Of all of Frank Zappa's discography, Thing-Fish must be his most controversial, misunderstood, overlooked album. Obviously, it is not a masterpiece, but reducing it to a compilation album with a racist plot distorts the reality. First released as a three-LP set (and reissued on two CDs), this album is the "original cast recording" of a never-produced Broadway show. Working-class joes have been mutated into potato-headed, duck-mouthed creatures by a government experiment gone wrong. They put up a Broadway musical in which reality and fiction become one for two members of the audience. The main character, Thing-Fish, is played by Ike Willis. His thick caricatured Negro accent is directly taken from Amos 'n' Andy's King Fish character. Zappa's intention was not to mock African Americans, but to ridicule the way they are depicted on Broadway, mainly a white male-dominated milieu. Harry and Rhonda, the two audience members drawn into the story by force, are played by Terry Bozzio and Dale Bozzio. Harry will realize he is gay, Rhonda will turn into a briefcase fetishist. Zappa exaggerates the yuppie trends of the mid-'80s (Harry is gay for "career purposes"; Rhonda embodies the ultra-feminist) and slips into the plot concerns about the spread of AIDS being the result of governmental scientific experiments. It's crazy, offensive, barely holding together, but it sure is entertaining. To accommodate the plot, Zappa wrote a couple of new songs and re-recorded a handful of tracks from Zoot Allures, You Are What You Is, Tinsel-Town Rebellion, and Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch with new lyrics. It is definitely for the seasoned fan (the conceptual continuity clues make an integral part of the experience), but more than rehashed material.

Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 is the sixth studio album by American Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was the band's first new studio album since 1977's Street Survivors and the first following a 1977 plane crash that claimed the lives of three members of the band. Lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant and lead guitarist Steve Gaines perished in a 1977 plane crash in Mississippi, and Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 is the first album to feature their replacements, vocalist Johnny Van Zant and guitarist Randall Hall. It also marks the return of original guitarist Ed King, who parted ways with the band while touring in support of Nuthin' Fancy in 1975. It was also the final Lynyrd Skynyrd album to feature drummer Artimus Pyle, who survived the crash. Guitarist and founding member Allen Collins also survived the 1977 plane crash but died in 1990 from chronic pneumonia.

"The Lullabies (Ninna Nanna)" is a conceptual anthology exploring one of the most intimate yet haunting facets of Ennio Morricone's vast oeuvre. Curated by the Milan-based label Cam Sugar in collaboration with UME, this collection brings together compositions where the lullaby motif serves not only as a soothing element but as a narrative tool for melancholy, innocence, or underlying tension.

Soft Machine were never a commercial enterprise and indeed remain unknown even to many listeners who came of age during the late '60s and early '70s, when the group was at its most visible peak. In their way, however, they were one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground outfits. Soft Machine, one of the original British psychedelic groups, were instrumental in the birth of both progressive rock and jazz-rock.

Kenny G A crossover jazz icon, saxophonist Kenny G has enjoyed phenomenal success across the pop, jazz, and R&B charts for over three decades. Influenced by players like Stan Getz and Grover Washington, Jr., G is known for his lyrical and emotive style, a sound that has garnered a loyal fan base and made him one of the biggest-selling instrumentalists of all time. He initially broke through with 1986's Duotones, which reached the Top Ten on the pop and jazz charts and spawned the hit single "Songbird." He gained yet wider attention with 1992's Breathless, which reached number two on the Billboard 200, topped the jazz charts, and won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition for "Forever in Love." G has more than ten number one Billboard Jazz Albums, including 2004's At Last…The Duets, 2010's Heart and Soul, and 2015's Brazilian Nights. With 2021's New Standards, he showcased his compositional skills, writing songs inspired by his love of '50s and '60s traditional pop standards. He emphasized his soft touch with 2023's Innocence, a collection of lullabies.

Obed Calvaire, Bob Franceschini, Kevin Hays, and Orlando Le Fleming will be releasing their album, Whole Lotta Love: The Music of Led Zeppelin with Chesky Records this summer. The album features the quartet playing jazz arrangements of some of Led Zeppelin’s most famous tracks like “Immigrant Song,” “Kashmir,” and “Whole Lotta Love.”

Pink Floyd Some bands turn into shorthand for a certain sound or style, and Pink Floyd belongs among that elite group. The very name connotes something specific: an elastic, echoing, mind-bending sound that evokes the chasms of space. Pink Floyd grounded that limitless sound with exacting explorations of mundane matters of ego, mind, memory, and heart, touching upon madness, alienation, narcissism, and society on their concept albums of the '70s. Of these concept albums, Dark Side of the Moon resonated strongest, earning new audiences year after year, decade after decade, and its longevity makes sense.

Lovelines commemorated the duo's 20-year association with A&M Records, though Karen had passed away six years before. Ten of the 12 tracks were recorded for other albums but were not included for various reasons; two are remixes of previously released material. Richard penned the liner notes, which give some insight into the history of the pieces. "When I Fall in Love" brings a tear to the eye as it captures that indefinable and completely unique quality that Karen brought to each song she sang. While the material in this compilation is not sensational or ground-breaking, it is definitely a sentimental selection of tunes that go easy on the ear.

A bizarrely entrancing jewel from the depths of the Japanese underground, Doo Dah Nean was originally released in small run of hand assembled cassettes by the La Musica label in the late 90’s. The album is the sole release and evidence of Nean, an entirely under-the-radar trio that crossed the sensual, disassociated female vocals of Japanese iroke kayōkyoku music with off-balance shamanic rhythm and echoing electronic rumble. Nean were the trio of Yui on bass and electronics, Naoko on voice, and Non on drums. Both Yui and Non were also part of Holy Angels, and Yui played with Ohkami No Jikan and Mauduit Nuit. Vocalist Naoko, in her lone recorded appearance anywhere, elevates the proceedings to peak outsider strangeness. Her ultra-repetitive chants and sighs balance childlike innocence with sinister knowing. Alternately distracted and humming to herself or delivering breathy, near field whispers, the simple juxtaposition of her vocalizations with Non’s stumble-drunk drums, and the amorphous blobs and gloops of tone unleashed from Yui’s instruments lands like an avant garde, proto-ASMR incantation. A truly confounding release in a La Musica catalogue that’s not exactly thin on the ground for such form.

Willie Nelson Few songwriters and performers have played a vital role in post-rock & roll country music as Willie Nelson. Although he didn't become a star until the mid-'70s, he spent the 1960s writing songs that became hits for stars like Ray Price ("Night Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"), and Billy Walker ("Funny How Time Slips Away"), as well as releasing a series of records on Liberty and RCA that earned him a small but devoted cult following. During the early '70s, Nelson abandoned Nashville for his native Texas, setting up shop with the redneck hippies in Austin and taking control of his music on the landmark Shotgun Willie (1973) and Phases & Stages (1974). He found a kindred spirit in Waylon Jennings and, together, they spearheaded the outlaw country movement that finally made him a star by 1975. Following the crossover success of that year's Red Headed Stranger and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," Willie became a genuine success, as recognizable in pop circles as he was to country audiences; in addition to recording, he also launched an acting career in the early '80s. Even when he was a star, he never played it safe musically.

With ‘Vieni, o Notte’, Francesca Aspromonte signsher first recording for Aparté with an all-Scarlattiprogramme.Together with Arsenale Sonoro and BorisBegelman, Francesca explores three cantatas(sometimes described as serenate) in which thecomposer makes the night the stage for hischaracters’ thwarted loves. He gives them ariasand recitatives that are painful, contemplative, orsearing, complemented by two sonate a quattrowith madrigalian lines, whose quartet performanceby Arsenale Sonoro highlights the bold harmonicshifts, the shadows, and the light.The album closes with All’hor che stanco il sole, aworld-premiere recording - a musical meditation onlove and loss. Here, Aspromonte unfolds amastery of line and text that reveals the fullsensuality of this music.

In Concert: Merchants of Cool is a live album by British hard rock band Bad Company. It was recorded principally at The Paramount Theater, Denver, Colorado and The Grove of Anaheim, Anaheim, California, in January 2002. It features hits from both Bad Company and precursor band Free as well as two new studio tracks, "Joe Fabulous" and "Saving Grace".

Domenico Cimarosa, one of the last great exponents of the Neapolitan School, was also one of the most-performed opera composers before the arrival of Rossini. He composed over 60 such works and was esteemed from Venice to St Petersburg where he was appointed to the Russian Court. L’Italiana in Londra (‘The Italian Girl in London’) is a charming and sophisticated intermezzo that displays an incredible understanding of comic situations and characters, satirising different cultural stereotypes that are as identifiable today as they were in the 18th century. Humour and wit abound in this acclaimed production.

This 20-track collection from PolyGram compiles every one of Jacques Brel's most popular songs, all in their most famous versions. From his first hit "Quand On N'a Que l'Amour" to early peaks like "La Valse à Mille Temps," "Les Vieux," and "Mathilde," Quinze Ans d'Amour picks the best of his early material, with only one song recorded after 1968.

Rush’s sixteenth studio album, Test for Echo, was released on 10 September 1996 on Anthem Records. It was the final Rush album co-produced by Peter Collins. The band supported the album with a world tour in 1996 and 1997! By December of 1996, the Test For Echo Tour was in the southern states of the US, and on the 5th of the month, Rush played at the Summit, in Houston, Texas, where they put on one of the tour’s very best shows! The whole affair was recorded and broadcast across local radio too, and the concert is now available in its entirety on this new 2CD set!