Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: In the right circles,, Martin O'Donnell and Michael Savatori are living legends. Working with the iconic US video game company Bungie Inc, the pair put their names on the map - or maybe maps? - by creating soundtracks to a number of high profile titles, either as a duo or individually. O'Donnell is arguably the better known, or at least has the bigger online persona, but both composers deserve plenty of credit. Halo: Combat Evolved was the first title in what is now a huge and genre-defining first person shooter franchise, and the score reflects the emergence of video game music as an integral part of the on-screen action. O'Donnell and Savatori's efforts to ensure instrumentation dramatically changed with events in the game, which is by nature relatively non-linear, was a revelation. While their efforts to separate these into individual suites foresaw the rise of playable stories as films in their own right.

Review: Mike Oldfield's 1999 release ambitiously charts the evolution of music across 2,000 years, blending classical, choral, and electronic elements into a single, seamless piece divided into 12 sections. Tracks like 'Peace on Earth' and the title track showcase Oldfield's ability to craft evocative, multi-layered compositions. Moving from Peruvian-inspired melodies to medieval and modern influences, the album demonstrates his talent for musical storytelling. While its vast scope could have been unwieldy, Oldfield's mastery of over 30 instruments ensures the album remains a compelling and unique addition to his remarkable body of work, offering moments of grandeur and reflection.

Review: For the first time on vinyl, through Karl Records, comes a limited edition and furtive Yoko Ono retrospective, in conjunction with the over-100-strong, Sweden-headquartered ensemble and community network The Great Learning Orchestra. These unlikely recordings were made at the time of the musician and performance artist Ono's 1964 multimedia collection Grapefruit, a cornerstone of what would later become known as "conceptual art". Grapefruit itself is a large artist's book, with a large vellum spine and browned parchment paper; it contains a series of "event scores" that outline, rather than permit the performances of, many different performance art pieces. The effect is apocryphal and ominous, as though the real performance of these instructive works may have accursed or deleterious effects. "Like a musical score, Event Scores can be realized by artists other than the original creator and are open to variation and interpretation"; and yet, Ono's book is a one of one, having never been reproduced or thus made collectable. Pre-dating John Cage by about a decade, the "event scores" described therein have now been performed by The Great Learning Orchestra, where hardly any of the performances / pieces have ever been captured sonically or laid to disc. This record changes all that, realising Ono's bewildering text instructions as tremulous suites, made up of clattering material hits and harrowing string instrumental assaults.

Review: Riz Ortolani's soundtrack to the 1969 Giallo thriller Cosi Dolce... Cosi Perversa is well sought-after but now pops up as a limited edition reissue. The legendary composer famously scored over 200 films and crafted a suspenseful and evocative work here that enhances the film's themes of deception and seduction. Directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Carroll Baker and Jean-Louis Trintignant, the film remains a standout of Italian Giallo cinema and is immediately recognisable for its haunting main theme 'Why?' by J. Vincent Edwards. The soundtrack has been fully remastered from the original master tapes here - and naturally, it sounds superb.

Review: In a collaboration for the ages, we hear German kosmische musician Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster, Harmonia) team up with Japanese flutist Yuko Matsuzaki and Berlin Philharmonic analog musician sound engineer Onnen Bock for a nacreous improv blast. Spanning soft, pearly electronica and neoclassical, Moon Garden comprises five works, incorporating techniques and fragments of songs already released. A mythical aura unfurls through synth koto and organic harmonics; 'In The Forest Of Syrinx' establishes a singing bowled, new age aesthetic, segueing into the purely vocal threnody 'Sapphire Jellyfish'. Bridging electronic washes, piano and female vocals, this is a borderless soundscape of exciting proportions.

Review: Twilight of the Gods features one of many evocative soundtracks from Hans Zimmer, Omer Benyamin and Steven Doar. Between them, they bring a sweeping cinematic scope to an epic narrative with their usual sense of masterful scoring. Zimmer and his collaborators blend orchestral intensity with atmospheric depth here to enhance the mythic tone of the story. From haunting melodies to powerful crescendos, this soundtrack captures the emotional gravity and grandeur of the gods' twilight moments and each track layers intricate instrumentation that pulls listeners into a vivid, immersive world that echoes the film's themes of fate, power and destiny.