Cherry Red Records and Toyah release of Chameleon – The Very Best of Toyah. This is the first career-spanning collection to encompass Willcox’s full recording history. Spanning 45 years of music, the impressive collection includes the top 40 singles ‘I Want To Be Free', ‘It’s A Mystery’, ‘Thunder In The Mountains’, ‘Brave New World’, ‘Good Morning Universe’, ‘Rebel Run’ and ‘Don’t Fall In Love’, alongside classic cuts right up to the 2021 Top 20 album Posh Pop. A pioneering figure in the UK’s new wave and post-punk movement, Toyah has made an indelible mark on the entertainment industry with her unique voice, electrifying stage presence, and artistic versatility.

Steely Dan’s third studio album Pretzel Logic, was released in February 1974. A diverse set, it included the group's most successful single, ‘Rikki Don't Lose That Number’ and a note-for-note rendition of Duke Ellington’s ‘East St. Louis Toodle-Oo’. Pretzel Logic was the first Steely Dan album to feature Walter Becker on guitar. "Once I met [session musician] Chuck Rainey", he explained, "I felt there really was no need for me to be bringing my bass guitar to the studio anymore". A rift began growing between Becker/Fagen and Steely Dan's other members who wanted to tour. Becker and Fagen disliked constant touring and wanted to concentrate solely on writing and recording. The other members gradually left the band, discouraged by this and by their diminishing roles in the studio. Steely Dan's last tour performance during their initial run, was on July 5, 1974, a concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California. Six weeks before this final concert, the Dan were in the UK, and on 26th May, they performed a quite stunning show at London’s Rainbow Theatre. Playing a good selection from the new record, plus a raft of cuts from previous records, plus the unreleased and curiously titled ‘This All Too Mobile Home.’ Previously unreleased, the show was recorded for live radio broadcast and is now available here for the first time.

The sixth stop of the tour was at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall, and Young hired a film crew to tape the two-night stand. Nobody bothered to tell Poncho, and he dropped a bunch of acid before going onstage one of the nights. “I couldn’t even look up,” he told author Jimmy McDonough. “I was so high. I’d hit the strings of my guitar - they were like eight different colours - and they bounced off the floors and hit the ceiling.” • Despite the Budokan shows being the best remembered from the 7 date-stop in Japan in March ’76, Neil and the Horse’s first show in the country, at the Aichi-ken Taiikukan, Nagoya, on the 3rd of the month, was generally considered to be the finest. In line with the entire tour, which also visited Europe in late March and early April, and later, played back in the US, Neil would perform a solo, acoustic set first, following which a full on, electric, band performance would ensue. • The full Nagoya concert was also recorded for live broadcast, from which this new 2CD set is taken. But as added content too, Young’s acoustic set from Budokan on 10th March is also included.

STUNNING PHIL COLLINS SHOW FROM HIS FIRST SOLO TOUR • In December 1978, Genesis went on hiatus while Phil Collins went to Vancouver, to focus on his family; his marriage had become strained after his extensive touring. Having failed to save the relationship, Collins returned to the UK in April 1979, by which time Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were recording their solo albums. With time to spare before recording a new Genesis album, Collins played on the Brand X album Product and its accompanying tour, played on John Martyn's album Grace and Danger, and started writing his first solo album, Face Value, at his home in Shalford, Surrey.

Live at Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, California, USA 7th March 1975. Misspelled "San Bernadino" wherever it is mentioned: front cover, CD, back cover, etc. DYNAMIC CAREER END BROADCAST FROM THE FACES In the wake of calamitous label mismanagement that left one of the most important bands of the mod/psychedelic movement creatively hog-tied and practically bankrupt, Small Faces singer/guitarist Steve Marriott jumped ship to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton. So prodigious were Marriott's talents that it took two musicians to fill his shoes. Luckily, a couple of guys that would soon be among the most recognizable and popularly adored rock stars in the world found their social calendars surprisingly wide open at the dawn of the '70s.

Bobby Hutcherson Live at Montreux is a live album by American jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973 and released on the Blue Note label in Japan and Europe only. The album was rereleased on CD with one additional performance from the concert. The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album 4 stars and stated "Hutch and Shaw have ample room for solos, and they prove why they are the best in the business at inventing improvisations based on these viable themes. Ten years after these recordings, Shaw and Hutcherson would reunite for the trumpeter's Elektra Musician dates Night Music and Master of the Art. This excellent performance provides a perfect prelude to those equally potent sessions, and all come highly recommended".

BUDDY HOLLY belongs to that select group of artists whose importance and influence eclipse the need for statistical corroboration. Indeed, given that no one has ever recorded an absolutely 100% perfect body of work, Holly came pretty damn close consequently, no matter which compilation of his recordings you listen to, it always sounds great. This collection of killer BUDDY HOLLY &?THE?CRICKETS sides is a classic example; drawn from EPs issued variously in the US, the UK, West Germany and Australia between 1957-62, it features a selection of hits, misses, B-sides, LP tracks, Buddy's pre-Crickets "solo" sides, and a handful of posthumously-released, overdubbed versions of songs from his legendary apartment tapes. The tracks are sequenced in the order that they were originally recorded, rather than released, as it makes sense to hear them in this chronology.

Housewives, househusbands, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between… Avril A is ready for relaunch. A - V - R - I - L
Never released Hi-NRG, synth-pop, wonky rock n' roll from a queer Manchester underground icon of the 80s and 90s. By day, Avril Eventhal was a housewife in North Manchester's Orthodox Jewish community. By night, she was the fabulous Avril A, a larger than life cabaret performer who found a loyal audience in gay venues across the country and was adored for her outrageous live shows. She celebrated her unconventional style, finding joy and space for creative reinvention with the queer community. Avril died in 2017, leaving behind a massive archive of material documenting every aspect of her career in songwriting and performance. For two years, Memory Dance has been working with Avril's niece and family on a digitisation and restoration project bringing these audio recordings back to life. With her signature leopard print dress and feather duster in hand she delivered an unforgettable song and dance routine - as it was billed, “an audio-visual assault on the audience”.

The Honeys Collection Review by John Bush
Fans of the Beach Boys will definitely be interested in this collection from the Honeys, a girl group trio including Brian Wilson's wife Marilyn, plus her sister Diane, and their cousin. Signed to Capitol, thanks to Wilson, most of the Honeys sessions were supervised by Wilson himself, occasionally with Capitol's in-house producer Nik Venet. The Honeys Collection brings together 26 tracks covering the group's early- to mid-'60s singles (and several backing vocal dates on records by other artists).

MOR singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester, whose father was a bassoonist for the New York Metropolitan Opera, began singing commercial jingles at age 15 and went on to become a staff writer for Chappell Music while attending the High School of Performing Arts. After taking a songwriting class at New York University taught by Paul Simon, Manchester took her talents to the Manhattan club scene, where she was discovered by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow; the two hired her as a backup singer in 1971. She recorded her debut album, Home to Myself, in 1973, co-writing many of the songs with Carole Bayer Sager. Released in 1975, Melissa produced her first Top Ten hit, "Midnight Blue," and set the tone for most of her career with its direct, slickly produced MOR pop sound.

With Human Faces, Sinfonia de Carnaval present their third album. The compositions are inspired by faces, natural scenes, and works of art, unfolding between intimate moments and orchestral power. The pre-release singles Blue Rocks, Dead Swan, and The Cle

Rubicon Classics is pleased to announce the third solo album for the label from pianist Alexander Ullman, presenting here a programme of Edvard Grieg’s Moods, Songs and Lyric Pieces. The prize of the album, Alexander’s own transcriptions of music from the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, draw out the colour of the orchestra from the piano, perhaps more than the composer’s own.

What’s a flutist to do when they love Ravel? Though Ravel gave the flute some of its finest orchestral moments, he wrote little for it as a solo instrument… Alas! Julien Beaudiment and Célia Oneto Bensaid answer this question by borrowing from the repertoire ten of the composer’s greatest works.

Carlos Santana has curated a streaming compilation titled Splendiferous Santana that puts a spotlight on the music his famous band released during the last 20 years following the group's massively successful 1999 album Supernatural.

NOW Music are excited to present the next in our latest series - ‘NOW 12” 80s’. This instalment – 1981 – is released on October 20th 2023.The 12” single was a dynamic and increasingly essential part of the release schedule as the decade progressed. Incorporating extended (sometimes full album) versions, remixes, and re-inventions – they not only gave the dancefloor a longer version, and the listener an alternative take, but also highlighted the artistry of the producer – bringing together all kinds of elements to create new soundscapes woven together with the original track, either vocal or instrumental, to present another reason to be excited on release date.