Michael Finnissy's output for the guitar spans almost 60 years of his career and represents an enormous contribution to the repertoire of the instrument from one of Britain's most significant composers. Published a few days before Finnissy's 80th birthday, this bold and ambitious album celebrates this milestone by bringing together all of his works for solo guitar and guitar ensemble for the first time, in performances by Finnissy's collaborators and led by new music virtuoso and tireless guitar explorer Sam Cave.

Anthony Ferrara’s fourth SteepleChase release, Straight Into The Sun Vision, marks a striking new chapter for the rising tenor saxophonist. After three acclaimed albums: SCCD 31920 Early Spring, SCCD 31932 Cold Faded and SCCD 31975 Factory Fresh with his “dream team” veteran rhythm section, Ferrara now leads a working quartet of peers whose shared history brings a fresh cohesion to his music. In a familiar group of contemporaries the performances took to a newly open personal level of expression. Ferrara’s original compositions range from high velocity, odd meter burners to lyrical, atmospheric pieces, all unified by his distinctive voice and narrative improvising. Two vocal features reveal yet another facet of his artistry, including the reflective title track penned by Ferrara. Straight Into The Sun Vision captures a rapidly maturing artist stepping fully into his sound—bold, inventive, and unmistakably his own. “What is particularly impressive about Ferrara is that he not only has a mature, confident and appealing sound, but also is finding his own voice. Ferrara is also a capable composer, penning a diverse set of songs that invite repeated hearings, a huge challenge for any musician at the beginning of their career.” (Ken Dryden – NYCJR on SCCD 31938 Cold Faded)

After last year's acclaimed triple album Liszt: Années de Pèlerinage, IBS Classical reunites with pianist Miriam Gómez-Morán for a new recording dedicated to three of Beethoven's most iconic piano sonatas: Pathétique, Moonlight, and Waldstein. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada, this album showcases Gómez-Morán's blend of scholarly insight and expressive depth. Her interpretation highlights the dramatic contrasts, structural clarity, and spiritual dimension that define Beethoven's pianistic universe. From the powerful rhetoric of the Pathétique to the atmospheric mystery of the Moonlight and the radiant virtuosity of the Waldstein, Gómez-Morán offers a reading that is both profound and compelling.

The new album 8 CANARIAN COMPOSERS, performed by the acclaimed Phace ensemble under the direction of Nacho de Paz, offers a unique journey through contemporary composition linked to the Canary Islands. Eight composers-Cecilia Díaz Pestano, Dori Díaz Jerez, Gustavo Díaz Jerez, José Luis Perdigón de Paz, Laura Vega, Juan Manuel Ruiz, Leandro Martín, and Rubens Askenar-present a kaleidoscope of musical languages that reveal the vitality and diversity of today's creation. Far from regional or stylistic labels, the project invites us to listen to how territory, memory, and personal experience continue to resonate in contemporary sound. The works, inspired by motherhood, the sea, science, folklore, and spirituality, showcase multiple ways of inhabiting and reimagining music from the islands. With Phace-resident ensemble at the Wiener Konzerthaus-delivering extraordinary precision and artistry, and Nacho de Paz, one of Spain's leading conductors of new music, shaping it's expressive landscape, 8 CANARIAN COMPOSERS becomes both a portrait of a living scene and a reflection on the creative power of place.

Metaludios vol. III marks a major new chapter in the acclaimed Metaludios cycle by Spanish pianist and composer Gustavo Díaz-Jerez, one of the most original voices in contemporary piano music. Bringing together Books VI and VII, this album continues Díaz-Jerez's exploration of the intersection between music, science, technology, and imagination, confirming the series as a reference point in 21st-century repertoire. Each work is rooted in a precise conceptual process: artificial intelligence models trained exclusively on the composer's own music, sonifications of natural and cosmic phenomena, image-to-sound transformations, mathematical sequences, and algorithmic structures. These materials are shaped through a highly personal musical language that balances structural rigor with expressive depth and poetic resonance. Highlights include Long Short-Term Memory, created using Google's Magenta AI framework; Fuzzball, derived from a mathematical sequence of 10,000 data points; and Perseus' Lament, based on NASA's sonification of pressure waves emitted by a supermassive black hole. Other works draw inspiration from visual art, historical memory, spoken language, and physical phenomena such as Schumann resonances. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla and released by IBS Classical, Metaludios III offers distributors a distinctive catalogue title that appeals to contemporary music audiences, technologically curious listeners, and piano specialists alike, while reinforcing Gustavo Díaz-Jerez's international profile as both composer and performer, one of Spain's leading pianists and composers, internationally acclaimed for his performances of contemporary and core repertoire. He has appeared worldwide and premiered major works with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

An album entirely devoted to the trombone - that's rather unusual! de proche en proche, Belgian composer Michel Fourgon's second monographic disc on Cypres, features the instrument in a variety of configurations, in stages spanning some twenty years: from solo pieces (with Alain Pire as soloist) to concertos with symphony orchestra and choir (OPRL and Choeur de Chambre de Namur), via several chamber music repertoire arrangements and a surprising and delightful exchange between baroque (Les Agremens) and modern (ORCW) chamber orchestras tuned a quarter tone apart. Accompanied by Alain Pire, his long-time collaborator, Michel Fourgon explores all the resources of the instrument in a joyful kaleidoscope with an aesthetic rigour that never distances him from what he considers to be "his" voice at the heart of the music of his time.

The Christmas compilation 'Sind die Lichter angezundet' brings together the most beautiful and time-honoured treasures from the Eterna archive on two CDs. Available on CD for the first time ever, the album offers numerous recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s, with a focus on children's, youth and boys' choirs. The most beautiful and best-known Christmas melodies are contrasted with regional carols, rarely performed and recorded works and almost unknown gems - the perfect comprehensive and varied musical accompaniment to the Advent season and Christmas Eve.

Æternum marks the impressive debut recording of the Tempus Trio, presenting four contemporary works written expressly for the ensemble by leading composers Helena Cánovas, Marc Migó, Miquel Oliu, and Albert Guinovart. The album offers a uniquely coherent yet stylistically diverse journey through today's chamber music, unified by a central exploration of musical time-it's suspension, fragmentation, and expressive expansion. The programme opens with Helena Cánovas's tanta llunyania no ha estat un error (2025), a single-movement work built from contrasting sonic "states," where fragile harmonies, atmospheric textures, and sudden transformations create a poetic sense of distance and expectation. Marc Migó's GEM(S)TONE (2022) continues the journey with a vivid triptych inspired by three gemstones-Onyx, Ruby, and Diamond-each transformed into symbolic sound worlds that highlight the ensemble's dynamic range and technical finesse. Miquel Oliu's Un simple aleteig... (2023) offers a delicate, introspective reflection inspired by the proverb of the butterfly effect. Through natural harmonics, oscillating tremolos, and transparent textures, Oliu crafts a meditative work that pays subtle tribute to Kaija Saariaho. The album concludes with Albert Guinovart's expansive Trio Celebration (2025), a four-movement composition that draws from the great Romantic trio tradition while incorporating personal gestures and a final homage to Purcell's The Cold Song. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada, Æternum showcases the refined musicianship of Maria Tió (violin), Ferran Bardolet (cello), and Ricard Rovirosa (piano), establishing the Tempus Trio as a compelling new voice in contemporary chamber music.

Selim Palmgren was one of the most celebrated pianist-composers in the years before the end of the First World War. His vast catalogue of piano music, much of it unknown, is showcased in this acclaimed series performed by Jouni Somero, the Finnish composer's greatest modern exponent. This volume features the virtuosic and demanding Fantasie, Op. 6, one of Palmgren's most compelling works, as well as examples of music irradiated by Impressionism and Nordic folklore. Miniatures including études, waltzes, and pieces that exude Chopinesque charm are also featured.

AMETSAK places the listener at the heart of an intense and highly evocative listening experience. Devoted to the music of Gabriel Erkoreka, one of the most respected voices in contemporary Spanish composition, the album offers a journey through the realms of the mind, memory, and the perception of time, articulated through a musical language that is both sophisticated and immediately engaging. Performed by Zahir Ensemble under the direction of Juan García Rodríguez, AMETSAK brings together seven works composed between 2001 and 2023. At it's core lies the Ametsak cycle, inspired by the dream state, in which sound becomes a flexible substance and time is experienced as a subjective dimension. This approach results in an immersive and emotionally resonant listening experience that appeals not only to contemporary-music specialists but also to curious listeners seeking new sonic perspectives. The programme combines landmark works such as Trance with pieces of strong symbolic and narrative character (Izaro, Orreaga, Tomba del tuffatore), creating a coherent and varied album with clear artistic identity. Recorded in Seville in 2024, AMETSAK stands out for it's artistic depth, sonic clarity, and communicative power, making it a strong and attractive release for audiences interested in meaningful, exploratory contemporary music.

The Brussels court attracted some of the greatest composers and organists of the time at the beginning of the 17th century, including Peter Philips, Peeter Cornet, John Bull, and, a little later, Abraham Van den Kerckhoven, all of whom explored new ways of making organs sound. Flemish and Walloon organ builders throughout Europe, and in Spain and France in particular, were building instruments at that time that were to have a profound influence on organ building in those countries.

Captured live at Ann Arbor, Michigan’s renowned jazz club Blue Llama in June 2024, David Janeway presents himself at the height of his powers, joined by the world class rhythm team of Robert Hurst III and Billy Hart. A Detroit bred musician with a deep lineage in that city’s storied jazz tradition, Janeway channels decades of mentorship, swing, and blues rooted expression into a set that is both powerfully modern and historically grounded. The trio’s telepathic interplay fuels inventive takes on standards, luminous ballads, and Janeway’s distinctive originals, all delivered with the group’s tightly converging sound and emotional depth that define his artistry. Following acclaimed SteepleChase releases with Hart and Cameron Brown, this live recording stands as Janeway’s most vibrant statement yet—an inspired document of three master musicians creating in the moment. “It is no small feat to say that not only is Janeway’s playing sparkling but so is his ability to write tuneful compositions.” Michael P. Gladstone, All About Jazz Review

Pianist Miguel Ángel Acebo presents Scriabin Notebook, a new album released by IBS Classical, bridging the visionary world of Alexander Scriabin with contemporary Spanish musical creation. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada, the album features works by Jesús Torres, José Manuel López López, José María Sánchez-Verdú, and Francisco Domínguez, alongside emblematic pieces by the Russian composer. The project traces an aesthetic and spiritual journey that connects Scriabin's mysticism with the sensitivity of four generations of Spanish composers. In this kaleidoscopic reading, Acebo explores fire, resonance, and contemplation as metaphors for sound and inner transformation. From the introspection of Laberinto de silencios to the spectral expansion of Lo fijo y lo volátil, through the sonic gardens of Sánchez-Verdú and Domínguez's new work Approaching Mysterium, the album forms a constellation of perspectives on Scriabin's legacy, understood as a living myth: art as a path to revelation. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla (Granada) and released by IBS Classical in November 2025, Scriabin Notebook stands as a landmark of contemporary piano creation-a meeting point between identity, exploration, and transcendence.

Vinyl LP pressing. John Lee Hooker, known as "The King of the Boogie" and "the Boogie Man", was a true Blues icon. Quality rather than quantity is the key to Hooker's singular success. He did not have a huge number of hits in the R&B chart, but those that did make a major impact would provide some of the key musical architecture for future blues and rock artists. When he came to prominence in the late '40s, he was playing blues in a way that was regarded as somewhat spare, his dark repetitive vocals supported only by his amplified guitar and his stamping foot. His was no overnight stardom. Having paid his dues over many years, once he started recording, he did so prolifically. This fine collection of his earlier songs demonstrates Hooker's blues virtuosity while at the same time establishing his work as a signpost to a deeper understanding of the British Blues explosion. It features a host of early hits including the iconic No.1's "Boogie Chillen'" and "I'm In The Mood", alongside "Hoogie Boogie", "Hobo Blues", "Crawlin' King Snake", "Dimples", "No Shoes" and, naturally, the timeless "Boom Boom"

Vinyl LP pressing. Dinah Shore was one of the USA's most popular and successful entertainers, her peak recording career spanning the war years and the immediate post-war decades, when she also became a high-profile TV host with her own weekly Chevrolet-sponsored show, which more or less defined the USA in the 1950s. She was one of the very first female singers to come to prominence purely as a solo artist, rather than as a big band singer, and was such a prolific chart performer that, having had her first hit in 1939, she had racked up more than 50 hits by the end of the '40s, including memorable No.1s like "I'll Walk Alone", "Anniversary Song", "The Gypsy" and "Buttons And Bows". She continued scoring hits through what was often called the "Golden age of popular music" in the early '50s, scoring her final chart entry in 1960, by which time the rock 'n' roll and teen revolution had largely superseded artists of her generation. This fantastic 15 track LP provides a great introduction to Shore's prolific success by featuring the recordings which brought her greatest popularity. On top of her huge hits already mentioned, it also includes "Candy", "Dear Hearts & Gentle People", "Baby It's Cold Outside" and "Sweet Violets", all showcasing her distinctive style and talent and provides an entertaining and nostalgic celebration of an artist who was such a glamorous icon of her era.

CANDY STORE BLUES: THE SINGLES & ALBUMS COLLECTION

REEL

Maksimal brings together three major works by Daniel Temkin, music shaped by vivid physical images and a search for the forces that connect experience, memory, and place. At it's center is the violin concerto Maksimal, written for and performed here by Francisco Fullana with Ryan McAdams and the Maksimal Ensemble. Bright, agile, and rhythmically charged, the three movements balance solo virtuosity with quicksilver ensemble dialogue, nodding to Baroque concerto principles while stretching them into larger, continuous arcs. Dreamed Landscapes turns to the piano, with Ryan MacEvoy McCullough tracing three impressionistic studies inspired by galaxies, glaciers, and canyon horizons. Rather than literal depiction, the music focuses on colour, resonance, and the inner sensation of inhabiting these spaces. Completing the program is Ocean's Call, performed by the Aizuri Quartet, a work inspired by California's Pacific coast. From misty harmonics and brittle wind textures to expansive, storm-driven waves, the piece unfolds as a meditation on nature's power and calm. Recorded across Houston and New York, Maksimal is Temkin's second solo album on Orchid Classics: a focused, immersive portrait of a composer drawn to sound as landscape, motion, and shared human experience.

BEAT ME DADDY: THE SINGLES COLLECTION 1939-47

Vinyl LP pressing. There are perhaps few characters in the history of popular music who were as mysterious, as they were brazen than Aleck Ford, AKA Sonny Boy Williamson II. The true story of Sonny Boy Williamson II remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, and it seems this was Ford's intention, but to what ends, nobody can say. One thing is certain though - he was one of the all-time greats of the harmonica, a bone fide bluesman, talented and charismatic in equal measure. His influence cannot be overstated. The first incarnation of the band that would become the Rolling Stones was named after him: Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys; B.B King described him as "the King of the harmonica"; and maybe there would have been no Howlin' Wolf, or Elmore James without Williamson's mentorship and support. The British Blues explosion of the late 1960s certainly owed much to Williamson and his compatriots. This carefully curated collection of this colourful and charismatic performer's work showcases just why he was one of the true legends of blues music. Interestingly, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the same year as Sonny Boy Williamson I. It seems fitting that even in death and in honours they were inextricably linked. This collection hones in on his work that took the world by storm during his tenure with Trumpet and Checker in the 1950's and early 60's from his iconic "Eyesight For The Blind" through to "One Way Out". It is a true celebration of one of the most mysterious characters in music.

Recorded in Salzburg with the city's Mozarteumorchester and conductor Howard Griffiths, Bartlett performs Bach's Keyboard Concerto No 1 in D minor, Mozart's 'Jeunehomme' Piano Concerto and Britten's Young Apollo, which is scored for piano, string quartet and string orchestra. "When I began shaping this album, I started with Benjamin Britten," explains Bartlett. "He was a brilliant pianist, remarkable for his purity of intention, clarity of touch, and emotional honesty... When programming his own Aldeburgh Festival, Britten would often give the works of Bach and Mozart special attention. He also showed his deep admiration in the way he allowed them to influence his own compositions."

Gondwana Records is pleased to announce 'Interlude', the second album from Estonian-born, London-based composer and pianist Hanakiv. Showcasing an expanded sound, the compositions trace a journey of overcoming the past, unfolding into a seductively unconventional style imbued with hope and a therapeutic quality.

SHAKE THAT BOOGIE: LIVE IN BREMEN 1989

When grunge was mainstream, a blonde teenager from Louisiana upended the music industry by charting top 10 singles on the rock charts with his blues rock debut album Ledbetter Heights. Kenny Wayne Shepherd released Ledbetter Heights 30 years ago and he has been redefining the genre ever since. "This is the album that put me on the map," Shepherd says. "My goal has always been to make music that is unfiltered and straight from the heart and Ledbetter Heights is an album I'm very proud of." Thirty years later Shepherd is releasing a re-recorded version of that debut album, Ledbetter Heights: The 30th Anniversary Sessions. With the maturity of a seasoned musician and producer, as well as vocals featuring his longtime singer Noah Hunt, the 30th Anniversary Sessions are sure to please both old and new fans. "Revisiting this album put me back in touch with the wonder and excitement of those days. I didn't know what lay ahead at the time," he reflects, "But I'm very grateful for what came from it.

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