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Ron Gallo – Heavy Meta (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:22 minutes | 480 MB | Genre: Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records
Ron Gallo spent close to a decade exploring the boundaries of his blues, country, and roots rock influences with his band Toy Soldiers, but when he jumped ship to go solo, he left all of that behind. At least that’s the very strong impression given by Gallo’s second solo album, 2017’s Heavy Meta. Gallo’s first solo effort, 2014’s Ronny, was a step away from Toy Soldiers’ sound into a brighter and poppier direction, but with Heavy Meta, he’s done an about-face into raw, wiry, guitar-based rock & roll. Backed by bassist Joe Bisirri and drummer Dylan Sevey, Heavy Meta is a gritty, energetic exercise in punk-informed 21st century garage rock, with Gallo’s buzzy, rough and ready guitar figures and high-attitude vocals front and center in the mix at all times. Even the relatively subdued numbers like “Black Market Eyes,” “Started a War,” and “All the Punks Are Domesticated” are sharp-witted and lyrically cutting (especially the latter, a bitter tirade against the cultural abuses of contemporary thirty-somethings). And when Gallo and his bandmates shift into high gear on “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me,” “Please Yourself,” and “Put the Kids to Bed,” the fusion of Gallo’s dirty but melodic melodies and waves of lyrical swagger suggests how Bob Dylan might have ended up if his primal influence had been Black Francis instead of Woody Guthrie. And chances are slim anyone will release a better song in the foreseeable future about bad parenting than the ferocious “Why Do You Have Kids?” Gallo’s songwriting is Heavy Meta’s greatest strength, but the production by Gallo and Bisirri is excellent, documenting the performances with force and clarity but retaining just the right amount of rough-edged texture to keep this music tough and effective. Heavy Meta is the sound of Ron Gallo reinventing himself, and he does it so well that one could view his impressive body of work with Toy Soldiers simply as a warm-up; this is tough, smart, impassioned rock & roll with a sense of purpose and lots of swagger, performed with the confidence of a veteran and the scrap of a newcomer. It’s heady stuff well worth your attention.
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Ron Carter – Golden Striker (Deluxe Edition) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:51 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © IN+OUT Records
80: The number stands there as if chiseled in stone. An age when crossroads are reached. Where is the journey headed? How much time still remains? Some start to reminisce about the past and distinguish the good and the bad years. But it is always one and the same life. When Ron Carter possibly reflects and looks back on his past eight decades on May 4, 2017, then there will hardly be any reason for self-doubts, not even when he is alone and unnoticed.
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Romain Leleu Sextet – Face(s) à Face(s) (Bonus Track Version) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:16 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
For Romain Leleu, what we call “classical” music could never have gained all its richness and variety without absorbing manifold influences from “popular” music that continues to be its fuel since the dawn of time! Parallel to the release of his album of film music prominently featuring the trumpet, the French virtuoso, backed by his friends and partners in the Romain Leleu Sextet, has brought into a face to face dialogue a selection of hit tunes from far-flung sources that transcend genres and national borders.
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Rolf Lindblom – Poulenc: Les soirées de Nazelles – 3 Pieces – Promenades (1982/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:03 minutes | 1,75 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2xHD – Naxos
Swedish pianist Rolf Lindblom devotes this album to works by Poulenc, recorded in September 1982 for the audiophile label Proprius. Among the pieces Lindblom presents are Les soirées de Nazelles, considered one of Poulenc’s finest compositions.
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Rolando Villazón – Feliz Navidad (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:54 minutes | 501 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Rolando Villazón’s latest album, Feliz Navidad, shares the magic of Christmas!
He follows the critically acclaimed Deutsche Grammophon recording of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with his first Christmas album for the Yellow Label.
Feliz Navidad extends the great tradition of seasonal albums by Fritz Wunderlich, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and Bryn Terfel. Further, Villazón records famous Christmas classics in each of his five languages, including White Christmas, O Tannenbaum, Tu scendi dalle stelle, Petit Papa Noël and Los peces en el río.
Heart-warming tracks include duets with German singer-songwriter Sasha and French pop star Julie Zenatti.
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Roland Neuwirth – Winterreise (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:45 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Galileo Music Communication
For his new project, the “Wiener Winterreise” with Florian Krumpöck at the piano, he reinterprets Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise” and brings the song cycle in its Viennese dialect into the present day.
“Dear Franzl, please don’t kill me, but I have to do this! Your music is sacred to me!”I begged him,” I did not change a single sound from you.”(Roland Neuwirth)
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Ronald Brautigam – Beethoven: The Complete Piano Variations & Bagatelles (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 06:49:25 minutes | 5,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Between 2003 and 2015, Ronald Brautigam recorded all of Beethoven’s music for solo piano – a huge undertaking resulting in a grand total of 15 highly acclaimed albums. Choosing to perform the works on the fortepiano, Brautigam began with a sonata cycle which caused one reviewer to talk of a challenge to ‘the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift.’ In 2010, after nine albums of sonatas, he went on to record the composer’s variations, bagatelles and other piano pieces – a staggering array of works ranging from a Bagatelle lasting 11 seconds to the monumental Diabelli Variations, and from a charming Rondo in C major composed by a 13-year old Beethoven, to what is often referred to as the composer’s ‘Last Musical Thought’, an Andante maestoso dated 1826. Brautigam’s sonata recordings were released in a box set in 2014, and they are now followed by this 6-album set of the remaining works for solo piano, in the original hybrid format, and with full documentation in the form of the original booklets. Composed over the course of more than 40 years, the music is performed on three different instruments, all by the master builder Paul McNulty, demonstrating the rapid development that the fortepiano underwent during Beethoven’s lifetime.
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Ron Wiggins – February Ninth (1971/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:57 minutes | 684 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Beverly Hills Records
~ “February ninth” was the date of the San Fernando Valley, California earthquake in 1971, the date of the recording session. ~
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Ron Verboom – Frozen in Time (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 22:03 minutes | 221 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ExoPAC Recordings
“The lead single ‘Many A Morning’ is a piece of its own. It holds a rare beauty in its well selected instrumentation and harmonies and should be enjoyed in full, leaned back and with your eyes closed”
There are moments in life that are so important that they become ‘Frozen In Time’. My new EP ‘Frozen In Time’ is out on friday the 11th of June.
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Jeonghwan Kim – Winner’s Recital – Highlights (Sydney International Piano Competition 2023) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:51 minutes | 702 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd.
And the Korean-born 23-year-old had the chance to show his considerable wares to Australian audiences in his debut national tour of six cities.
Kim started playing piano at six and moved with his family to Berlin to live at the age of 11. He just turned 23 while the Preliminary rounds were taking place.
Lane was lavish in his praise of the young pianist who topped the field of 32 international up-and-comers. “His virtuosity is astounding, his accuracy in the most complex passages breathtaking. He’s got it all,” he said.
There was certainly plenty of diversity in this triumphal tour with the first half comprising two sonatas that couldn’t be further apart in Beethoven’s affectionately nostalgic and joyful Les Adieux and Prokofiev’s unsettling and uncompromising No. 6 in A Major, the first of his three monumental “war sonatas”.
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Helsinki Baroque Orchestra & Aapo Häkkinen – Crusell: The Last Warrior; Bassoon Concerto; Overture to ‘The Little Slave Girl’ (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:15 minutes | 888 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ondine
This new album by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and Aapo Häkkinen together with the Audi Jugendchorakademie and bassoonist Jani Sunnarborg featuring late works by composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775–1838) makes an important addition to the recordings of Nordic Classical period works and of early Finnish music. Highlight of the album is the world première recording of Crusell’s Viking-themed ‘The Last Warrior’ (Den sista kämpen), the composer’s last large-scale composition.
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Hayden Pedigo – The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:41 minutes | 725 MB | Genre: New Age, Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mexican Summer
Hayden Pedigo returns with The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, the West Texas, multi-hyphenate artist’s follow up to his acclaimed 2021 album Letting Go. Produced by Trayer Tryon (Hundred Waters), The Happiest Times finds Hayden crashing the New Age guitar of Windham Hill and John Renbourn into the art provocations of Harmony Korine.
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Hawksmoor – Telepathic Heights (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 41:04 minutes | 387 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient, Krautrock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Soul Jazz Records
Telepathic Heights is the first album on Soul Jazz Records for the artist Hawksmoor. This incredible new release follows a path along the electronic skyways first created by the German/Krautrock electronic pioneers of the 1970s such as Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Roedelius and Michael Rother.
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Gaute Storsve Trio – El Gran Gotzilla (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 39:37 minutes | 448 MB | Genre: Jazz Fusion, Jazz Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Apollon Records
Gaute Storsve Trio is merging Nordic jazz with Latin American music. The music on this album has been inspired by a plethora of different genres expanding from Cuban son and old Mexican boleros to 70s jazz rock and prog.
Storsve lived and worked in Havana, Cuba, where he befriended The Cuban percussionist Angel Terry Domech. Terry has played with a multitude of Cuban musicians like Buena Vista Social Club with whom he toured and recorded for several years. On this album he is playing the traditional West African drums batá on the tracks “¿Nada? ¡Nunca!” and “Beta Batá Beat”.
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Frederic Lambert – Iridescence (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:39 minutes | 941 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Leaf Music
Iridescence is the variability in the colour of an object with a change in viewing angle—an optical quality that imparts a magical shimmering to the surface of a soap bubble and fills the feathers of a peacock and the wings of a butterfly with brilliant hues. Yet it also hints at the possibility of deeper understanding with a change in perspective, an idea with a broader implication than its original meaning. The works for viola and double bass permit us to see and hear from a different vantage point: two string instruments, often in the shadows of the violin and cello, yet filled with prismatic possibility and potential. From the slow, angular jig of Fisherstreet Duo to Escenas del Sur, the multi-part lament for the families of 1960s South America under tyrannical rule, Iridescence captures a deluge of emotions and textures, inviting listeners to stretch their perspective in novel and expansive directions.
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