Tobias Meinhart – The Painter (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:29 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside
The creation of music shares much in common with creation in the visual arts. Both musicians and visual artists speak of and deal in colors, hues and textures in their compositional processes. Saxophonist/composer Tobias Meinhart has developed near synesthetic visualizations as he performs and hears music. His new recording, The Painter, presents his recent work of diverse, brilliant pieces meant to brighten the world’s canvas.
Read more
Tobias Meinhart – Berlin People (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:15 minutes | 689 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside
For his album ‘Berlin People’, Saxophonist Tobias Meinhart wanted to bridge the musical cultures of New York City and Germany by recording with a band of his German peers and an American jazz guitarist who has made Berlin his home, the great Kurt Rosenwinkel.
Read more
Tobias Koch – Zukunftsmusik: Franz Schubert – Die letzten drei Klaviersonaten (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:23:41 minutes | 2,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Musik Museum
The well-known German hammer piano specialist Tobias Koch has long been intensively engaged with the three great Sonatas from Schubert’s year of death in 1828, which he regards in many respects as “music for the future”. Now, the artist has decided to document his idiosyncratic and sophisticated Interpretation of these sonatas, which he sees as a cycle that belongs together, on CD. Conrad Graf’s beautiful hammer grand piano from the collection of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck was chosen as the Instrument for the project. The sophistication and richness of color of this precious instrument come into its own in the convincing interpretation.
Read more
Tobias Koch – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8-18 “On search of new paths” (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 03:53:01 minutes | 2,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CAvi-music
The pianoforte pianist Tobias Koch has researched deeply to discover new paths, forms, ideas in the sonatas of Beethoven’s middle period. This album presents uniquely personal interpretations of the sonatas 8 to 18, including the composer’s iconic “Moonlight” Sonata.
Read more
Tobias Feldmann – Sibelius & Rautavaara: Violin Concertos (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:26 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Following his Alpha recording of sonatas by Prokofiev, Ravel and Strauss, the violinist Tobias Feldmann now turns to the concerto form, performing the two major works of the Finnish repertoire for the instrument: the violin concertos of Jean Sibelius and Einojuhani Rautavaara. Premiered in Helsinki in 1904, the Sibelius Concerto proved to be exceptionally difficult technically for the soloist.
Sibelius revised his score, but subsequently composed for violin and orchestra only in shorter forms, the serenade and the humoresque. It was not until nearly seventy years later that a Finnish composer wrote another large-scale work for violin and orchestra, with the Concerto of Rautavaara, which in all respects equals the degree of virtuosity demanded by the earlier work.
Read more
Tobias Feldmann, Boris Kusnezow – Polychrome (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:50 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Polychromy. A simple concept that defines the very essence of this recording, in which colour is omnipresent and takes on diverse and nuanced forms. The choice of works forms at once a harmony and a contrast of shades and sonorities: this album offers the virtuosic and lyrical Violin Sonata no.2 in D Major op.94bis of Sergei Prokofiev, the Sonate posthume of Maurice Ravel, and the Violin Sonata in E flat major op.18 of Richard Strauss, the pièce de résistance of the programme. Tobias Feldmann, a prizewinner at the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Competition, invites us on this musical journey with his vividly coloured and expressive violinistic language, supported with finesse by his partner Boris Kusnezow. Skilfully combining virtuosity and elegance, they create an alchemy whose extreme precision enables these works to yield up all their poetry and refinement.
Read more
Tobias Bigger – Leschetizky: Piano Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 58:52 minutes | 1,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Theodor Leschetizky is a towering figure in the history of piano playing. Born in 1830, he studied in Vienna and began his career as a piano teacher when he was just fourteen. Having moved to St. Petersburg in 1852, he enjoyed great success as a pianist which in turn boosted his popularity as a teacher. After returning to Vienna in 1878, he concentrated increasingly on teaching, becoming an internationally renowned and sought-after mentor to a large number of pianists.
Read more
Tobias Becker Bigband – Life Stream (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:56 minutes | 554 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Neuklang
Jazz orchestra, big band, or large ensemble the differential in terminology is in direct proportion to the number of members and the arrangements involved. I have heard some fine big bands here in the United States, perhaps too many. Three bands in two years have been almost flawless while the rest are simply above average.
Read more
T.G. Copperfield – Talkin’ Shop (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 26:30 minutes | 340 MB | Genre: Blues, Blues Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Timezone
Tilo George Coppperfield is a Rock and Roll songwriter with roots in Americana and Blues. Also known as the driving force behind southern rockers 3 Dayz Whizkey where he honed his skills as guitar player and highly-talented song-architect. 2017 gave birth to his first solo record (T.G. Copperfield) and the ambitious successor The Worried Man, a concept album and Rock and Roll Dystopia based on the thrilling story of anti-hero Evil Eye, also released in 2017.
Read more
T.G. Copperfield – Sweet Honey (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 24:49 minutes | 303 MB | Genre: Rock, Blues, Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Timezone
The magic of the first take – this is the motto of songwriter and guitarist Tilo George Copperfield’s new EP “Sweet Honey”. The album was completely arranged and recorded in one day in best Muscle Shoals style with a strong band in the background. Spontaneity and creativity as well as musical skill and feeling characterise “Sweet Honey”, which could easily have come from the 70s.
In addition, Copperfield has invited some terrific guest singers, which should make this disc a very unique cross-section of the alternative country and blues rock scene in Bavaria, far from the mainstream. From the wailing country of “June Bugs” to the Tom Petty homage “Poet of the Highway” to the pounding Southern rock of “Godforsaken Place”; every note here is honest and makes a remarkable statement of Copperfield as a songwriter who feels completely at home on this terrain.
Read more
T. Rex – Electric Warrior (1971/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:16 minutes | 457 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music
The album that essentially kick-started the U.K. glam rock craze, Electric Warrior completes T. Rex’s transformation from hippie folk-rockers into flamboyant avatars of trashy rock & roll. There are a few vestiges of those early days remaining in the acoustic-driven ballads, but Electric Warrior spends most of its time in a swinging, hip-shaking groove powered by Marc Bolan’s warm electric guitar. The music recalls not just the catchy simplicity of early rock & roll, but also the implicit sexuality — except that here, Bolan gleefully hauls it to the surface, singing out loud what was once only communicated through the shimmying beat. He takes obvious delight in turning teenage bubblegum rock into campy sleaze, not to mention filling it with pseudo-psychedelic hippie poetry. In fact, Bolan sounds just as obsessed with the heavens as he does with sex, whether he’s singing about spiritual mysticism or begging a flying saucer to take him away. It’s all done with the same theatrical flair, but Tony Visconti’s spacious, echoing production makes it surprisingly convincing. Still, the real reason Electric Warrior stands the test of time so well — despite its intended disposability — is that it revels so freely in its own absurdity and willful lack of substance. Not taking himself at all seriously, Bolan is free to pursue whatever silly wordplay, cosmic fantasies, or non sequitur imagery he feels like; his abandonment of any pretense to art becomes, ironically, a statement in itself. Bolan’s lack of pomposity, back-to-basics songwriting, and elaborate theatrics went on to influence everything from hard rock to punk to new wave. But in the end, it’s that sense of playfulness, combined with a raft of irresistible hooks, that keeps Electric Warrior such an infectious, invigorating listen today. – Steve Huey
Read more
Sviatoslav Richter – Tchaikovsky & Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:42:07 minutes | 945 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Andromeda
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter March 20 [O.S. March 7] 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian pianist who is frequently regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time. He is known for the “depth of his interpretations, his virtuoso technique, and his vast repertoire.”
Read more
Sven Wunder – Wabi Sabi (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 36:22 minutes | 432 MB | Genre: World
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Piano Piano
After taking inspiration from Anatolian music on his previous work Eastern Flowers, the Swede Sven Wunder looks toward the Far-East for his new album. Wabi Sabi borrows its name from an aesthetic and spiritual Japanese concept which involves an appreciation and cultivation of simple and modest things, the acceptance of imperfection in the world and respect for the passage of time. For all that, this record is no less luxurious. Jazz-rock rhythms wrapped in progressive and pulsating funk tinted with East-Asian sounds. Wabi Sabi features wah-wah guitars, bass, percussion, Wurlitzer piano and Moog synthesisers which flirt with Japanese shakuhachi bamboo flutes (Hanami, Blanket Fog Descends…), Chinese zithers, guzhengs, violins and marimba’s on Bamboo Rocks. The final North Wind Rattle the Leaves, which begins and ends with the sound of a tanpura points us towards India. Perhaps an indication of the composers next destination. – Benjamin MiNiMuM
Read more
SUUNS – The Witness (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:57 minutes | 385 MB | Genre: Art Rock, Neo-psychedelia
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Joyful Noise Recordings
Critics say that each Suuns album is just another one-way trip into the darkest and most obscure corners of the human soul. Led by Ben Shemie, the Canadian quartet (now become a trio since the departure of keyboardist Max Henry in 2018) would sink ever deeper into a protean rock’n’roll mixing sick psychedelia and experimental explosions, all wrapped up in saturated guitars or electronic beats. Can and Neu!’s krautrock, the shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine, post punk from The Fall, and Warp’s electro have been Suun’s energy source for years. But that was… before? In 2018, Felt, as disturbing as much as it was exciting, was the more soothing fourth album where the Canadians let themselves go a little and brought into the world a less clinical recording, more organic and handmade, but no less oppressive for all that. Three years later, the lethargic feeling is more noticeable and above all, more fascinating. A disk in a weightless state, The Witness sometimes flirts with post-rock and even experimental jazz. Suuns have burst out of their straitjacket, filled their lungs with (almost) fresh air and are starting to leap from cloud to cloud! The recesses of the human soul are always in their sights, but they at last allow themselves to be playful, melancholic, even optimistic. And the light was? – Marc Zisman
Read more
Mika Kares, Szilvia Vörös, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra & Susanna Mälkki – Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle, Op. 11, Sz. 48 (Live) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:30 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Composed in 1911, Bluebeard’s Castle is Béla Bartók’s only opera – a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande to Berg’s Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, Bartók settled on a libretto by Béla Balázs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. The main source for the libretto text was a play by Maeterlinck, a retelling of Perrault’s gruesome tale of Barbe-Bleue, the sinister yet strangely seductive wife-killer.
Read more