Award-winning, legendary guitarist Michael Schenker will release a brand new studio album entitled “Bridge The Gap” in the UK on Monday December 2nd. Released by in-akustik, the album features Schenker’s band Temple of Rock which consists of ex-Scorpions Herman Rarebell (drums) and Francis Buchholz (bass), plus ex-Rainbow’s Doogie White (vocals) and Wayne Findlay (guitar, keyboards). The new album features 13 hard-hitting, adrenalin fuelled melodic rock’n’roll songs that showcase Schenker’s distinctive and explosive guitar playing, valiantly underpinned by the ferocious rhythm section of Rarebell and Buchholz, marking the first time Schenker, Rarebell and Buchholz appeared on the same album together since the Scorpions’ 1979 “Lovedrive”.

Parma Recordings
(USA) / October 29, 2013

“Runes”, the new album by Robert Dusek and Bryan Pezzone, is a compilation of specially selected solo piano works, and provides the listener with an immersive and cohesive listening experience. Often sparse, sometimes impetuous - "The music is at once very stark, and then seems to propel itself to the next scene or chapter with some unseen, and unheard, energy", says Parma Recordings Lead Producer, Andy Happel. Several stand-alone works appear, cleverly embedded, in the twelve-song program. Track one is a prelude-and our journey begins. Tracks two through four constitute, separately, Dusek's Piano Sonata No 2, and after an intermezzo, the listener receives the Piano Sonata No 3. Tracks seven, eight, and nine: "After the Rain", "Cloud Chaser", and "Light" constitute a larger embedded work, Autumn Sky. The album sets the audience down gently with a gorgeous and meditative postlude. Robert Dusek is the recipient of numerous awards and honors in composition, including Columbia University's Bearns Prize, the ASCAP Raymond-Hubbard Award, an AHAB - the Neodata Fellowship for his Symphony No 1, and others. His music has been performed world wide and recorded by such groups as North-South Consonance and the Warsaw Philharmonic.

“Chiaroscuro”, Chamber Music by Richard Lavenda is a bright and engaging new album of some of composer Richard Lavenda's favorite chamber works-all written for personal friends. The title track refers to the visual art technique of a strong contrast between dark and light, and this motif aptly describes the listening experience. The opening quartet, written for the unusual ensemble of alto flute, bassoon, vibraphone, and double bass, is bold-says the composer, “Chiaroscuro” explores many of the timbre and textural combinations afforded me by the unusual ensemble we created. The alternating fast and slow sections differ in affect and character, and while I would hesitate to label either as the light or the dark areas that define the eponymous painting style there certainly are audible shadowings, blurred borders, and complementarities." A native of New Jersey, Lavenda received degrees from Dartmouth College, Rice University, and the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty of the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University in 1987, where he is Professor of Composition and Theory.

“Night Voiced”, the new release by San Francisco composer Mark Winges, is a collection of warm sounding and texturally rich works featuring the viola in a lush variety of solo, duo, and trio contexts. The title of the album is based on the individual composition of the same name, which is from a poem by Carolyn Forche, "a viola, night-voiced, calls into its past but nothing comes," and reflects the often nocturnal feeling of the program. Other titles such as wary-gliding, ghostly, "Melted Red, Frozen Black", and "Here (marginally buoyant)", offer a hint of the delightful vignettes and turns the music takes along the way. Mark Winges is resident composer/advisor for the chamber choir Volti and has recently received commissions from the Verge Ensemble (Washington, DC) and Earplay (San Francisco). He is also active as a freelance organist. He has studies at the College-Conservatory of Music (Cincinnati), San Francisco State University, and the Musikhogskolan in Stockholm, Sweden.

Moonjune Records
(USA) / October 29, 2013

Boasting a stellar lineup of modern jazz icons Larry Goldings, Bob Mintzer, Jimmy Johnson and Peter Erskine, Indonesian guitar maestro Dewa Budjana's sixth solo album (his second for MoonJune Records) is a progressive jazz master-class session of epic proportions. Overflowing with moments of elegance, grace, depth and invention, “Joged Kahyangan” is Dewa's musical interpretation of the beauty of heaven. Featuring eight exquisitely-crafted, -arranged and -executed gems, Budjana and friends have raised the bar for the genre; each song is performed with a profound sensitivity and diction unquestionably worthy of the project's lofty ambitions. With all of the album's legendary participants clearly in top form – delivering stirring, superlative performances throughout – the net result is as immensely satisfying as it is astounding and solidifies Dewa Budjana's rightful place among the world's most elite musicians and the genre's most original and compelling newly-emerging voices. It is an intricately-woven tapestry of supreme modern jazz, eclipsing borders as it transports listeners to truly heavenly destinations.This is opulent, visionary modern jazz at its very finest.

MoonJune Records specializes in discovering extraordinary new axemen from around the globe, previously unknown to wider jazz-rock-fusion and progressive music audiences. After Michel Delville from Belgium, Tohpati, Reza Ryan and Agam Hamzah from Indonesia, Nelson Coelho from Brazil, Dani Rabin from Israel, and after re-proposing to the progressive music world few fantastic guitar veterans such as Dewa Budjana from Indonesia, Dennis Rea and Barry Cleveland from the USA, and Beledo (soon on MoonJune) from Uruguay, - now I am going after my ex-Yugoslavia roots (I was born in Bosnia, of Montenegrin and Croatian ethnic background), to proudly launch the Serbian born and Barcelona based guitarist of extraordinary qualities, Dusan Jevtovic. Dusan's spectacular international debut "Am I Walking Wrong?”, is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride: full of twists and turns that you never see coming. His second solo album, and MoonJune's debut, showcases moments of immense raw, explosive power, interspersed with swatches of playful dissonance, contemplative ambiance, riveting r'n'b-tinged grooves, authoritative rock vamps, and more. The tight, abundantly-capable trio rip through an engaging set of original barn-burners that are as catchy and accessible as they are spellbinding and unpredictable. Featuring Bernat Hernandez from Barcelona on fretless bass (who will be 'siding' with another upcoming MoonJunista Xavi Reija in 2014 , and another Serbian, based in New York City, the drummer extraordinaire Marko Djordjevic (who is joining the MoonJune's roster in 2014 with his solo projects and few side projects).

Metal Mind Records
(Poland) / October 27, 2013

Metal Mind Productions is proud to announce the release of a brand new studio album by one of the most interesting rock bands from Poland – Chemia. The album entitled “The One Inside” was released on October 4.

“Humagination”, the brand new studio album by the Polish heavy metal band Exlibris was released on October 21.

Black Widow Records
(Italy) / October 27, 2013

After a 12-year hiatus Il Segno Del Comando is back with a new album, "Il Volto Verde" (The Green Face). This is a concept creation, inspired by the novel of Gustav Meyrink, representing one of the main subjects of his esoteric testament. "Il volto Verde" features various collaborators, such as Claudio Simonetti from Goblin, Gianni Leone from Balletto Di Bronzo, Martin Grice from Delirium, Sophya Baccini from Presence and more.