Clive Bell is Britain's leading player of the Japanese shakuhachi, and a founder member of Jah Wobble's Deep Space project. DAVID ROSS was drummer for the instrumental combo Kenny Process Team. But none of this would prepare you for Mystery Lights, their first duo recording. This is a spacious, intimate music, full of colour and melody, exploratory but highly accessible. Many instruments, both acoustic and electronic, familiar and unfamiliar, weave a spell hard to resist. This album was made in collaboration with Walter & Donald the budgerigars. Recorded live at "The Earl of Kilgorlin". CD includes a video playable on any PC.

Schwartz (b. 1936, NYC) studied composition at Columbia University. His music on this CD is performed by the Kreutzer Quartet who is dedicated to performing and recording new works, both collectively and as soloists, Longbow, Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Aaron Shorr and Nicole Johnson.

The Lieder of Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most significant bodies of new vocal music to emante from Europe in the last forty years. Here sung with enormous sensitivity and expression by Clare Lesser, this is an important recital for all connoisseurs of art-song.

The new album ‘Headlong’ contains all but one of Christopher Fox’s works for solo clarinet and like his previous Métier albums is an awe-inspiring mix of compositions which may be avant-garde and untraditional, but he has the gift of using relative simplicity and very often a wit which makes listening enjoyable and often good fun too. His position as one of the most individual and talented of today’s modernists is assured. The brilliant Heather Roche is the sole performer on the album, playing clarinets in B flat and C, bass clarinet and contrabass, often overdubbing to duet with herself and with occasional electronics and sampling to create additional textures. An essential album for new-music fans but will also give less adventurous listeners a very pleasant and fascinating set of new discoveries.

• Kevin Malone visited Ground Zero, met with 9/11 commission officials and others, and wrote ‘Eighteen Minutes’. Using recordings of the air traffic controllers, he came up with ‘Requiem 77’ for solo cello. He then wrote Angels and Fireflies as a result of an evening visit to the crash site of UA93. This version is for flute and string orchestra. • All of the three pieces are completely engrossing, highly accessible and extremely thought provoking.

The music on this album is rooted in the music of Herat, Afghanistan, which both Veronica and John studied in the 1970s. Abdul grew up in Herat and has performed this music throughout his career, so he knows it intimately. The music captures an era of peace and normality, seen by many Afghans as a golden age before the recent turmoil, upheaval and war.

The fifth volume in Metier's Beethoven Explored series brings superlative performances of the Opus 12 Violin Sonatas and the relatively unknown B flat sonata by Beethoven's contemporary Andreas Romberg. Celebrated English violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved is highly regarded in the U.S. due to his now annual tours, and also for his championing of American composers such as Elliott Schwartz and George Rochberg, and his recordings of their works for Metier.

Two themes unite these works: The use of electronics and the degree of the performer's input. All of the works save one employ electronics, but in each work the electronics are used in very different ways. The performer's input into the works also varies. Two of the works are presented twice, yielding significantly different performances and fascinating comparisons. Christopher Redgate specializes in contemporary repertoire and has performed across Europe, the USA, China and Australia.

Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" - the 48 Preludes and Fugues, 2 sets in each major and minor key, is one of the cornerstones of the baroque keyboard repertoire. Diana Boyle presents an exceptional account of the second set of 24 pieces, played on a modern Grotrian-Steinweg piano. Her approach to performing this repertoire on a modern piano is astonishing and exciting, bringing the complexity of Bach's writing to the fore.

While the string quartet is most usually associated with the Germanic traditions, many fine quartets have emanated from a variety of sources in more recent times, and the Catalan area is such. The four quartets recorded here are important because they offer a picture of quartet writing outside the main European canon; the four composers are of the generation after the great Roberto Gerhard, who left Spain for Britain in 1939 but whose roots in Catalan music created the cornerstone for this new school of expression.

Clemo is a composer who integrates jazz with contemporary classical, rock and electronic sources to produce music which is unique and reflective of life. Critical praise has been heaped on Clemo's work from many sources. Philip Clemo plays guitar, keyboards, and electronics with a fine band of musicians.

Borderlands is the name of the Shawn Snow painting that graces the cover of this album. Snow's art inspired the four-part theme and variations that for the album's framework. The title also describes the artistic realm in which Jonathan Lorentz finds himself. This is "borderlands" as unsafe, unfamiliar territory, where the only things more vague than the demarcations are the rules. It also represents literal geography: Lorentz is a veteran of the Manhattan scene (with a Ph.D. in jazz studies from NYU), but now based in New Hampshire. Bringing bassist John Menegon and drummer David 'Scorch' Calarco together to form the Trio has allowed JL to experiment, compose and develop his exceptional talents. Jonathan Lorentz is the new face of New York club jazz, whether in the city or out in the Borderlands.

The Cello Suites of J S Bach are the corner stone of the repertoire for the solo instrument and have also inspired and informed the work of many modern composers. Here Ulrich Heinen provides a superlative performance of the first 5 cello suites (the sixth was written for a differently strung cello) and seminal modern pieces.

Redgate is acknowledged by many to be the no. 1 oboist in contemporary music today. This new recording of works by British composers brings the very best of new music including the utterly superb title track by Michael Finnissy, the almost romantic piece by Howard Skempton and major contributions from Clarke, Fox and Roger Redgate, who also conducts Ensemble Expose.

The third in our series which presents Beethoven's Violin Sonatas in their musical and social context, alongside works by Beethoven's contemporaries and pupils. Here the op. 30 sonatas are joined by Franz Clement's Variations on Gretry's Barbe Bleu for solo violin. A magnificent performance and new recording at medium price.