The legendary Jethro Tull return hot on the heels of 2022's UK & German top 10 album The Zealot Gene, with their 23rd studio album RökFlöte. Twelve tracks reminding the world of the iconic sound that the legendary band brought to rock music, recorded with the current Tull line-up of Ian Anderson, David Goodier, John O'Hara, Scott Hammond & Joe Parrish James. RökFlöte - Jethro Tull - The name of the album comes from "Rock Flute" as the original idea was to make an album of mostly instrumental flute music. But eventually Ian Anderson stated that he was drawn to the phrase Ragnarök with "rök" meaning destiny, course, or direction. Ian Anderson would then change "Flute" to "Flöte" to "keep with the spelling".

Following the ambitious song cycle Nude, Camel attempted their version of an Alan Parsons Project album with The Single Factor. Considering that Parsons was having hits that year with songs like "Eye in the Sky," it's not surprising that Camel tried to capture the same audience, yet their talent didn't lay with pop music – it lay with atmospheric instrumentals and creating detailed soundscapes. Consequently, The Single Factor sounds a little forced and often fails to capture the group's magic, even though there a few strong moments on the record.

This Is What the Truth Feels Like is the third studio album by American singer and songwriter Gwen Stefani. It was released on March 18, 2016, by Interscope Records, and is her first solo album in ten years. Inspired by the end of her marriage and the roller coaster of emotions she experienced during the time, which also included a new romantic relationship, Stefani returned to feel inspired and started writing new and meaningful songs. With the help of producers J.R. Rotem, Mattman & Robin and Greg Kurstin, as well as songwriters Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels, Stefani wrote the whole album in a few months and described it as a "breakup record", with the songs having a "sarcastic" and dark-humor vibe, as well as being real, joyful, and happy.

Recto Verso is the second studio album by French singer Zaz, released on 10 May 2013 under the label Play On. The album was Zaz's first album in three years, after her eponymous début, released in 2010. It débuted on the French Album Chart at #2 and to date has spawned three singles, "On ira", "Si" and "Gamine". Musically, it is largely in a similar style to Zaz's début album. The title refers to the two sides of Zaz's personality, which she wished to express in the music of the album. Recto Verso went on to spend ten weeks in the top 10 albums and has been certified Double Platinum as of December 2013.

As an album title, Smile carries an air of determined pleasantry, and Katy Perry could use her share of good spirits in 2020. Witness, Smile's predecessor, found Perry pushing her artistic limits, an exercise that didn't find an audience, so she's chosen to retreat to safe territory for Smile. Mostly, this results in Perry devoting herself to dance-pop that's coolly glassy on the surface and vaguely positive underneath. It's dance music that's not intended for the club; rather, it's a soundtrack for everyday events, from work to exercise to relaxation. It's also music that tacitly acknowledges that Katy Perry is beginning her slow transition away from pop culture's center stage.

Ercole su’l Termodonte was Vivaldi’s 16th opera, appearing in 1723 in Rome. There was a Papal ban on women appearing on stage at the time and so the opera was sung by seven castrati and a male tenor, the latter singing the title role, Hercules. Portraying either the Amazons of myth or Greek warriors, the castrati must have been quite a scene and made quite a sound. Conducted by a Catholic priest–Vivaldi himself–with red hair, the entire proposition boggles the mind.

The J.S. Bach Foundation has embarked on a remarkable undertaking: over a period of some 25 years, the Foundation will perform the complete vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach (16851750). Each month, one of the over 200 Bach cantatas is performed in the idyllic town of Trogen in Appenzell, Switzerland. With a rhythm of 12 cantatas per year, the project is estimated to conclude in the year 2030. All introductory workshops, concerts and reflection lectures on the cantata texts are recorded; the texts of the lectures are published in a continually expanding Bach Anthology. The main aim of the J.S. Bach Foundation's ambitious project is to provide a living Bach experience for today's listeners and to deepen our understanding of the great composer's works. The artistic director of the foundation is Rudolf Lutz, who rehearses and conducts all performances with the choir, orchestra and solo vocalists.

This marvelous disc contains what unquestionably is the finest available performance of Cantus Arcticus, Rautavaara's most popular piece. (…) Excellent sonics, warm and well-balanced (in the concerto).

The English, historical-instrument, Baroque ensemble La Serenissima (the term was a nickname for the city of Venice) has specialized in somewhat scholarly recordings that nevertheless retain considerable general appeal, and the group does it again with this release. The program offers some lesser-known composers, and some lesser-known pieces by famous composers like the tiny and fascinating Concerto alla rustica for two oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, RV 151. What ties the program together formally is that it covers a range of Italian cities that were becoming cultural centers as they declined in political power: not only Venice (Vivaldi, Albinoni, Caldara), but also Padua (Tartini), Bologna (Torelli), and Rome (Corelli). There are several works by composers known only for one or two big hits, and these are especially rewarding. Sample the opening movement of Tartini's Violin Concerto E major, DS 51, with its unusual phrase construction and daringly chromatic cadenza passage: it has the exotic quality for which Tartini became famous, but it does not rely on sheer virtuosity. That work is played by leader Adrian Chandler himself, but he also chooses pieces for a large variety of other solo instruments: the Italian Baroque was about more than the violin. Each work on the album has something to recommend it, and collectively the performances may make up the best album of 2017 whose booklet includes footnotes.

It's been nearly 33 years since Jeremy Spencer, the slide guitarist and vocalist in the original Fleetwood Mac, walked into silence, obscurity, and cult mystery – not unlike his bandmate Peter Green, who returned to active recording before Spencer had. Precious Little was licensed to Blind Pig from the Bluestown Records label in Norway. This isn't some stodgy codger trying for one last blast of fame before he goes out into the long good night. In fact, Precious Little is an effortless, relaxed presentation of the blues through the fantastic voice and stellar guitar playing of a bona fide British bluesman. One might complain that this set is perhaps a bit too laid-back, but that complaint is small when taking in the communication that's happening between Spencer and his Norwegian blues band in a studio that has the old mixing board from Stax! The material is a mixture of originals and covers that Spencer plays either on his National Steel with a humbucking pickup or one of his fine electric guitars. The warmth in his voice and the ease of his playing is that of a master musician.

Johann Christian Fischer war in der Epoche der Klassik einer der berühmtesten Oboisten. Wenn man seine vierzehn Konzerte in den Kontext seiner außergewöhnlichen Karriere stellt, entsteht das faszinierende Portrait einer Person, die Komponist und Virtuose zugleich war, sowohl in London als auch auf dem gesamten europäischen Festland.
Anders als Stamitz komponierte Fischer seine Oboenkonzerte, um seine außergewöhnlichen Fähigkeiten als virtuoser Solist zu präsentieren. Seine zutiefst persönlichen Werke vermitteln das lebendige Bild eines international berühmten Virtuosen im georgianischen England.

Valentin Silvestrov is probably the best-known Ukrainian composer, and his "Requiem for Larissa", now released on album by BR-KLASSIK, was written in response to the unexpected death in 1996 of his wife, the music and literature scholar Larissa Bondarenko. She had stood by his side from the very beginning of his artistic career. It was in 1999, shortly before the turn of the millennium, that Silvestrov was finally able to complete his Requiem. He did not set a drama of the Last Judgement to music, as Mozart, Berlioz or Verdi had done before him, but rather wrote a lament - in seemingly endless, world-forlorn repetitions.

Billy Butler is well known to guitarists only, as the co-author of the early R&B funked-up standard "Honky Tonk," with organist Bill Doggett. The two albums featured in this single disc two-fer reissue – Guitar Soul and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, both released in 1970 – offer a wider view of the man and his music. The opening track on Guitar Soul is a cut worthy of the Meters in its New Orleans-styled second-line funk called "Blow for the Crossing." Nine and a half minutes in length, it's dark, spooky, greasy, and funky as hell. With Seldon Powell on tenor, Sonny Phillips on organ, Specs Powell on drums, and Bob Bushnell on bass, it's a jam du jour. Everybody solos, but Butler and Phillips are the pair that bend the tune all over the place like Gumby on Pokey. With an elongated melodic line played by Powell on the saxophone and punched-up by the drums, there's nothing to keep the body still in its massive groove-o-phonics. But the almighty groove wasn't Butler's only strength. With a saxophonist like Houston Person, he could play the most elegant swing – as in their read of the Rodgers & Hart classic "Dancing on the Ceiling" on the second half of the album, or as a solo guitarist he could play from the Montoya fake book as he does on "Golden Earrings," with a classical guitar.

This album celebrates the delicacy and intimacy of the clavichord, the harpsichord’s quieter cousin, which was central to the daily life of musicians for centuries. The title is inspired by the story that Handel’s early biographer John Mainwaring tells, ab out the young Handel secretly going up to the attic during the night to practise on the clavichord, in defiance of his father.