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Boy George & Culture Club – Life (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:11 minutes | 513 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd
LIFE is the first album to be released by Boy George & Culture Club for 20 years featuring the single ‘Let Somebody Love You’. It will be released on the 26th October 2018, with stunning artwork shot exclusively by world renowned photographer Rankin.
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Black Sabbath – The Rules of Hell (2008/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 3:55:53 minutes | 8,29 GB | Genre: Rock, Metal
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Front covers | © Rhino/Warner Bros.
The Rules of Hell is the must-have, four-album set featuring Black Sabbath’s Heaven And Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981), Live Evil (1982) and Dehumanizer (1992). The legendary band is one of Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Expanded with Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1982, that was first released in 2007. (more…)
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Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont / Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Opp. 27 & 28 (2014) [Official Digital Download – 24bit/96kHz]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Digital Booklet | 1.05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: eClassical
Pianist Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont releases his first disc on Resonus Classics with an album containing three pivotal sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven – the two Op. 27 sonatas labelled “Quasi una fantasia” in E flat major and C sharp minor (including the “Moonlight” sonata) and the Op. 28 sonata in D major (“Pastoral”). In these three sonatas we see Beethoven stretching and experimenting with both form and texture, and the Paris-born pianist Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont – known for his innovative and insightful interpretations – brings a unique and fresh view to these vital works of the classical piano repertoire. (more…)
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Leif Ove Andsnes – Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:23 minutes | 695 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Sony Classical
Chopin wasn’t one for endowing his compositions with poetic titles. Unlike his contemporary Robert Schumann, the composer kept the titles of his work fairly simple, with no literary references such as those found in the poetic evocations of Carnaval or Kinderszenen to assist the imagination. But when, in the mid-1830s, Chopin presented a new piece naming it “Ballade,” Schumann noted that Chopin was the first to apply this literary term to a musical work. What was the nature of this new genre for solo piano? What kind of story was it telling?
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Remy Ballot – Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106 (Live) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:09:10 minutes | 2,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Gramola Records
This live recording brings together an extraordinary combination of artistic abundance: Remy Ballot conducting the music of Anton Bruckner, enacted at Bruckner’s place of work, the basilica of St. Florian in Upper Austria. Captured at the annual festival Brucknertage, the musical youth of the Upper Austrian Symphonic Youth Orchestra enjoyed the great honour to give a celebrated performance in a one-of-a-kind setting. The vigour and professionalism joined by the intuition of Ballot provide for some goosebumps and appends another worthy opus to a series which has been critically acclaimed and lavished with prestigious international awards.
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Joyce DiDonato – Into the Fire (Live) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:28 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Recorded live at London’s celebrated Wigmore Hall, this captivating recital by Joyce DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet was conceived around Jake Heggie’s song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a work written for DiDonato – she describes it as “one of most moving projects I’ve ever been part of”.
Songs by Debussy and Strauss and a quartet movement by Guillaume Lekeu complete the programme, which prompted the Financial Times to write that “the beauty and range” of DiDonato’s singing “are surely now at their impressive peak.”
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Henning Sommerro: Ujamaa & The Iceberg (2018)
DXD FLAC Stereo 24bit/352kHz | Time – 01:00:13 minutes | 3,3 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: 2L-146-SACD | Digital Booklet , Front cover
The composer Henning Sommerro moves rapidly, criss-crossing his musical stage. The space in which he moves has expanded: “All the world’s a stage”. In an open room unforeseeable things take place; things mature, and grow. New elements are created, old ones are modified, and earlier contours are erased. With a respectful greeting we are drawn on by the promise of something bigger; the title UJAMAA sounds playful, slightly mystical. It is Swahili, and it means coming together in brotherhood.
Where opposites meet there is hope – that precious quality we carry with us that can foreshadow our way ahead. On this album Henning Sommerro invites us to listen to two of his large-scale works for soloists and orchestra: Ujamaa and The Iceberg. Both are composed as cantatas. In Ujamaa we move, as if in a series of dream-pictures, between the world’s five continents. In The Iceberg interpersonal relationships are manifested through the voice of Eva Sars, wife of the explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanist and Nobel laureate Fridtjof Nansen. In these works there is a tension between large-scale and small-scale spheres – this in a background narrative in which hope is a steadfast element.
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The Roland Hanna Trio – Child of Gemini (1971/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time –39:03 minutes | 717 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Sir Roland Hanna’s 1971 sessions for MPS pairs the veteran pianist with bassist David Holland and drummer Daniel Humair, focusing exclusively on the leader’s originals that were originally intended as a suite, though they stand very well individually, too. The first four selections display the influence of the classical portion of Hanna’s studies, especially the Bach-flavored “Prelude-So You’ll Know My Name” and the lovely “Courrante-Blue.” The lively blues “Ha-Ho-Da” showcases each of the three musicians in turn. Hanna switches to an electric piano (set to sound like a harp) for the ballad “Blue Lilly” and wraps the sessions with “A Statement of the Truth,” a complex bop line with a nod to Lennie Tristano. Overall, the music is not quite up to the level of other recordings under Hanna’s leadership, though it is still a worthwhile LP. Since MPS ceased operations not long after the 1972 release of this album, it may be somewhat difficult to find. (more…)
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The Paul Horn Quintet – Monday, Monday (1966/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 31:07 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA/Legacy
Monday, Monday is an album by the Paul Horn Quintet with an orchestra arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson which was originally released on the RCA Victor label in 1966. (more…)
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The Anita Kerr Singers – Mellow Moods of Love (1965/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:31 minutes | 831 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Legacy
Anita Kerr is easily the most remarkable and accomplished female musician of the Space Age Pop era, yet she barely rates a mention in most pop music reference books. In the mid-1950s and ’60s, the Anita Kerr Singers were one of the most popular group of backup vocalists in all of country music, appearing on countless recordings by renowned Nashville artists. Along with the Jordanaires, her group, the Anita Kerr Singers, were the seminal backing vocal unit of the era, and it is estimated that at their early-’60s peak, they graced fully one-quarter of all of the records coming out of Nashville’s studios. (more…)
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Joseph Spence – Bahaman Folk Guitar: Music of the Bahamas, Vol. 1 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 33:51 minutes | 253 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Recorded in 1958 and released on the Folkways label in 1959, this album introduced American listeners to Joseph Spence’s unique guitar and vocal styles. These field recordings by musicologist Sam Charters capture Spence in a relaxed, expansive mood—only one of the six selections in the set is under five minutes in length. Spence’s guitar style was due in part to the D tuning of his bass string, which produced a lower bass sound. Whereas many critics have called Spence’s vocal style unorthodox, they have found his guitar playing spontaneous and iconic. Some music critics have gone so far as to refer to him as the “Thelonious Monk of folk guitar.”
The vinyl reissue of Music of the Bahamas, Volume 1 includes Sam Charters’ liner notes. This reissue is part of Folkways Records’ 70th anniversary celebration series, revisiting some of the most iconic and influential albums released on the record label.
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Eyolf Dale – Return To Mind (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:17 minutes | 948 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Front Cover | © Edition Records
Norwegian pianist & composer Eyolf Dale delivers the supremely lyrical and poetic “Return To Mind”, his 4th album, following his highly acclaimed Spellemann Prize (Norwegian Grammy) nominated album “Wolf Valley”. Since releasing his Edition debut in June 2016, Eyolf has expanded and developed his already refined and warm sound into a powerfully emotive force. Radiating elegance and poise, “Return To Mind” confirms Eyolf Dale’s promise and reputation as a strong band leader, creative composer and an expressive soloist with a taste for melody and interplay that summons powerful musical images. (more…)
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The Apocalypse Blues Revue – The Shape Of Blues To Come (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:23 minutes | 528 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Provogue Records
The Apocalypse Blues Revue is coming back strong with this second album released by Provogue, The Shape Of Blues To Come. A rather dangerous music! Did the Florida-based American band sell their soul to the devil in exchange for such mastery of electric blues? The question can be raised. Made up of Shannon Larkin (drums), Brian Carpenter (bass), Ray Cerbone (vocals) and Tony Rombola (guitar), the quartet respects the essence of blues while still imposing their own style. Right from the first track, Open Spaces, the suspense is at its peak. A gong, followed by whispers, then a deep, wearisome singing, almost voodoo-esque. In 2016, the band had already taken this path down to the purgatory with their first eponymous album. Two years later, they venture towards hell itself, for a diabolical concert. Between metal and roots music, the Apocalypse Blues Revue is capable of composing around blues as well as moving away from it. With them, boredom is forbidden. Incendiary riffs, an energetic voice swinging on the chorus of Have You Heard?! and carried by Larkin’s rhythmic force… There’s nothing to envy to heaven! There is a Morrison vibe to To Hell With You, but in this case Jim would be dressed in a rather Goth style to announce the apocalypse and the quartet’s takeover. – Anna Coluthe
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John Coltrane – Trane: The Atlantic Collection (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:48 minutes | 506 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino Atlantic
What if John Coltrane’s Atlantic period was really his most exciting? After his great years under the Prestige and Blue Note banners, and before his fulminating recordings for Impulse!, the saxophonist would work for Ahmet Ertegun’s firm between 1959 and 1961. There, he would record four essential records which are held by some to be the quintessence of Coltrane’s art: Giant Steps (his first album made up exclusively of his own compositions) in 1960, Coltrane Jazz (his first collaboration with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones), My Favorite Things and Ol Coltrane(with Eric Dolphy), all three released in 1961. Although he was no longer signed with Atlantic, he would nevertheless release The Avant-Garde (where he was co-leader with Don Cherry), Coltrane Plays The Blues and Coltrane’s Sound. Nine numbers from this golden age have been selected for Trane: The Atlantic Collection. Remastered and available in Hi-Res 24-bit quality, for sure they represent 46 minutes of total genius, but it is difficult and frustrating to find oneself limited to this short selection, when the rest of albums count among the most essential pages in the history of jazz. With these records, the uniqueness of Coltrane finally breaks out into broad daylight. His style, which was unique at the time – technically and harmonically – literally moulded the canons of bop and proposed a totally different road to that being taken at the time by Miles Davis with Kind Of Blue, his angular brick of modal jazz. Upon its release, a large part of the jazzosphere was more than shocked by the complexity of the creations of Coltrane and his collaborators. Today, all the music presented in Trane: The Atlantic Collection has naturally passed into the pages of history. And re-listening to it, in the fine style in which it’s presented here, is an essential service that should be provided free to all on the NHS… (more…)
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