When Daft Punk announced they were releasing a new album eight years after 2005's Human After All, fans were starved for new material. The Tron: Legacy score indulged the duo's sci-fi fantasies but didn't offer much in the way of catchy songs, so when Random Access Memories' extensive publicity campaign featured tantalizing clips of a new single, "Get Lucky," their fan base exploded. But when the album finally arrived, that hugely hyped single was buried far down its track list, emphasizing that most of these songs are very much not like "Get Lucky" -- or a lot of the pair's previous music, at least on the surface. The album isn't much like 2010s EDM, either. Instead, Daft Punk separate themselves from most contemporary electronic music and how it's made, enlisting some of their biggest influences to help them get the sounds they needed without samples. On Homework's "Teachers," they reverently name-checked a massive list of musicians and producers. Here, they place themselves on equal footing with disco masterminds Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder, who shares his thoughts on making music with wild guitar and synth solos trailing behind him on one of RAM's definitive moments, "Giorgio by Moroder." Elsewhere, Daft Punk celebrate their close relationship with indie music on the lovely "Doin' It Right," which makes the most of Panda Bear's boyish vocals, and on the Julian Casablancas cameo "Instant Crush," which is only slightly more electronic than the Strokes' Comedown Machine. And of course, Pharrell Williams is the avatar of their dancefloor mastery on the sweaty disco of "Lose Yourself to Dance" and "Get Lucky," which is so suave that it couldn't help but be an instant classic, albeit a somewhat nostalgic one. "Memories" is the album's keyword: As Daft Punk celebrate the late '70s and early '80s with deluxe homages like "Give Life Back to Music" -- one of several terrific showcases for Rodgers -- and the spot-on soft rock of the Todd Edwards collaboration "Fragments of Time," they tap into the wonder and excitement in that era's music. A particularly brilliant example is "Touch," where singer/songwriter Paul Williams conflates his work in Phantom of the Paradise and The Muppet Movie in the song's mystique, charm, and unabashed emotions. Daft Punk have never shied away from "uncool" influences or sentimentality, and both are on full display throughout Random Access Memories. It's the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and absorbing -- the ambition of Steely Dan, Alan Parsons, and Pink Floyd are as vital to the album as any of the duo's collaborators. For the casual Daft Punk fan, this album might be harder to love than "Get Lucky" hinted; it might be too nostalgic, too overblown, a shirking of the group's duty to rescue dance music from the Young Turks who cropped up in their absence. But Random Access Memories is also Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.© Heather Phares /TiVo

All tracks are in 24/88.2 excepted the track 4 from disc 2 "Infiniting Repeating (2013 demo)" which is in 24/44.1.Two years after Daft Punk's split in February 2021, comes a reissue of their decade-old final album Random Access Memories in a deluxe version with a nine-track disc bringing together studio outtakes, demos and unreleased tracks. Included are "Horizon" (a ballad released only in the Japanese version at the time), two minutes of vocoder testing by Pharrell Williams for "Lose Yourself to Dance," and two unreleased tracks: "Prime (2012 Unfinished)," which didn't make it to original release, and the soulful "Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)" featuring Julian Casablancas and The Voidz. (Casablancas would end up on RAM with "Instant Crush.") There's also the delightful "The Writing of Fragments of Time," an eight-minute behind-the-scenes track which puts us in the studio with Daft Punk and producer Todd Edwards as they discuss this "beach road" song, and create it all at once. Thirty-five minutes of bonus material ends with "Touch (2021 Epilogue)," the track composed with their idol Paul Williams, and chosen as the soundtrack for the band's farewell video in 2021. This is a deluxe version that is well worth chasing after. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away - people wonder at the magic of Studio Ghibli films far beyond their native Japan, within which the director Hayao Miyazaki recounts his stories in anime guise. But what would these films be without their soundtracks? Just like with Steven Spielberg and John Williams, Miyazaki has forged a unique artistic bond with the Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi that has lasted almost 40 years, with the latter’s compositions being instrumental in the films’ successes. Now we can discover his greatest Studio Ghibli hits re-recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - a first-class Deutsche Grammophon debut.In 1983, the two artists made their first collaboration for the anime film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, for which Hisaishi would create “image music” (i.e. music that reflects the character and characters of the film or series). Miyazaki was so convinced by the music that, since the founding of Studio Ghibli in 1985, he was to underscore each of his films with Hisaishi’s compositions - to our eternal good fortune, because the pieces such as the waltz "Merry-Go-Round of Life" (from Howl’s Moving Castle), "A Town with an Ocean View" (from Kiki’s Delivery Service) or the touching "One Summer’s Day (The Name of Life)" (from Spirited Away) enchant the images as they appear on the big screen with very special magic. With a total of 29 tracks from 10 films, Hisaishi presents A Symphonic Celebration, with the crème de la crème of his Studio Ghibli works in all their diversity - as composer, conductor and pianist - newly arranged for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In fact, this is the first time that the film music of Princess Mononoke and Porco Rosso has been recorded with a professional world orchestra. During an interview, Hisashi tells us himself:“We recorded the project last year in a church with a huge choir and orchestra, and that was really great. The orchestras in Europe somehow have a longer, fuller sound. Of course, the musicians in Japan are also highly professional, but in Vienna or London the feeling for the music is a bit different again.”Whether it’s in Japan, Europe or America - with A Symphonic Celebration we can now enjoy Hisaishi’s wonderful and unique film music all over the world, and immerse ourselves fully in the fabulous stories of Miyazaki’s anime characters. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

Twenty years after its summer 1997 release, OK Computer re-emerges clothed in light. In this two-part reissue: a first disc with the remastered original album; a second, 11-track disc made up of B-sides and previously unreleased titles. The sort of release that has fans in a frenzy... After the admittedly perfect classicism of The Bends (1995), Radiohead took a sort of swan dive into the ocean of a distinctly more experimental type of rock. Like revisited prog rock, subtly undermined by snatches of electronic music, OK Computer is never a mere mad scientist's laboratory, experimenting just for the fun of it. Underneath the atmospheric layering, behind the patchworks of textures inherited from Pink Floyd, R.E.M. or even Teuton krautrock (Neu! and Can spring to mind), the Oxford group never lets its attention stray from the writing. Between Thom Yorke's tortured but often lyrical (Exit Music (For A Film)) and always distinctive voice (Karma Police) and Jonny Greenwood's avant-garde guitar lines (Subterranean Homesick Alien), this third album keeps listeners on their toes. OK Computer reached a pinnacle of inventiveness, with bold harmonies, groundbreaking production and inventive instrumentation. It left its mark on its time and will continue to influence masses of groups and musicians...The second disc in OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 contains eight B-sides (Lull, Meeting In The Aisle, Melatonin, A Reminder, Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2), Pearly, Palo Alto and How I Made My Millions) and three previously unreleased tracks (I Promise, Man Of War and Lift). Recorded in March 1998 at the Abbey Road Studios in London, Man Of War was originally intended to be on the soundtrack of the big-screen adaptation of The Avengers with Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, but the group was unhappy with the result and shelved the song. However glimpses of the title's recording footage can be seen in the documentary Meeting People Is Easy. Radiohead began performing on stage in 1996 with I Promise and Lift, on a US tour as the opening act for Alanis Morissette. Hard to fathom how Lift and its heady melody did not end up on the final tracklisting of OK Computer. © MD/Qobuz

Collecting up the seven albums recorded for the Atlantic label between October 1973 and December 1978 by the double bassist and composer Charles Mingus, as well as an entire album of previously unreleased alternative pieces, this magnificent box set captures the legendary jazz musician’s last major creative period before Charcot's disease would take his life prematurely in January 1979, at the age of just 56. While some of the records in this set have been enshrined in Mingus' discography’s pantheon since their release, others, for years, have been the victims of ignorance and carried less favourable reputations. Everyone respects the twin albums Changes One and Changes Two, recorded by the double bassist in 1974 at the head of a brand new quintet, during the same exact session. Propelled by the drums of the faithful Dannie Richmond, and featuring two newcomers to his galaxy, saxophonist George Coleman and pianist Don Pullen, these are traditionally recognised as his ultimate masterpieces. One of the great virtues of this compilation is that it allows us to appreciate the entire period with the benefit of hindsight, and appreciate the rest of his oeuvre. A few tracks deserve to be singled out: the freshness and bluesy charisma of Three or Four Shades of Blues, recorded by Mingus in 1977 at the head of an expanded band, features the talents of three young guitarists destined for greatness: Larry Coryell, Philip Catherine and John Scofield. The baroque luxuriance of the two long orchestral suites on the album Cumbia & Jazz Fusion, conveys subliminal dialogue between Duke Ellington and Nino Rota in a dreamy Latin context. The musician's last recording, the very moving Me Myself An Eye written and whilst confined to a wheelchair and obliged to accept the dual role of composer and supervisor of the session which, despite the conditions, vibrates throughout with an inextinguishable power of life. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

Since the very beginning of her career in the late '50s, Nina Simone has always been one of those exceptional artists who gives their all on stage, so it's hardly surprising that her discography includes a handful of legendary live albums, such as Nina Simone at Town Hall (1959), At the Village Gate (1962) and Nina Simone in Concert (1964). Recorded in July 1966 at the Newport Jazz Festival, the previously unreleased concert You've Got to Learn lives neatly in this tradition of hers, as much for the quality of the music as for its quasi-documentary historical value.The record captures Nina Simone at the height of her commitment to the civil rights struggle. In her typical fashion, accompanied by her regular live band, she transforms the Newport festival stage into a platform of communion with her audience, managing in the same breath to sing with raw intimacy and to solicit important rumours from around the world. She moves from passionate interpretations of timeless ballads (You've Got to Learn by Charles Aznavour or I Love You Porgy by the Gershwin brothers) to original songs rooted in the America of the time (the feminist manifesto Blues for Mama, which she wrote to lyrics by Abbey Lincoln, and the concert's highlight, Mississippi Goddam, written in reaction to the deaths of four young black girls in Birmingham, Alabama, following a racist attack). A key, previously unreleased recording, in which Nina Simone's humanity shines through.  © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

Life is hard, and over the past four years Angie McMahon has been brewing over some of modern life's biggest battles. Learning to accept that things end, that the world is burning, that we live constrained by the stressors of late-stage capitalism, and the seemingly never-ending journey of learning to accept ourselves for who we are—despite the shit-storm that is constantly swirling around us—are revelations all easier said than done. On her sophomore album Light, Dark, Light Again, McMahon isn't afraid to share the nuanced revelations she's had during her hiatus, translating the thoughts of many into her raw and soulful music."Baby I forgive ya/ Angel in the mirror/ Here we are now that you quit being a quitter" opens first track "Saturn Returning," a fitting beginning to the album. (The Saturn return, an astrological transit, signals great life changes and emotional and spiritual growth for a person.) Whilst her debut Salt felt very direct and dynamic, Light, Dark, Light Again feels vulnerable and soft, like McMahon has woven an intimate space around us to peer into her wounds together. Written between Melbourne, regional Victoria and Durham, North Carolina, there is a sense of expansiveness to tracks like "Letting Go," "Mother Nature" and "I Am Already Enough"— the kind of songs you want to scream from the top of a hillside. Other tracks, however, like "Divine Fault Line," provide insight into those moments of darkness, sharing how to navigate it and eventually find light. "You're on your own darkside of the border tonight/ And you're all fucked up and you're wanting to die/ That's the place where the breaking out begins," yearns McMahon's angelic voice during the chorus. Every lyric and detail here is deeply considered: the production elements, the use of multi-tracked or single vocals, the sounds of birds and nature. They all contribute to the feeling of experiencing something truly special—an artist tugging away at the layers around their soul and exposing their wounds in the hope that we may take something away at the end of it all, if we are lucky enough as listeners.Light, Dark, Light Again isn't just about McMahon's experience, it is about the human experience. The constant push and pull between dark and light, the moments of peace and the other moments of pure chaos–the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin. There is life and there is death, but from death comes life again … from the darkness comes light again. "Out of ash and destruction, the ground will grow things." © Jessica Porter-Langson/Qobuz

When Daft Punk announced they were releasing a new album eight years after 2005's Human After All, fans were starved for new material. The Tron: Legacy score indulged the duo's sci-fi fantasies but didn't offer much in the way of catchy songs, so when Random Access Memories' extensive publicity campaign featured tantalizing clips of a new single, "Get Lucky," their fan base exploded. But when the album finally arrived, that hugely hyped single was buried far down its track list, emphasizing that most of these songs are very much not like "Get Lucky" -- or a lot of the pair's previous music, at least on the surface. The album isn't much like 2010s EDM, either. Instead, Daft Punk separate themselves from most contemporary electronic music and how it's made, enlisting some of their biggest influences to help them get the sounds they needed without samples. On Homework's "Teachers," they reverently name-checked a massive list of musicians and producers. Here, they place themselves on equal footing with disco masterminds Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder, who shares his thoughts on making music with wild guitar and synth solos trailing behind him on one of RAM's definitive moments, "Giorgio by Moroder." Elsewhere, Daft Punk celebrate their close relationship with indie music on the lovely "Doin' It Right," which makes the most of Panda Bear's boyish vocals, and on the Julian Casablancas cameo "Instant Crush," which is only slightly more electronic than the Strokes' Comedown Machine. And of course, Pharrell Williams is the avatar of their dancefloor mastery on the sweaty disco of "Lose Yourself to Dance" and "Get Lucky," which is so suave that it couldn't help but be an instant classic, albeit a somewhat nostalgic one. "Memories" is the album's keyword: As Daft Punk celebrate the late '70s and early '80s with deluxe homages like "Give Life Back to Music" -- one of several terrific showcases for Rodgers -- and the spot-on soft rock of the Todd Edwards collaboration "Fragments of Time," they tap into the wonder and excitement in that era's music. A particularly brilliant example is "Touch," where singer/songwriter Paul Williams conflates his work in Phantom of the Paradise and The Muppet Movie in the song's mystique, charm, and unabashed emotions. Daft Punk have never shied away from "uncool" influences or sentimentality, and both are on full display throughout Random Access Memories. It's the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and absorbing -- the ambition of Steely Dan, Alan Parsons, and Pink Floyd are as vital to the album as any of the duo's collaborators. For the casual Daft Punk fan, this album might be harder to love than "Get Lucky" hinted; it might be too nostalgic, too overblown, a shirking of the group's duty to rescue dance music from the Young Turks who cropped up in their absence. But Random Access Memories is also Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.© Heather Phares /TiVo

There's a narrative to the soundtrack for Bradley Cooper's 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, one that mirrors the one told in the movie. Often, the album features dialogue ripped from the screen -- a full 15 tracks, actually, amounting to seven minutes of this 74-minute album -- which means A Star Is Born almost plays like a Disney record from the '60s or '70s: it's designed to tide listeners over until they get a chance to see the movie again. Of course, A Star Is Born is a musical, so its soundtrack is filled with full-fledged songs, all of which serve the story that the dialogue gooses along. Strip out the distracting dialogue tracks and the plot of A Star Is Born is still evident, as the music moves from the grungy Americana of Cooper's character, through his affecting duets with Lady Gaga, toward her flashy pop, and then culminating with "I'll Never Love Again," the song where the two estranged lovers reunite. Each of these phases is expertly executed. Lukas Nelson assists Cooper in the rangy grunge of "Black Eyes," while Jason Isbell's spare "Maybe It's Time" is an affecting slice of Americana. The second stage, where Gaga is duetting with Cooper, fuses their sensibilities seamlessly, particularly on the aching ballad "Shallow" and loping country-rock of "Music to My Eyes," which was co-written by Nelson and Gaga. Her pop section plays like its own EP, and it's snappy, stylish, and savvy, particularly on the retro-disco of "Why Did You Do That?" and soulful "Heal Me." All the songs make sense narratively and on their own, so they hold together well and would amount to a first-rate soundtrack, if it weren't for those meddling dialogue tracks, which wind up sapping any kind of momentum for the album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Using the textured soundscapes of The Bends as a launching pad, Radiohead delivered another startlingly accomplished set of modern guitar rock with OK Computer. The anthemic guitar heroics present on Pablo Honey and even The Bends are nowhere to be heard here. Radiohead have stripped away many of the obvious elements of guitar rock, creating music that is subtle and textured yet still has the feeling of rock & roll. Even at its most adventurous -- such as the complex, multi-segmented "Paranoid Android" -- the band is tight, melodic, and muscular, and Thom Yorke's voice effortlessly shifts from a sweet falsetto to vicious snarls. It's a thoroughly astonishing demonstration of musical virtuosity and becomes even more impressive with repeated listens, which reveal subtleties like electronica rhythms, eerie keyboards, odd time signatures, and complex syncopations. Yet all of this would simply be showmanship if the songs weren't strong in themselves, and OK Computer is filled with moody masterpieces, from the shimmering "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and the sighing "Karma Police" to the gothic crawl of "Exit Music (For a Film)." OK Computer is the album that established Radiohead as one of the most inventive and rewarding guitar rock bands of the '90s.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Swedish hitmakers' first compilation prepared for the CD format, and one of the biggest-selling releases of all time.© TiVo

At a time when many contemporary country artists were seemingly trying to be anything but — layering on pop, rap or reggae — Chris Stapleton comfortably settled into the past. Straight from the title-track opener, the Kentucky singer-songwriter sounds like the lost member of the outlaw movement of the ’70s: earthy, road-weary and, as he sings, "nowhere-bound." (He also nods directly at his roots on the swampy “Outlaw State of Mind.”) Despite the tough-guy name, those men were romantics, and Stapleton's tender-hearted side shows up in the form of regret and resignation, as on the Southern-rock spitfire "Nobody to Blame" and barroom waltz "Fire Away.” The latter, like much of the record, is richly imbued with the haunted-angel backing vocals of Morgane Stapleton, the singer's wife. If there's another special guest here, it's whiskey — both his devil and salve — which appears in five of the album's 14 songs, including the barfly swoon “Tennessee Whiskey,” first made famous by George Jones. As Stapleton rasps in the breathtakingly spare "Whiskey and You," "I drink because I'm lonesome and I'm lonesome because I drink." It's the perfect album for Saturday night and Sunday morning. © Qobuz

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Maurice Ravel: three centuries of French music meet face-to-face to pass the baton in this record that is so admirably interpreted by the young Bruce Liu. For his first studio album Waves (Deutsche Grammophon), the Chinese pianist and winner of the 2021 Chopin Piano Competition at 24 years old, undertakes the delicate mission of constructing and presenting a vast panel of sonoric textures and approaches, unique to each composer and their time. With the valued assistance of technician Michel Brandjes, Liu has managed to erect a monument of subtlety and variations that carefully house the pieces that he interprets. As he himself explains in the liner notes: Rameau’s writing (“Gavotte et six doubles,” “Les Sauvages”) lends itself to a sound that abounds in bursts of rage and passion, contrasting with the misty impressionism of Ravel and his “Miroirs.” Somewhere between the two, “Barcarolle” and “Festin d’Esope” serve as the bridge that certain Romantics sought between baroque music and their own. Bruce Liu revels in the flexibility of his playing, which is precise and adapts to older and more recent repertoire alike. His interpretation of Ravel’s “Miroirs” is particularly admirable for its skillful use of sonoric layers and its sense of time – and, notably, of silence – and brings to mind another beautiful version - that of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, also released on Deutsche Grammophon. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

Musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, film score composer (Soul, 2020), and multi award-winning musician for his solo album WE ARE in 2021, Jon Batiste is an artist that we might call a jack of all trades.The American returns in 2023 with World Music Radio, a record that, in a way, reflects this aspect of his personality: assuming the role of a griot/DJ and erasing musical frontiers, he embraces as many popular musics of the world as possible in order to prove the universal dimension of his own.As indicated by its title, this conceptual, erudite album takes the form of a radio show in which the host Jon Batiste broadcasts this musical firework from Earth to the rest of the universe. Even if on certain tracks, the insanity of the project falls a bit flat and transforms into mainstream pop, Jon Batiste hits the mark with songs like “My Heart” (with the jazz trombonist Rita Payés), “Calling Your Name” (with a melodica solo played by Batiste himself), as well as the moving piano ballad “Butterfly”, written for his wife Suleika Jaouad, who is fighting cancer. Apart from the aforementioned artists, World Music Radio is brimming with featured artists that also speak to the album’s international ambitions, from the saxophone solo of the legendary Kenny G on the interlude “Clair de lune”, to the stunning intervention of Français Chassol (on a track named after him), not to mention Lana Del Rey on the suave “Life Lesson”. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz