Die Kölner Akademie & Michael Alexander Willens – Mozart: Haffner Serenade & Ein musikalischer Spaß (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:25:51 minutes | 1,48 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Besides an acclaimed series of recordings with Ronald Brautigam of the complete piano concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens are undertaking a survey of Mozart’s serenades and other incidental works. Their first album in this series included the Posthorn Serenade and demonstrated, according to the reviewer on MusicWeb-International, that the ensemble is ‘amongst the best groups in the world of period performance.’ Since then the team has recorded works associated with the Freemasons, and here takes on one of the most famous of the serenades, the ‘Haffner’, named after Sigmund Haffner, who commissioned it for the festivities surrounding his sister’s wedding in 1776. A notable feature of Mozart’s serenades – and the large-scale Haffner is no exception – is the incorporation of virtuosic solo parts, here performed by the violinist Alexander Janiczek. On the amply-filled disc (almost 86 minutes!), the at times quite imposing Haffner is followed by Mozart’s ‘Musical Joke’ – Ein musikalischer Spaß, K?522. A work in four movements, this is a delightful and very skillfully crafted parody of musical incompetence. It is written for strings and a pair of horns, and its frequent caricatures of the second-rate – whether in composition or performance – are brilliantly observed, by Mozart as well as the present performers.
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Die Freitagsakademie – My Choice (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:56 minutes | 565 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Winter & Winter
Hear back to the future: 25 years of Winter & Winter’. In 1736 Janitsch revolutionized the music world with his weekly Friday academies (Freitagsakademien); This was the beginning of the upheaval from the courtly to the bourgeois concert scene. Die Freitagsakademie is now presenting its favorite works from Bach to Beethoven.
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Camerata Musica Limburg – Die Einsiedelei: The Complete Choral Works for Male Voices by Franz Schubert, Vol. 4 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:24 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Genuin
Finally, it is here: The continuation of the great musical adventure that the Camerata Musica Limburg is currently undertaking and for which we had to wait a whole year. The elite ensemble sings Franz Schubert’s complete works for male choir with Genuin. Three volumes have already been released. Once again, Jan Schumacher and his men will be joined by renowned musicians such as tenor Christoph Prégardien. The tonal palette of the clear and confidently intoned male voices ranges from the most gentle pleading of Gesang der Geister to the vibrant radiance of a Schiller’s Punschlied.
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Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen & Matthias Höfs – Telemann Trompetenkonzerte (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:33 minutes | 997 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics
As a Hamburg-based musician Matthias Höfs has a special relationship with Georg Philipp Telemann, who was a very successful composer of operas at the city’s opera house on the Gänsemarkt. As director of music for the five parish churches of Hamburg, Telemann made a decisive contribution to the sacred music performed at those institutions. And it has not taken the 250th anniversary of his death, on June 25, 2017, for Telemann to be acknowledged as one of the most efficacious Baroque composers alongside J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel.
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Didirri – Measurements (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 22:26 minutes | 251 MB | Genre: Folk, Acoustic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UNIFIED
Several times in our lifetimes, we feel that woozy head rush from that unforgettable kiss. Another time, we felt that ‘feeling’ up on the upper back, stopping us our breathing short. And sometime, in that span of time, we fell and out of love – both bagged with much passion of hither and there. It can happen. And often does. Without personal and individual politics, love and passion is delectable and straight forward. But we don’t live in that kind of life. The world we live in isn’t just ‘straight forward’. Sometimes it does happen, where all those ‘politics’ fall away and seems not to be a factor. Let’s welcome that time, that moment – if we recognize it – for what it is. Didirri announced that he’s about to drop his debut EP ‘Measurements’ on July 6. And to celebrate, the new single ‘I Can’t Get Last Night Out Of My Head’, a celebration in itself of what impact such kind of passions can envelope our every being.
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Didirri – Live at the Corner Hotel (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 36:44 minutes | 418 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UNIFIED
Live shows have the power to make or break a musician. When you’re on stage, there’s nowhere to hide. No recording booth, no do-overs, no editing your sound – it’s just raw, real and unfiltered music.
Some of the most amazing recorded artists fall short when it’s time to take the stage, while others flourish wondrously, giving a depth and dimension to their work that you just can’t capture in a studio. This is true of Melbourne’s Didirri, who brought nothing short of magic to his second show at The Corner Hotel on Sunday November 11.
After a sold-out Saturday night, this show was a lot more relaxed. The venue was still surprisingly packed for an end of weekend gig, but not in a way that felt manic or crowded. As with all of the shows on his tour so far, the night was opened by Merpire, a Sydney native who now resides in Melbourne. Synthy and sweet, Merpire’s music is dreamlike pop; quirky songs with haunting vocals.
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Denis Podalydès – Stravinsky: L’Histoire du soldat (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:03 minutes | 994 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Faust at war. Histoire du soldat, premiered in September 1918, pays tribute to all those who died in a war that was drawing to an end. The soldier wagers his soul and his fiddle, which will not save him. The Devil always wins. Inspired by the fine text by Ramuz, Stravinsky’s music evokes parades, the circus, jazz . . . Three peerless storytellers – Denis Podalydès, Didier Sandre, Michel Vuillermoz – and seven instrumentalists; they too play as if their life depended on it, instilling this recording with an energy as expressive as it is Mephistophelean.
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Didier Lockwood with John Blake & Krzesimir Debski – The String Summit – One World in Eight (1981/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 47:58 minutes | 913 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
One World in Eight – The String Summit from violinist Didier Lockwood is a sublime conversation in the universal language of jazz, performed by an all-star lineup of international musicians from seven European countries and the US, all major names on the international scene. The results: an amazing mixture of modern jazz, fusion and the avant-garde.
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Didier Lockwood – The Kid (1983/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 40:19 minutes | 764 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Lockwood’s The Kid is an “easy listening” fusion album that maintains the depth to be taken seriously. It certainly helps to have Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer keyboardist David Sacious (Springsteen, Clapton, Sting), guitar wizard Barry Finnerty (Miles Davis, Brecker Brothers), bassist Alphonso Johnson (Weather Report), and drummer Richie Morales (Spyro Gyra) as playmates.
There’s the popish Sunny Sonny, the driving Slight of Hands with its electrifying solos, the ear candy of Something Sweet, and the virtuoso up-tempo Bloody Mary, skirting the borders between hard-bop and fusion. The feel-good rock ballad A Time to Touch moves on to the melodic playground of The Kid. After La Ballad de Francis, Lockwood and Co take on Coltrane’s Impressions at breakneck speed, showing off serious jazz chops. My Favorite Dream is played out in synth heaven; at the end, you may not want to wake up from this fusion fantasy.
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Didier Lockwood – Open Doors (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:16:18 minutes | 820 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Okeh
No stranger to paths less trodden, Didier Lockwood brought out a genuinely surprising, fascinating album in 2016 with Apesantar – recorded in a single take. We enjoyed this jazz fusion record in a single sitting, like an immersive space opera filmed in zero-gravity… With Open Doors on the other hand, she returns to the fundamentals of jazz. At the head of a luxurious quartet made up of André Ceccarelli on drums, Romanian pianist Antonio Farao and Darryl Hall on double-bass, Lockwood delivers tremendously inspired improvisations. No frills, just jazz which is passed through a strict swing filter (the Ceccarelli/Hall rhythms are outstanding), and which serves as a reminder of the beauty of an instrument which lately has been quite rare in jazz: the violin.
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Didier Lockwood – Didier Lockwood Live in Montreux (1980/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 42:19 minutes | 813 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Released at the time in Europe by MPS and in the U.S. by the now-defunct Pausa label, the music from violinist Didier Lockwood’s 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival set is in both cases out of print. Lockwood, who can play like Stephane Grappelli, here opts for fusion in a sextet that also includes tenor saxophonist Bob Malach and keyboardist Jan Hammer. Lockwood’s unaccompanied “Four Strings Bitch” is a highlight of this well-played date.
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Dictaphone – Goats & Distortions 5 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:10 minutes | 377 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © denovali records
The Belgian-German band Dictaphone around mastermind Oliver Doerell returns with their fifth album named “Goats & Distortions 5”.
After their last highly acclaimed album “APR70” Oliver Doerell is surrounded again by his longterm bandmembers Roger Döring (clarinet & saxophone) & Alex Stolze (violins). In the last 3 years they dived even deeper in their “morbid instruments” concept. An old tape machine, which Doerell found in a hidden room in his house in Berlin served as soundsource, ghostly sounds could be heard and the machine died soon after being sampled. For the first time Roger Döring played a bass clarinet on this album and after the recordings lost it in the subway on his way home…
They improved their skills to use rustle as a instrument and are supported by the voice of Helga Raimondi in the track “your reign is over”. The result is an ungraspable, ghostly, spooky album consisting of ten different journeys into the experimental sound world of these unique compositions.
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Dictaphone – APR 70 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:52 minutes | 369 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © denovali records
Finally a sign of life and a new full length of the German cult trio after five years of silence. Already formed in the late nineties in Berlin, Dictaphone was born by Brussels-bred multi-instrumentalist Oliver Doerell. In 2000 Oliver Doerell found a partner in Berlin’s Roger Döring, who shares Doerell’s love for the Brussels-based music of the eighties. In the following years the duo and several guest musicians (e.g. Stephan Wöhrmann (SWOD) , Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) & more) released the critically highly acclaimed “m.= addiction” (2002), the “Nacht” EP (2004) and “Vertigo II” (2006) via the City Centres Offices label of Thaddeus Herrmann and Shlom Sviri (Boomkat, Modern Love). In 2009 the violin player Alex Stolze joined the band. During their two decades of existence Dictaphone played shows in more than 20 countries with festival appearances at Mutek, Transmediale, Unsound, Benicassim & more. Their latest release “Poems from a rooftop” from 2012 came as a very limited edition through the Berlin-based boutique label Sonic Pieces. The new album “APR 70” is the first Denovali release of Dictaphone. The label will also reissue the past repertoire of the trio.
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Dick Walter Big Band – Big Band Energy (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 34:57 minutes | 205 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Score Production Music
He has composed over twenty albums for the KPM Recorded Music Library, covering many genres: Town and Country, Pure Big Band, Essential Brass Band, The Romantic Album, and three CDs of original songs: Classic Sounds & Classic Songs. His most recent project for KPM, (released 2007), was a double CD: Jazz Anthology.
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