Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: Two years ago, long-term musical collaborators Jules Maxwell and Lisa Gerrard, who first worked together during the latter's time with 4AD signed musical mavericks Dead Can Dance, joined forces with James Chapman to create Burn, a critically acclaimed exploration of "euphoric and inventive" sounds that blurred the boundaries between neo-classical, world music and ambient electronica. One Night in Porto captures the pair's performance - ably assisted by Chapman and a small pool of supplementary musicians - of the album's widescreen tracks at Casa Da Musica in Porto last November. With Gerrard utilising her voice to the full - one minute, soaring and operatic, the next singing more sweetly and soulfully in an entirely different language - and Maxwell playing a grand piano and synthesisers, it's a stunningly atmospheric, uplifting and entertaining affair.

Review: Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell have reimagined their much loved 2021 collaboration Burn in an all new live arena. One Night in Porto was recorded whilst on tour in Portugal towards the end of 2022 and found the pair doing a fine job of recreating the Burn album in a live setting. Rather than try to simply serve it up in recognisable form, they instead used its melodic themes and sonic textures as a starting point to head off into new worlds. After four days of rehearsals they took it on the road and as this recording on the third of the four dates shows, it was a great success.

Review: Let's face it, Hollywood director Christopher Nolan broke the mould with his re-envisioning of Batman. Taking things closer to the original comic books, themselves forced to 'go soft' by censors in the early-1950s, his films payed direct tribute to the saga's direction from the mid-1970s onwards. A trilogy of movies that were visually arresting, tonally dystopian, and viciously unhinged. It's not clear if we'll ever get a superhero (or anti-hero) film series of that class and calibre again, the world on screen so immersive you quickly feel like a Gotham native. A big part of that universe-building comes through the music, which enlists two of the greatest names in the history of soundtracks to help weave the tales. Hans Zimmer has composed for more than 150 films, James Newton Howard in excess of 100. This compilation of their shared caped crusader efforts proves why they're so well respected.