phases of the composer's creative development.

Alfonso Rendano was at the forefront of Italy’s instrumental composition renaissance in the late 19th-century but remains less well known than his near-contemporaries Giovanni Sgambati and Giuseppe Martucci. He was also a prominent pianist who performed with the illustrious violinist Joseph Joachim. The rhapsodic Piano Concerto, recorded here for the first time in its original edition, was premiered in a version for two pianos in which the composer was joined by Franz Liszt who called it ‘a vigorous, remarkable work, one I greatly appreciate’. The Allegro in A minor was rediscovered in 1969 and dates from Rendano’s artistic maturity. The Piano Concerto is performed in Vito Cristofaro’s edition and performed by him with Rendano’s leading contemporary exponent, Daniela Roma.

In 1984 the pianist Slava Kantheff met the Austrian chansonnier, guitarist and author Peter Horton and they fell in love. The very next year, for Thomas Gottschalk’s TV programme “Na Sowas”, they spontaneously came up in a live broadcast with Peter Horton’s “Freaky Fingers”, put together within a week. After that they were to be seen in just about all the celebrated TV shows at home and abroad. It was the start of a musical and personal journey that was to last for decades.

The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli. It forms the first part of Diabelli's publication Vaterländischer Künstlerverein, the second part consisting of 50 variations by 50 other composers. It is often considered to be one of the greatest sets of variations for keyboard along with Bach's Goldberg Variations.

This CD is a celebration of female composers in classical music. For too long their work has been undervalued and overlooked, and unrightly so. Their work, if not dismissed, has often been attributed to male composers. We invite you to a journey across three centuries of extraordinary piano music. See for yourself, why we chose to borrow the title of "Femmes de legende": invisible heroines, whose works deserve to become deeply embedded into our repertoire. "Frauen als Muse" alludes to our ambition for this project to become an inspiration and empower future generations of musicians.

SOMM Recordings is thrilled to collaborate once again with the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman piano duo following their highly praised six-volume recording of the nine symphonies by Beethoven arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka—about which International Piano says, “These readings afford unmitigated pleasure … the articulation and voicing of the players persuades us into thinking we’re in the middle of an unleashed virtuoso orchestra.” Now, these award-winning South African-born artists present music for two pianos and piano duet from their adopted country, highlighting works by Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar.