Toto’s premiere guitarist Steve Lukather released his seventh solo album “Transition” on Monday 21st January. The new single ‘Right the Wrong’ is released on the same day. Critically acclaimed as one of rock’s most sought after guitarists, Lukather will embark on a European tour in March, which includes concerts at the London Islington o2 Academy (March 29) and the Bilston Robin 2 (March 30). “Transition” will be released in three formats including limited deluxe edition CD, jewel case CD, and vinyl. One of the original founding members of the multi-million selling rock band Toto, Lukather’s new album showcases extraordinary guitar playing performed across some of the most heartfelt songs of Steve’s career. In addition to his work with Toto, Lukather is a 5-time Grammy winner who has played on 2000+ albums with some of the biggest stars and legends in music including Elton John, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Miles Davis, Alice Cooper, George Benson and Rod Stewart. He also played guitar on Michael Jackson’s multi-million selling milestone album ‘Thriller’, is a member of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band (2012-2013), and has toured with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci in G3 2012.

Rock Candy Funk Party will release their debut jazz-funk album “We Want Groove” on the Provogue Records label on Monday January 28. The band is comprised of world renowned musicians including album producer Tal Bergman (drums), Joe Bonamassa (guitar), Ron DeJesus (guitar), Mike Merritt (bass) and Renato Neto (keyboards). The album will be released as a 2-disc set (CD & DVD), and on double gatefold vinyl.

Lamanaif is a great new Italian modern prog revelation. Their music is an original blend of music and theater (Mars Volta meets Devil Doll and Fiaba). "L'Uomo Infinito", their debut CD, is released as a super-jewel-box de luxe version with a 24-page booklet, full of pictures and graphics.

Mexican composer Juan Sebastian Lach Lau's music presents an amalgam of technology and sound, blending programming and algorithmic generation with traditional instruments, creating diverse, unique works that define their own aesthetic. The six pieces on “Islas” are presented as musical islands, each its own labyrinth, isolated and cut out from the others while sharing some underwater features through the molten rock that chains them together. Each island is a world within a world, a point of view that contains others within it.

Jeffrey Stadelman's unusual, arresting, exacting musical voice has evolved over 25 years, amounting to a complex musical practice that suggests no obvious counterpart. “Messenger” includes a variety of his orchestral, instrumental, and electroacoustic works: Messenger for Orchestra, an ode to the universal language of our bodies, music, and dreams; Nine Bagatelles for piano and recorded sound, a conversation between the piano and electronic distortions; Evans House for flute, a series of observations of suburban Buffalo; and the electroacoustic Koral 19, a fragment of a piece involving hundreds of segments.

About 100 years ago, classical music made a jagged turn away from the harmonic structures that had comprised its underpinnings for several centuries. This departure was initially dubbed atonalism, and opposed the functional harmony that prevailed during the great musical flourishing of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Composer Sparky Davis, who takes a "modern, not modernistic" approach to writing his music, continues this forward movement, expanding the vocabulary of music to include non-traditional elements and adding to the functional uses of long-established note combinations.

“Shakespeare’s Memory” is the first offering The Shakespeare Concerts Series. A salmagundi of selections from Josef Summer's The Oxford Songs, this album includes previously unreleased recordings spanning the life of the series. This first volume includes Summer's original chamber and vocal compositions set to Shakespeare's dramas and sonnets and the poetry of Milton and Yeats, performed by a slew of musicians: the Kalmia String Quartet, baritone Chad Sloan, soprano Andrea Chenoweth, mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn, tenor Justin Vickers, pianists Miroslav Sekera and Ian Watson, and harpist Lydie.

“Keyboard3” - Parma's second all-Sergio Cervetti album - takes the listener to a world of kinetic and emotionally charged sound forged from three keyboard instruments. Sometimes it is the pianoforte, the king of instruments or the double keyboard of the harpsichord. Moments where melody and counterpoint reflect a phrase from the literature of Milton, the shifting syncopations of dance, emotions from bittersweet opera or the fluidity of the Magellan clouds and the shimmering Antarctic are given structure and concept in six works by Cervetti for piano, harpsichord, and organ.

Lifelong guitarist Alex Lubet has created a unique niche, combining his instrumental experience with his traditional studies of composition. On “Spectral Blues”, a full album of his works for steel-string acoustic guitar, Lubet combines the characteristics of blues and Eastern styles with classical methods of composition to create remarkably unique pieces that push the boundaries of the instrument. Combining natural harmonies with single-string multiphonics and dyads, Doppler bends, and more, Lubet presents multi-layered guitar music with an edge.

“The Eternal Tao”, a one-act multimedia opera for voices instruments, video, electronics, dancers, and lighting presents the text of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching translated and re-imagined in the context of modern society. Through this opera-which has parallels with traditional opera, but differs from singer-oriented opera in the sense that the vocalists are a part of the ensemble as a whole-composer, director, and choreographer Kyong Mee Choi seeks to have viewers experience a shared moment of seeing ourselves with open eyes and understand our purpose in the world.

Marbin’s new studio CD "Last Chapter of Dreaming" is out now. Featuring Danny Markovitch on saxophones, Dani Rabin on guitar, Justyn Lawrence on drums and Jae Gentile on bass (with special guests Paul Wertico, Steve Rodby and Jamey Haddad), Marbin is one of the hardest-working, most promising new bands on the modern progressive rock scene.

In November 2011, the British band Arena visited Poland as part of the tour promoting their new album “The Seventh Degree of Separation”. The album opened a new chapter in the history of the band led since 1995 by two acclaimed musicians: Clive Nolan (Pendragon, Shadowland) and Mick Pointer (ex-Marillion). The new material was recorded with a new singer, Paul Manzi (Oliver Wakeman Band), bassist John Jowitt (IQ), who returned to the band’s line-up after a several year break, and guitarist John Mitchell. On November 10th Arena played a show in Silesian Theatre in Katowice which for once more became the most important place for prog-rock fans. The show was enthusiastically received by Arena’s fans. The band performed their brand new songs (The Great Escape, The Seventh Degree Of Separation, Rapture, One Last Au Renoir, The Ghost Walks, What If, Burning Down) as well as a selection of songs from their previous albums. The concert at the theatre was also special, because Arena recorded their brand new live DVD there. And today the band reveals its title – “Rapture”. The DVD will be released by Metal Mind Productions on March, 25th in Europe and April, 9th in USA (via MVD).

Anti Tank Nun, a band created by Tomek ‘Titus’ Pukacki, the well-known vocalist and bass guitarist of Acid Drinkers, and the phenomenal 15-year old guitarist Igor ‘Iggy’ Gwadera, is currently working on the material for their second studio album entitled "Fire Follow Me".