Flutes, xylophones and tuned tablas. If you want discreet and beautiful music around you, play this on a low volume. If you want to listen closely just raise the volume. This is some of the music created around the film “Bara Du Och Jag”(1994) by Suzanne Osten.

Dmitry Shostakovich’s Fifteenth is perhaps the most enigmatic symphony of the twentieth century. In this work, the composer goes in search of his (and our) relationship with the musical past. He quotes musical predecessors like Rossini and Wagner, in addition to himself. These quotations raise profound musical and philosophical questions: where does it all come from, how far have we come, and where does it all go? The bare, withering ending is one of the most poignant passages in the symphonic repertoire, which Shostakovich, then a sixty-five-year-old heart patient, composed knowing the end was nigh.

This 1988 release by Airto Moreira and Flora Purim was hailed 'probably the duo's best release for some years.' It includes studio recordings from 1980 and 1987 and has been out of print for several years. Hailed by Britain's Jazz Journal as 'probably the duo's best release for some years,' this album features a collection of superb tracks from different periods, specially selected by Flora and Airto themselves.

The 1974 release of this album on the Fantasy group’s Milestone label created an instant impact and launched one of the most exciting and tempestuous vocalists of the decade. Flora Purim and her husband, the brilliant percussionist Airto Moreira, had been part of Chick Corea’s "Return to Forever" band, and Airto had gained much attention with Miles Davis, but this record combined their Brazilian rhythms for the first time with the "fusion" jazz of players like George Duke and Stanley Clarke. The result was a high-energy music of enormous appeal.

By turns devotional, empowering and nurturing, Jon Hopkins’ forthcoming Ritual is a 41-minute electronic symphony built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent melodic interplay. Tense, immersive and ultimately triumphant, it is a culmination of themes explored throughout his 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

In 2021, the international contemporary music festival Only Connect commissioned an interpretation from I LIKE TO SLEEP of the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila symphony. A project which initially led to a 15-minute piece performed at the festival, with the trio re-writing the music of Messiaen, but also rewriting the music of their own. Messiaen as a reference and compositional tool may be heard in the album for those really listening for references. With “Sleeping Beauty” the trio also explore even heavier riffs than before, seasick grooves and tempi, and deeper ambient soundscapes. Through extensive improvisation, the effects and processing of the sounds are way more extreme than before, almost awakening the sleeping beauty.

I LIKE TO SLEEP are a young and energetic free jazz trio based in Trondheim. The trio were brought together by a common interest in modern jazz language, free improvisation and 70s jazz-rock. The product of these musical influences can now be experienced through the unique combination of vibraphone, baritone guitar and drums. They specialise in heavy riffs, extensive improvisation pushed to its limits, and well-written melodies a style labelled Powerjazz.

“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” asks acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Greenleaf Music founder Dave Douglas. On Gifts, his newest Greenleaf project, Douglas harnesses that feeling of simple wonder with a new book of pieces and four intriguing takes on Strayhorn songs, premiering a new quartet with poll-sweeping tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and two members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux: guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. The sound is harmonically spacious, with no bass, but a full, sonically adventurous guitar palette from Bhatia that frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.

Bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik was best known for his work as a sideman for Thelonious Monk, but he also took some time to release some of his own material that reveals a different side of the bopper. These four albums from 1958-62 are similar to Yusef Lateef’s Easter Sounds sessions in that they mix music from North Africa with 52nd Street. Malik plays bass and oud with Johnny Griffin and various Middle Eastern musicians for a handful of stretched out Moroccan jams, while a ’59 meeting with boppers Griffin, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson and Jerome Richards conjure up themes from a Marrakech market. Tommy Turrentine and Eric Dixon mix blues and Crescent sounds in a ’61 recording, with the most jazz friendly session occurring in 1962 as African drums and bopping horns mix on “Out of Nowhere” and “African Bossa Nova.” Genre defying!

The magnificent ‘Spiral’ was Vangelis’ third album for RCA Records. Released in 1977, the album was recorded at Nemo, his personal studio in London and was a defining electronic album of the era, with Vangelis demonstrating his total mastery of the synthesizer technology of the period. Pieces such as the majestic ‘To The Unknown Man’ brought electronic music to new dimensions.

One of a series of remastered and sonically enhanced editions of the Vangelis albums recorded for the RCA and Arista labels. All of which come in deluxe digi-pack designs, with masters personally supervised by Vangelis in 2013. The magnificent “Heaven And Hell’ was the first album by Vangelis to be released by RCA Records in 1975 and was also the first album to be recorded at Nemo, his personal studio in London. This epic work in two parts featured the English Chamber Choir (conducted by Guy Protheroe) and Vangelis’ first collaboration with Jon Anderson of Yes on ‘So Long Ago, So Clear’. This Esoteric Recordings release (undertaken with the full approval and supervision of Vangelis himself) features a booklet that restores the original album artwork.

Blu-Spec CD2 reissue; 2022 Remaster. Issued in mini-LP style replica sleeve, with OBI, a color booklet with photos and the original 1988 liner notes in English, and a black-and-white booklet with new liner notes in Japanese. The CD release of Direct includes bonus material – which fits the flow of this intense and dramatic offering – not included on the cassette or vinyl releases. Like most Vangelis, this defies categorization. It has strong elements of rock & roll, symphonic synth ambience, and new age instrumental aspects. At the same time, the bold synthesizer strokes and washes fit the Berlin school of electronica. Given Vangelis' proclivity for soundtrack work, it is no surprise that this disc sounds like great film music. It is a great CD that will appeal to many different audiences. Fans of Kitaro, Deuter, and Constance Demby will like this disc.

Ablaze Records is proud to announce the upcoming release (JULY 18, 2025) of Symon Clarke’s Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra, subtitled Tupaia’s Map, featuring the renowned cello soloist Alexander Baillie and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. This thrilling work weaves together brilliant textures and an expressive intensity, bringing Clarke's vivid sonic landscape to life.

El Ensamble de la Abadesa is a vocal group dedicated to the performance of medieval and Renaissance repertoire, with a special focus on polyphony and liturgical music. Its goal is to recover and artistically reinterpret these repertoires, with a special focus not only on the great masters and sources, but also on lesser-known music and historical formats. The work of El Ensamble de la Abadesa is mainly informed by the musicological research of its director, Ángel Chirinos.

Moving seamlessly between TV and film studios and the recording studio, John Leyton cut a series of masterful pop singles during the early 1960s, often tied in to his on-screen work.