The Smithereens, Joe Cocker, Johnny Rivers, The Beach Boys, Ike & Tina Turner, Bobby McFerrin, Jan & Dean, Peggy Lee, The Persuasions and Dr. John in a Tower Records Tribute to The Beatles!

Undisputed icons of rock and roll The Hives are back, channelling the electrifying energy of the group’s greatest hits with their first new album in over 10 years. Their colossal new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons, reignites the band’s lore in arresting fashion, exploring the disappearance of the band’s mysterious sixth member Randy Fitzsimmons. Having gone missing some time ago, the band are without their best man, and things are not well in the manor. Maybe, just maybe, the release of new music will get Randy’s attention and bring him back from the void…

Polar Sequences (1996). A collaboration between Biosphere's Geir Jennsen and Bobby Bird of Higher Intelligence Agency, commissioned by the Norwegian government for live performance at the 1995 Polar Music Festival. Suitably frosty melodies and glacial textures provide the framework for compositions utilizing the natural environment of the Arctic Circle for inspiration and source material (snow falling, ice cracking and splitting, the clang of cable car mountain lifts, etc.), to often remarkable effect. Sparse beats occasionally bubble up, but the focus is definitely on the icy edge of Arctic life…

In German usage, it has become customary to refer to older compositions for keyboard instruments, unless they were expressly written for the harpsichord or organ, as "Clavierwerke". The boundaries were fluid, which is why these sonatas for a "clavier" without pedal can also be interpreted on an appropriate pipework. Despite various modernizations, the organ in St. Cyriakus Church in Duderstadt certainly offers this: created by Johannes Creutzburg in 1733-35, the instrument belongs to the same period in which the young Johann Ludwig Krebs completed his training with the Leipzig Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach. In the six sonatas, which were only rediscovered in 2009, the pupil admittedly speaks a different language to his teacher: the pieces are playful, light-hearted, occasionally "dallying" and always gallant in his hand.

Anyone who has made it past the seventh year can hope for a rosy future. The Orelon Trio, founded in Cologne in 2018, has just crossed this striking threshold - but without its members Judith Stapf (violin), Arnau Rovira i Bascompte (cello) and Marco Sanna (piano) ever having to get together: Within a short space of time, the "high-flyers" were already making a name for themselves, they were soon performing at prestigious venues, top-class competition successes (ARD, Melbourne, Graz) came as a matter of course, the first recordings and the enthusiastic response from specialist circles were not long in coming. How could they not, when the "oreloj" (Esperanto for: the ears) of the three musicians are so excellently attuned that they can perceive unheard-of things even in familiar repertoire. The Orelon Trio's first cpo release leaves no doubt about this.

Tropical Tribute to the Beatles is a tribute album of tropical artists released in 1996 by RMM Records (Ralph Mercado's record company), produced by Oscar Gomez (distributed by Bellaphon & Uni Distribution). Arrangements were made by Steve Roistein, and lyrics were adapted into Spanish by Jorge Córcega, who had previously adapted the lyrics of Salvatore Adamo.

This 50th Anniversary Edition is presented as a hardcover book and features the remastered original album in stereo and mono as well as session outtakes, alternate mixes and previously unreleased live recordings.
The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound. Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance…

Aubrey Mayhew, founder of the maverick country label Little Darlin' Records, sought out taciturn bluesman Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins in Houston in 1967 and persuaded him to make some casual field recordings for him at nearby Gold Star Studio and, as it turned out, at two small local bars. The results of these extremely loose and casual sessions were issued as a series of five short albums under the blanket title of The Lost Texas Tapes, and it is those five releases that are collected here into one double-disc set. Intimacy is the operative word for these tracks, as Hopkins (playing solo electric guitar) sounds relaxed and at ease, and while these recordings are hardly the place to start with Lightnin', die-hard fans will find them indispensable for the insight they give into his creative process…