Melbourne Quartet – Douglas Weiland: String Quartets Nos. 4 & 5 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:09 minutes | 2,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos
British composer Douglas Weiland has long been acclaimed as one of contemporary music’s most outstanding composers for the string quartet medium, and his evolving cycle has won much admiration. Composed between 2011 and 2012 the Fourth and Fifth Quartets show him at the height of his artistic powers, where he seeks connections across time, and shows a Classical commitment to form, invention and melodic beauty. His conceptions can be Schubertian in scale and scope, while also displaying the influence of Haydn and Bartók.
Read moreMelbreeze – I Love Paris (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:59 minutes | 633 MB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Blue Canoe Records
Turkish vocalist and visionary MelBreeze’s album titled “I Love Paris” is a beautiful modern album featuring many talented artists. Produced, Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by Scott Kinsey c/o Wishbone Studio and Kinesthetic Music.
Read moreMelba Moore – The Day I Turned To You: Remastered (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:22 minutes | 559 MB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hitman Records
Originally recorded and released in March 2002, this is a collection of 10 digitally remastered songs from the Grammy-nominated singer Melba Moore.
Officially sanctioned by Melba, who will be promoting the album during her 2020 tour.
Includes the track Call Me which features a duet with Shirley Murdock.
Read moreMelanie Martinez – K-12 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:35 minutes | 537 MB | Genre: Indie Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records
‘K-12’ marks Martinez’s long anticipated follow-up to her RIAA platinum certified, 2015 debut album, ‘Cry Baby’. Produced by Michael Keenan with the exception of one song produced by Kinetics and One Love (who previously collaborated with Martinez on such hits as ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘Carousel’), the album serves as a soundtrack companion to an eerily enchanting new musical film, written, directed, and starring Martinez.
Read moreMelanie De Biasio – No Deal (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:35 minutes | 397 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Play It Again Sam
Tasteful, subtle and inscrutable, Belgium’s Melanie De Biasio and the band have made one of the few modern vocal jazz records. The singer, who also plays flute on the album, which she studied at the Conservatoire Royal De Bruxelles – was born in Charleroi, Belgium, to an Italian family originally from Venice and grew up listening to Maria Callas, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Jeff Buckley and Rage Against The Machine. But you wouldn’t necessarily infer such diverse influences from No Deal. It’s a record that she produced herself and is steeped in the language of blues and jazz. “No Deal” is a dark, transcendent songs that seem to suspend time.
Read moreMelanie De Biasio – Lilies (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:33 minutes | 374 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © [PIAS] Le Label
“For Lilies I just wanted to retreat to a cave with my Pro-Tools, my computer, and my cheap, 100Euro Shure SM-58 microphone. I could have gone to a big studio, made a big production – but I wanted none of that. I wanted to go back to the seed of creativity, the simplest materials. I was in this room where there was no light, no night or day at all, no heat. Very uncomfortable. But I felt free. I was happy to have this feeling – ‘I don’t need more, I have everything I need here.’” The spirit and the context in which Melanie De Biasio created Lilies are certainly in keeping with this unique artist’s life and work… A singer-musician who is always ready to question and challenge herself anew and push the boundary markers which are so often set down between musical genres. Released in 2013, her album No Deal excelled as an atmospheric meeting of jazz, electro and rock. The Belgian who worships Nina Simone and Abbey Lincoln took another departure from the beaten track with what is commonly called vocal jazz, and wandered towards soul, trip hop, blues: into the most impalpable of ethers. In these weightless sequences, Lilies is firmly stamped with the De Biasio hallmark. This is a way of doing away with labels and playing with light and dark, day and night.
Read moreMelanie De Biasio – Blackened Cities (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 24:16 minutes | 280 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © [PIAS] Le Label
When Melanie De Biasio released No Deal in 2014, it was embraced by jazz critics, DJs, and club audiences simultaneously. Gilles Peterson was so taken with its monochromatic ambient textures, stark arrangements, and clever improvisational intimations that he commissioned an album of remixes. Blackened Cities is not a conventional follow-up, but an adventurous endeavor rife with risk. The release consists of a single 24-minute track that unfolds like a suite. The conservatory-trained Belgian vocalist and flutist and her longtime musical associates — Pascal Mohy on piano, Pascal Paulus on analog synths and clavinet, and Dré Pallemaerts on drums (with guest double bassist/cellist Sam Gerstmans) — deliver a full-scale sonic drama that crosses a wide musical expanse and evokes an encyclopedia of stylistic references, yet comes across as a totally original whole. Its title comes from impressions of postindustrial cities De Biasio visited on her international tour: Detroit, Manchester, her native Charleroi; each has a storied past and a devastated façade, yet reflects its own unique beauty and tenacity. Recorded live in the studio, Blackened Cities began as an unfinished three-minute idea brought in by the singer and left open for group interpretation. It starts with a whisper, a single organ-esque chord followed by a cello, before its lone guidepost enters: Pallemaerts’ nearly constant, always inventive drumming — shuffling, syncopating, circling — is the pulse that signals each wave-like segment. (The spirit of Tony Williams on Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way is redolent.) The musical reference points are wildly diverse: Nina Simone (the cover of “I’m Gonna Leave You” on No Deal was a watermark), the piano vamp from the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm,” Julie Tippetts with Brian Auger, Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, Simin Tander, Annette Peacock, Portishead, The The’s “Uncertain Smile,” Judy Nylon, and more come and go unhurriedly. The work gradually builds and then builds some more, without ever ratcheting up in intensity. Even at its most improvisational, Blackened Cities retains its moody, spatial, and spectral sense of groove. De Biasio delivers her lyrics in flowing extensions and deconstructions; the instrumental themes emerge from and vanish into them. Her unique phrasing employs the same maxims of silence and space that her musicians do. Even her own flute break uses an economic palette, elastically balancing harmony with breath. But in its creative leap, Blackened Cities retains all of the appealing elements heard on No Deal. As the track eventually washes into silence, it becomes evident that it had to stand as its own release. This aural travelogue’s sensual cool, brooding tension, and elegiac tenderness are inseparable from one another. It is complete, but even at this length Blackened Cities ends all too soon. ~ Thom Jurek
Read moreMelanie Charles – Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 32:12 minutes | 365 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Verve
With its Verve Remixed series, the Verve label is allowing young artists to revisit its vast heritage. Melanie Charles’ Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women is a part of this. Alongside SZA, Wynton Marsalis, Gorillaz and the Roots, the Brooklyn-based singer and flautist covers pieces from the last century by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, dressed up with neo-soul production, hip hop beats, samples and a bit of light electronics. These covers are frequently beautiful and daring like Woman of the Ghetto by Marlena Shaw. Melanie Charles hits the mark: her album is full of real class. – Marc Zisman
Read moreMelanie – Live at Woodstock (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 26:33 minutes | 437 MB | Genre: Folk, Singer-Songwriter
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Buddah – Legacy
Melanie’s solo set was short but sweet though you can hear her anxiety in her voice. She performed at 11 pm on Friday, the 15th. Melanie played instead of The Incredible String Band who refused to play while it was raining.
Read moreMelani Mestre – Espona: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:42 minutes | 561 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
A Catalan contemporary of Scarlatti, Manuel Espona (1714-1779) is known now, if at all, as the teacher of Antonio Soler, one of the fathers of Spanish keyboard literature. Melani Mestre’s recording, the only modern album dedicated to this composer, reveals that Espona was a fine composer in his own right.
Read moreMel Torme – Mel Torme with the Meltones and Artie Shaw (Remastered) (1946/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 29:19 minutes | 263 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Archive of Folk & Jazz Music
Acknowledged as one the greatest jazz vocalists of all time, Mel Tormé was admirably nick-named “The Velvet Fog” for his ultra smooth vocal stylings. A gifted composer as well, Torme penned one of the most famous songs of all time; the perennial “Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire).” In 1944 he formed the vocal quintet “Mel Tormé and His Mel-Tones,” who were among the first jazz-influenced vocal groups which became the model for The Four Freshman and The Manhattan Transfer. Recorded with Artie Shaw’s group in 1946, this classic recording captures Mel and his early group at their vocal best. All selections newly remastered.
Read moreMel Torme – The Velvet Fog (Remastered) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 45:41 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Vocal Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2xHD
There is only one Mel Tormé, yet there are several brilliant talents. He could have made it as a drummer, pianist, arranger, actor, or author. In fact, he excels in each of these secondary roles while claiming the title of best of the jazz singers.
In this historic recording made December 1958 especially for the World Broadcasting Systems at the famous Radio Recorders studios in Hollywood, California Mel sings every song with great feeling and beauty of vocal tone. The selection of tunes is impeccable and he never sounded better.
Read moreMel Tormé – Songs For Any Taste (1959/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 26:28 minutes | 496 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bethlehem Records
Turn down the lights, turn up the volume and get transported back in time to a legendary jazz night club on the Sunset Strip in 1957. Songs For Any Taste is one of a trio of live albums Mel Tormé recorded at the Crescendo Club in Los Angeles. This album, the last of the three, fleshes out the remaining unreleased live material with one studio take. Tormé’s longtime collaborator Marty Paich plays piano, arranges and leads the band.
Read moreMel Tormé – Mel Tormé Sings Fred Astaire (Original Recording Remastered 2013) (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:05 minutes | 710 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bethlehem Records
Mel Tormé reunites with arranger and conductor Marty Paich and his 10-piece ensemble the Dek-tette on this 1956 recordings dedicated to Fred Astaire, Tormé’s favourite singer. Heavy on material from the Gershwins and Irving Berlin, these songs all appeared in Astaire’s films.
Read moreMel Lewis – Mel Torme at the Crescendo (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:58 minutes | 456 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bethlehem Records
A showcase for Mel Tormé at his best, recorded live in front of an audience, the album solidified the young singer’s standing in the jazz world. Released in 1957, this session was recorded at the Crescendo in Los Angeles, arranged by Tormé’s longtime collaborator, pianist/arranger Marty Paich. These familiar standards are taken to another level on this inspired concert album that sees Tormé backed by a small combo.
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