Am 26. April 2024 erscheint das neue BAP-Album. »ZEITREISE / LIVE IM SARTORY« wurde an vier magischen Abenden in den legendären Kölner Sartory-Sälen mitgeschnitten und ist viel mehr als ein weiteres Live-Album. Wir hören: den Nukleus eines der zentralen Werke der deutschen Rockmusik, dringlich, relevant, elektrisierend. Niedeckens BAP hat diese Lieder revitalisiert. Für das Hier und Jetzt, die nächste Generation.

Matthias Reim ist zweifellos ein großfühlender Mensch. Ein beneidenswert produktiver Zeitgenosse ist er sowieso. Vor bald 35 Jahren hinterließ der Vollblutmusiker und Songwriter einen Aphorismus von bleibendem Wert: „Verdammt, ich lieb' dich“. Liedzeilen, die aus einer Laune heraus entstanden, formte der damals 32 Jahre junge Mann zu einem Mammut-Refrain, der zu einem Millionenseller gelangte. Er hat rund zwei Dutzend Studioeinspielungen veröffentlicht, etliche davon brachen in Gold- und Platin gegossen Verkaufsrekorde. Auf dem neuen Longplayer „Zeppelin“ präsentiert Reim seine 16 neuen Songs so frühlingsfrisch und auf den Punkt gebracht wie ein tatendrängender Newcomer. Einer, der sich gleichzeitig eines enormen Musikmacher- und Lebenserfahrungsschatzes ermächtigen kann. Anders lässt sich die gesteigerte Wahrhaftigkeit in „Zeppelin“ nicht erklären. Reims Rock klingt heute handgemacht-rockiger als je zuvor, die Refrains sind größer geworden und die Balladen balladesker. „Zeppelin“ ist kurzum der beste Reim aller Zeiten.

A musical journey through Renaissance Europe via pieces that were highly popular and whose melodies were reused and varied by some of the best composers of the time.

ACCEPT, long-standing legendary German titans of heavy metal, are back with a fiercely awaited new studio album, entitled Humanoid, to be released on the 26th of April, 2024. Humanoid is a towering musical achievement and another world class entry in the ACCEPT catalog, certain to rally fans from around the world. ACCEPT have never shied away from hot button issues, and this album is no exception. The band’s 17th studio album is certainly not a concept album, yet it deals with topics like AI and how our reliance upon technology is gradually stripping away individuality. Since singer Mark Tornillo will never be an advocate for the digital age, he counterbalances the title track with raw emotions, frailties, significant Rites of Passage we encounter on the path of life and characteristics that make us uniquely human: feeling uncomfortable, getting older, dealing with hurt, disappointment, and the final stop for everyone: death. Humanoid is a ferociously electrifying, dynamic and subtly nuanced platter with tongue in cheek humor.

A popular singer when she was still a young teenager, Alice Babs had a long and varied career. She made her recording debut in 1939 at the age of 15 and, although her yodeling made her initially popular and the novelty "Swing It, Mr. Teacher" was her first hit, Babs even at the start had a highly appealing voice and a lightly swinging style. She mostly recorded in jazz and swing-oriented settings throughout the years of World War II. Babs remained active throughout the 1950s and '60s in Europe, singing everything from jazz (recording with Duke Ellington in 1963 and performing the classic "Heaven" at his second spiritual concert) and pop to a bit of classical music. By the late '70s, Alice Babs had become less active, but into the mid-'90s she occasionally performed on special occasions. Her important first set with Duke Ellington, Swing It!, does a fine job of summing up her first 15 years on records. Babs suffered from Alzheimer's in her final years, and she died on February 11, 2014 of complications from the disease. She was 90 years old.

2022 remastered edition. In 1975, the second album of the Berlin based electronic group Mythos was released. Mastermind Stephan Kaske and his band present the typical sound cascades and sequences of the Berlin school. Similar to the works of several other fellow artists on the same label, the album develops a science fiction concept around the story of an extraterrestrial visitor on a journey to Earth. Dreamlab is predominantly made up of peaceful and relaxed music. The meter is often determined by echoes from flutes and guitar riffs backed by expansive Mellotron arrangements. This remastered reissue comes in a digisleeve on the original Kosmische Kuriere label.

Hailed by the international music press and highly praised by music connoisseurs, the recordings of Bach’s entire body of vocal music made by the Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ), its conductor Masaaki Suzuki and numerous prestigious soloists, many of whom have remained remarkably loyal to the undertaking from the outset, are here brought together to form the only complete set of these works in high-resolution format.

After the success of his stunning album ‘Otello’, revered tenor Jonas Kaufmann returns with the sensational new album ‘Selige Stunde’. ‘Selige Stunde’ is the first recital in a small series of recordings that Jonas has made during the Covid-19 crisis. This stunning album includes a varied and heart-felt selection of songs that cover the most prominent Lieder composers. All tracks are short and are often performed as encores. The theme of the lyrics centre around love, longing, peacefulness and farewell. Kaufmann is considered one of the greatest tenors of this generation. He has performed at the world’s most prestigious concert venues including the Royal Opera House in London and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Kaufmann has won numerous prestigious awards including Gramophone Awards and Echo Klassik Awards.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin had hardly opened on 24th September 1961 before it started preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. How was that possible? Had it entered into some sort of time warp? That might indeed have been possible for a theatre that in the past had devoted itself to Richard Wagner’s works. But there was a simpler explanation: the Deutsche Oper Berlin had, in fact, originally opened on 7 November 1912 under the title of Deutsches Opernhaus.

The Christmas easy-listening album by Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra, originally released in 1967, with bonus tracks released in 1971, 1977 and 1978 on the Philips label, together on one CD and remastered from the original analogue stereo tapes for Vocalion's trademark crystal-clear sound.

The chemistry between tradition and innovation powered Sir Simon Rattle’s relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, above all during his time as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director (2002-2018). As the successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, his mission was to take this pre-eminent musical institution into the 21st century. “What Rattle has brought … is a new spirit of adventure,” declared The Times in 2006, and later looked back on the “exhilarating, epoch-hopping eclecticism of Simon Rattle’s era in Berlin”. Through all this Rattle preserved the orchestra’s distinctive sonority, notable, in the words of the New York Times, for its “sheer grandeur … and rich, red-blooded warmth”. He first conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1987, and the recordings in this 45CD box span the years from 1994 to 2012. Very much reflecting Rattle’s vision for the orchestra, the symphonic, choral and operatic works range from pillars of Austro-German Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism through French, Russian and Czech repertoire to showcases for contemporary contemporary composers from around the world – and even a film soundtrack. As Rattle said at the end of his tenure in Berlin: “Music is for everybody, and we’ve all believed this.”

Covent Garden’s 2003 production of The Magic Flute , designed by John F. Macfarlane, directed by David McVicar, and conducted by Sir Colin Davis, is magnificent from a strictly musical standpoint. More than that, it’s vastly entertaining. The comedic elements of the story integrate far more comfortably than is often the case with Schikaneder’s high-minded (if vague) theme of a quest for enlightenment, particularly in the second act. Visually, the production is a feast, yet it doesn’t distract from the music.

One of the key German composers before Bach with more than 500 surviving individual pieces, Heinrich Schutz wrote mainly church music, and is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the early Baroque. Although he lived most of his long life in Germany, in his twenties Schutz made two visits to Venice. The first was between 1609 and 1613 when he was taught by Giovanni Gabrieli; and the second in the late 1620s to meet and possibly study under Monteverdi. The two trips greatly influenced Schutz's music as he absorbed and began to combine the ornate and theatrical Venetian style with the more understated Lutheran tradition in which he grew up. This album explores his solo cantatas alongside examples of the brilliant and virtuosic Venetian style instrumental music.

A concept album exploring themes of broadcast communications, Radio-Activity marked Kraftwerk's return to more obtuse territory, extensively utilizing static, oscillators, and even Cage-like moments of silence to approximate the sense of radio transmission; a pivotal record in the group's continuing development, the title track – the first they ever recorded in English – is their most fully realized electro-pop effort to date, while "The Voice of Energy" precipitates the robot voice so crucial to their subsequent work.

Deluxe two CD set. Digitally remastered and expanded edition of the 1984 sophomore album from Austrian pop / rock / new wave artist Falco. Features a digitally remastered edition of the Junge Roemer album plus a bonus disc that includes remixes, edits, and live recordings.