Michele Carafa was a friend of Rossini’s and worked with the composer on several occasions. I Due Figaro is a sequel to The Marriage of Figaro. Fifteen years on, the now adult Cherubino returns to the palace in disguise as Figaro II to be near the Count’s daughter. And Cherubino/Figaro II will triumph over adversity and send the original Figaro packing.

Known for his mariachi-inspired easy listening sound, trumpeter Herb Alpert is one of the most successful instrumental performers in pop history. He is also one of the entertainment industry's canniest businessmen, having co-founded A&M Records – a label that ranks among the most prosperous artist-owned companies ever established – with partner Jerry Moss. Collection includes: The Lonely Bull (1962); South Of The Border (1964); Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965); !!Going Places!! (1965); What Now My Love (1966); S.R.O (1966); The Beat Of The Brass (1968); Rise (1979); Fandango (1982); Bullish (1984); Keep Your Eye On Me (1987); Classics, Volume 1 (1987); Steppin' Out (Featuring Lani Hall) (2013); In The Mood (2014); Come Fly With Me (2015).

It has taken eight years and over 130 CDs but FSM finally releases a score by the great Ennio Morricone: Guns for San Sebastian (1968), commonly known as a western but more accurately a historical adventure set in Mexico circa 1750. The film stars Anthony Quinn as an outlaw who is mistaken for a priest and protects a humble village against a violent tribe of Indians; Charles Bronson is the antagonist and Anjanette Comer the love interest. Filmed in Mexico, the international production is a sunburnt, action-packed look at a violent time in colonial Latin American history. The late 1960s were an especially fertile period for Ennio Morricone, whose prolific genius has enhanced hundreds of films for over 40 years. By 1968 Morricone had already scored the groundbreaking Dollars trilogy for Sergio Leone—establishing the revolutionary style for the "spaghetti" westerns—and Guns for San Sebastian preceded their western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West.

This CD has a wonderful mix of traditional and modern pipes and drum music. Everyone who hears it has their own favourite track, whatever their age. The musicians have proved the versatility of their talents.

Number One Party Compilation: 70's 80's is a 2CD compilation featuring fantastic dance music from the 1970's and 1980's. It consists of what is called a bonus disc consisting of a "Disco 80 Megamix". This was released by Italian label Atlantis.

Bernard Allison got some valuable advice from his father, Luther, before the latter's death in 1997: "Don't be afraid to go outside of the blues," he said. "Don't let them label you like they did me." Bernard has obviously taken that advice to heart; his solo albums have been a rich mixture of rock, funk, blues, and R&B. Most of his recordings have been released in Europe, where he has made his home for a decade. The release of Higher Power comes a little while after his return to the States, and reflects a lifetime of both good times and bad. The album's most noticeable lyrical element is the recurring theme of recovery from addiction – "I've Learned My Lesson" (from which the album's explicitly AA-derived title is taken) and "New Life I'm In" are two of the most explicit blues-based odes to a 12-step program since Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Wall of Denial." On the funkier, less pious side are the soulful "Raggedy and Dirty" (charmingly, he pronounces that word "raggly") and the funky, vaguely misogynistic "Woman Named Trouble".

This is string-bending, guitar orientated, blues based rock & roll, with some hard-rocking northwestern attitude thrown in for spice. Too Slim keeps the pace from ever getting stagnant by changing it around all the time; he has arranged the songs well. He wrote all but 3 of the songs, and 2 of those 3 he co-wrote. He isn't going to win any prizes for his vocals, but they are more than adequate, and actually quite good on the rousing country stomper, Big Barn Boogie. There are no weak songs on this disc and for me the strongest song is the last cut Rosado. This is a laid back sleepy blues tune that puts me in mind of Santo and Johnny's Sleepwalk in the way it quietly and sinuously keeps pushing towards the finish.

Folks in Europe were hip to Larry Garner long before most blues fans in the states. The Baton Rouge guitarist had already toured extensively overseas, with two British albums to his credit, before Verve issued his stunning domestic debut, You Need to Live a Little, in 1995. Rooted in the swamp blues tradition indigenous to his Baton Rouge environs, Garner brings a laudable contemporary sensibility and witty composing skills to his craft. Inspired by local swamp bluesmen Silas Hogan and Clarence Edwards, Garner learned how to play guitar from his uncle and a couple of gospel-playing elders. After completing his military service in Korea, he returned to Baton Rouge and embarked on a part-time musical career (he worked at a Dow chemical plant for almost two decades until his recent retirement)…

One of Handel’s rarer operas, Arminio, set at the time of the Roman Empire, was first performed in 1737. “On the evidence of this very fine recording,” said Gramophone when this performance first appeared, “it can stand among the best of the Handel operas, full of beautiful and imaginative things.” Conducting a cast led by the virtuosic Vivica Genaux in the title role – composed for the castrato Domenico Annibali – is the renowned Handel specialist Alan Curtis.

Ennio Morricone is an Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor, who has written music for more than 500 motion pictures and television series, as well as contemporary and modern classical works. His scores have been included in over forty award-winning films. In a career lasting over six decades, he composed some of the most recognizable film scores in cinematic history.

Arguably a milestone for both director Sergio Leone and his musical cohort Ennio Morricone. After deconstructing the classic American western by way of The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, Leone distilled his intentions with 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West. For his part, Morricone framed Leone's meditative camerawork and mythic narrative with a mix of hauntingly spacious pieces and reconfigured snatches of old-timey tunes. Just within the stretch of the first four pieces here, Morricone evokes the endless expanse of the West with a Copland-esque aria (the main title theme), weaves some twisted grit into the showdown theme with loads of guitar fuzz ("As a Judgment"), ingeniously combines whistling and a clippity-clop rhythm for a respite piece ("Farewell to Cheyenne"), and conjures the surreal end of the cowboy mythos via a wonderfully disjointed serial-style number ("The Transgression"). And whether sounding upbeat or stark, Morricone informs it all with the dry and windswept vacancy of the West. Beautiful and stunning.

This two-disc anthology assembled by Mike Patton is, after the spaghetti Western soundtracks and themes, essential Morricone. Never has his music from the strange films he scored in the 1960s and '70s been showcased in such an original and powerful way. Patton has looked closely into the experimental nature of the maestro and found plenty here to offer as well as to crow about. Many of the scores he chose from would be known only to cineastes of minor and obscure Italian films. Yet, Patton understood that Morricone loved his own process and treated crime and exploitation flicks like L'Anticristo and Forza G with the same delightful sense of adventure that he approached The Godfather and The Mission with. Here, all manner of strangeness is on offer: from psychedelic guitars and tripped-out wordless vocals to sitars, layers and layers of percussion, acid-drenched strings, an Echoplexed celeste, toy pianos, psychotic operatic voices in chorus, and more.

Beautiful music inspired by the magical moments in life when you are in harmony and life unfolds before your eyes in it's uttermost beauty.

Skyed Out is the 2010 album by Georgian electronic one-man band Nova Scotian Arms. The title was originally released as a cassette, limited to only 50 copies. This was released by Hooker Vision.

Beautiful Speck Triumph is a 2004 2CD project by Campbell Kneale, whose primary working name is Birthville Cat Motel. He released this with Last Visible Dog.