Various Artists – Legrand (re)imagined (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 35:00 minutes | 313 MB | Genre: Easy Listening, Classical, Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Division Decca Records France
Michel Legrand, who has been loved around the world since his death in 2019, celebrates the 90th anniversary of his birth on February 25, 2022. Musician of many classic films such as “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “The Girls of Rochefort,” and “The Skin of the Donkey,” Legrand was a music legend who broke down the boundaries between jazz, symphonic music, musical comedy, and popular music, and a three-time Academy Award winner who, over the decades He has left behind many works with themes that remain in people’s memories. A tribute album to Legrand’s music, “Legrand (Re)Imagined,” will be released by Decca Records. The album brings together some of the world’s best pianists and composers, including Chilly Gonzalez, Stefan Mocchio, and Chad Lawson, who each interpret Legrand’s music and perform it on solo piano in a chill and contemporary style. The result is a must-listen that offers a glimpse into a new side of Legrand’s work. From Japan, composer/pianist Akira Kosemura, who is one of the most streamed Japanese classical artists and has garnered praise from influential media around the world, will participate.The song “Always Always Always” from the movie “The Lovers of Rochefort” is selected and played. In the movie, the song is sung in a light and joyful way, but Kosemura’s version highlights the beauty of the melody and allows the audience to experience the different characters of the song.
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Various Artists – If Music Presents: You Need This: If Music is 20 Compiled by Jean-Claude (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 41:09 minutes | 438 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BBE Music
Celebrating two decades of IF Music’s scrupulous curation through its record shop, a thriving website, album reissues and compilations in collaboration with BBE Music, parties and radio shows, “IF Music Presents You Need This: 20 years” is a 9 track, double vinyl LP beautifully put together by Jean-Claude.
Coming, as it does, as the 9th release in the “You Need This” series of compilations curated by Jean-Claude, this album features music that ranges from 1980 (Christine Schaller’s spectacular “Fidji”) to exclusive tracks from the likes of Emanative & Liz Elensky (‘Fall Into Me’) and Tenderlonious (‘Dennison Point’) which both bring us up to the present day.
It is Jean-Claude’s remarkable ear for music that, as with all the previous “You Need This” releases, creates a wonderfully coherent journey through the decades across the four sides of this masterpiece of a compilation album.
As mentioned earlier “You Need This: 20 Years” will be released as a double LP pressed on 180 gramme heavy vinyl, cut at 45rpm and on digital. Whether this starts, adds or completes your collection of Jean-Claude’s “You Need This” series of compilations, “20 Years” is a must-have and indeed, you really do need this!
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Various Artists – Brass Tacks 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:23 minutes | 810 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Navona
It’s no secret that brass instruments can infuse any musical setting with a hair-raising surge of untamed energy and fervor. On BRASS TACKS VOL 2 from Navona Records, the brass family finds itself the spotlight, showcasing unique tones and unhindered expressiveness that’ve been carefully extracted by a variety of seasoned composers and performers.
Spanning joy rides in stylish sports cars, jazz-influenced passages, fusions with percussive instruments, and more, this release explores a wide range of emotions and compositional styles, each uncovering an inherent intensity and bravado that pushes the boundaries of brass repertoire.
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Tori Amos – Scarlet’s Walk (2023 Remaster) (2001/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:02 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Alternative Rock, Pop Rock, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic
Scarlet’s Walk is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. It was released on October 28, 2002 in the UK and October 29 in the US on Epic Records, making it her first release on the label after her split with Atlantic Records. Her first studio album of original material since To Venus and Back in 1999, the 18-track concept album (described by Amos as a “sonic novel about a road trip”) details the cross-country travels of Scarlet, a character loosely based on Amos, and was greatly inspired by the changes in American society and politics post-September 11, 2001. Topics explored on the album include nationalism, personal relationships, and the death of a close friend. Amos also took inspiration from the stories of her grandfather, who she claims was Cherokee and told her of the abuses against Native Americans throughout the United States’ history.
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Tori Amos – Scarlet’s Hidden Treasures (2023 Remaster) (2004/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:51 minutes | 827 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic
Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as “musical insubordination”. Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
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Torben Westergaard – The Gori Project II (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:40 minutes | 373 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Twmusic
The Gori Project II: Connection between people, immersion in music. With The Gori Project II, musician and composer Torben Westergaard wanted to create a cultural exchange and a musical example of how a democratic conversation between people and cultures can unfold. It is music that fuses jazz and traditional Korean music in terms of genre and creates space for immersion, improvisation, and surprises. Because that is exactly what music can do: Create space for new realizations and stronger connections artistically, sensually, and humanly.
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Torben Westergaard – The Gori Project (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 33:32 minutes | 660 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © TWMUSIK
Music is the most precious thing. It surpasses all the borders and boundaries that we humans like to put up. It speaks directly, heart-to-heart, in a troubled world and reminds us of all the things we have in common. Luckily, we found an easy resonance between South Korea and Denmark in this project.
Coming just after the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Denmark and South Korea, The Gori Project brings together 2 renowned traditional South Korean musicians with 3 of Denmark’s most established jazz performers.
Led by Danish bassist & composer Torben Westergaard, the album fuses together two diverse sets of instruments, styles, harmonies & melodies into a new cultural expression.
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Tony Addison – Relentless Pursuit (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:09 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Odradek Records
Hailing from Washington, D.C., jazz drummer Tony Addison presents Relentless Pursuit, an album of his jazz originals performed in the company of Odradek artist, pianist William Knowles (‘Native Speaker’, ODRCD523), Dave Marsh on bass, Frankie Addison on saxophones, trumpeters Michael Thomas and Michael Fitzhugh, and trombonist Reginal Cyntje. These songs express both Addison’s drive – his relentless pursuit of the desire to communicate his rich musical ideas, and his laid-back side, evoking relaxation with food and friends.
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Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich & Paavo Järvi – Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:34 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Anton Bruckner called his Symphony no.8 in C minor a ‘mystery’; others have seen it as an ‘apocalyptic’ work. For Paavo Järvi, it is the composer’s ‘most unusual symphony’ and the ‘pinnacle’ of his symphonic output. In the history of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Eighth Symphony occupies a special place, since it was the first Bruckner the orchestra performed – in 1905, twelve years after the premiere in Vienna of what was then the longest symphony in the history of music, and Bruckner’s only work to call for harps: ‘A harp has no place in a symphony, but I couldn’t do otherwise!’, the composer reportedly said.
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Tom Roger Aadland – Skyer (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 44:22 minutes | 526 MB | Genre: Country Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Embacle
OM ROGER AADLAND is one of the most critically acclaimed artists in the country in recent years. In autumn 2023, he will release his tenth album and go on tour.
The new album has been titled “Skyer”, and contains several songs that have already become audience favourites, e.g. “Can’t give us” and “September” (duet with Kine Nesheim). Aadland is known for his lyrics in Nynorsk, but this time he has written in dialect, close and strong
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The Yellow Balloon – The Yellow Balloon (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:06 minutes | 357 MB | Genre: Pop Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Sunshine Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sundazed Music
This sunshiny day-glo gem is reminiscent of the lush, yet trippy studio wizardry of Sagittarius and the mind bending delights of Smile-era recordings. This new reissue of Yellow Balloon contains 16 tracks, including the complete stereo album & singles from ‘60s TV superstar Don Grady!
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The Gilded Gutter – The Gilded Gutter (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 35:12 minutes | 452 MB | Genre: Folk Rock, Punk Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © FOUR FOUR
Stemming from a previous project called The Revenants, The Gilded Gutter is the musical partnership of Johnny Gibson and Steve Milligan in primary collaboration with Carmen O’Brien (violin) and Andy Papadopoulos (bass). Other collaborators are Anton Ruddick (guitar), Rowan Blackmore (accordion), Sam Davies (uillean pipes and tin whistle), Melanie Carroll (vocals) and Duncan Graham (studio production).
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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko – Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’ (2013/2015)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:19:07 minutes | 3,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: ProStudioMasters | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD
Three weeks after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shostakovich volunteered with the Home Guard in Leningrad. As the siege of the city intensified, he worked on his Seventh Symphony, completing three movements before being forced to leave Leningrad and travel east by train. The work was completed in December that year. Initially he gave each movement a programmatic title, but later withdrew them, leaving this epic work as an emblem of heroic defiance in the face of conflict and crisis: ‘I dedicate my Seventh Symphony to our struggle against fascism, to our coming victory over the enemy, to my native city, Leningrad.’ Shostakovich’s epic Seventh Symphony is a study in defiance and survival, written largely in the ruins of the besieged city in 1941. Its reputation has fluctuated over the years, with its immediate post war reputation largely low. But in recent years it has taken its rightful place in Shostakovich’s symphonic canon. As one of the Twentieth Century’s most recorded symphonists, the composer has been the subject of many recordings.
The award-winning Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra, dating from 1840. The dynamic young Russian, Vasily Petrenko was appointed Principal Conductor of the orchestra in September 2006 and in September 2009 became Chief Conductor.
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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko – Dmitry Shostakovich – Symphony No. 4 (2013/2016)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:04:52 minutes | 2,56 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD
Completed in 1936 but withdrawn during rehearsal and not performed until 1961, the searing Fourth Symphony finds Shostakovich stretching his musical idiom to the limit in the search for a personal means of expression at a time of undoubted personal and professional crisis. The opening movement, a complex and unpredictable take on sonata form that teems with a dazzling profusion of varied motifs, is followed by a short, eerie central movement. The finale opens with a funeral march leading to a climax of seismic physical force that gives way to a bleak and harrowing minor key coda. The Symphony has since become one of the most highly regarded of the composer’s large-scale works.
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Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Gustavo Gimeno – Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1, Scherzi, Theme and Variations & 5 Fragments (2012)
Gustavo Gimeno conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg in a fascinating survey of confident, assured and striking orchestral works by the young Shostakovich. This new recording for PENTATONE includes his breathtaking Symphony No.1 op. 10 — the student work which brought Shostakovich international fame.
While indebted to the Russian masters, Shostakovich’s early works nevertheless demonstrate his precocious brilliance, originality and flair and they offer an intriguing glimpse at the evolution of his distinctive, mature style. From the easy going and good humoured Scherzo op. 1, the Tchaikovskian Theme and Variations in B-flat major op.3, or the Stravinskyan Scherzo op. 7, his youthful vitality is never in doubt. But with his Symphony No.1 op. 10 he produced his first masterpiece and found his own distinctive voice. It’s a thrilling work full of sardonic edginess, pained introspection and dramatic outbursts, and closes with a barnstorming finale. Composed 10 years later, the aptly titled Five Fragments for orchestra op. 42 are short, pungent and austere pieces; the arresting style is modernist but the sound is unmistakeably Shostakovich.
Following his acclaimed conducting dbut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2014, Gustavo Gimeno took up the post of Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg with the 2015/2016 season. An auspicious collaboration with PENTATONE followed in 2016 and three releases with the orchestra are planned in 2017. “His musical rhetorics are refined, his grip on the structure of the compositions is accurate and convincing” observed Joep Stapel in the NRC Handelsblad, “Gimeno knew how to keep the tension and made the musicians … excel.”
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