Orrin Evans – The Red Door (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:14 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions
What’s behind THE RED DOOR? For pianist Orrin Evans, that question has come to symbolize the daring path his life and music have taken over the course of his three-decade career. On his latest album, he once again flings that door open, delighting in the collaborators, friends, inspiration, and history that he finds inside.
Growing up in the Pentecostal church, Evans explains, the color red came to signify the negative: think blood, sin, the temptation embodied in red light districts, all things infernal. Approaching a red door, then, is a daunting prospect. The image manifested for him recently when he overheard someone say, “I don’t see color” – itself something of a red flag.
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Oren Ambarchi & Eric Thielemans – Double Consciousness (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 40:03 minutes | 426 MB | Genre: Experimental Rock, Electronic, Jazz Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Matière Mémoire
A session recorded live December 9, 2021 at Werkplaats Walter, Brussels (Oren Ambarchi: guitar & audobon bird call; Eric Thielemans: drums & percussion).
Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, “re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it’s no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it’s a laboratory for extended sonic investigation”. (The Wire, UK).
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Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Chœur de Chambre de Namur & Gergely Madaras – César Franck: Hulda (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:38:06 minutes | 2,91 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bru Zane
The injustices of history are made to be redressed. Here a cast of international singers, under the dynamic direction of Gergely Madaras, devotes itself with conviction to the task of reviving one of the forgotten glories of French Romantic opera. Hulda, completed in 1885, was never staged in César Franck’s lifetime. This gory medieval legend recounts the multiple acts of vengeance its heroine inflicts on the Aslak clan, which slaughtered her family, and on her unfaithful lover Eiolf. The ferocious performance of American soprano Jennifer Holloway in the title role is matched by the sinister presentiments of her French colleague Véronique Gens and the tender outbursts of Dutch soprano Judith van Wanroij. Although the imaginary Norwegian setting brings Wagner to mind, Franck continues the tradition of French grand-opéra while adopting the contemporary Verdian idiom. The intensity of the action is reflected in harmonic and instrumental experiments that place Franck in the forefront of the modernists of his time. The inventiveness of the ballet is matched only by the splendour of the choral writing. How could such a masterpiece have languished in oblivion for so long? Quite simply, because it was deliberately buried by Franck’s pupils, who preferred to keep for themselves the glory of personifying the French operatic revival.
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Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Transylvania State Choir, Marek Janowski – Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:11:02 minutes | 4,53 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Maestro Marek Janowski, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir present Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (1859), together with a stellar cast, headed by Freddie De Tommaso (Riccardo), Lester Lynch (Renato) and Saioa Hernández (Amelia). Un ballo in maschera is Verdi’s tragicomic masterpiece, in which the composer skilfully switches gears between the light and tragic, as well as between his earlier and more mature style. As such, it is both an entertaining and highly sophisticated work. The three main soloists are all seasoned Verdi interpreters, while Janowski approaches this ingenuous score with his eye for symphonic architecture, resulting in a performance that is lively and balanced. The international cast of this recording is completed by Elisabeth Kulman (Ulrica), Annika Gerhards (Oscar), Kevin Short (Samuel), Adam Lau (Tom), Jean-Luc Ballestra (Silvano), and Samy Camps (Giudice/Servo).
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Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari – Cecilia (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:53:18 minutes | 1,92 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dynamic
Friday, January 28 at 20.30 (turn A) the curtain rises on the Opera and ballet Season 2022 of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari. After the inaugurations dedicated to the music of the Italian twentieth century (La campana sommersa in 2016 and La bella dormente in 2017, both by Respighi, Turandot by Busoni in 2018, Palla de’ Mozzi by Marinuzzi in 2020), the 2022 Season sees another precious musical rarity this time by Licinio Refice (Patrica, 1883 – Rio de Moderna, 1954) which is performed for the first time in Italy in modern times: Cecilia, sacred action in three episodes and four paintings, libretto by Emidio Mucci.
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Olivia Dean – Messy (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:34 minutes | 704 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EMI
“Messy” cements Dean as one of the most original and versatile voices in British pop. She creates classic yet entertaining hooks with fluid genre coloring and has found a way to explore universal themes of love, loss, and everything in between with razor-sharp yet candid storytelling.
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Oliver Nelson – Black, Brown And Beautiful (1970/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:50 minutes | 713 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ace Records
After years of creating pop soul with hip swinging big bands, Oliver Nelson returned with the true successor to his classic “Blues & The Abstract Truth”. A jazz journey through racial politics and pride. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio featuring many top musicians, it was produced by Bob Thiele for his Flying Dutchman label.
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Olga Kopylova – Brazilian Fruits (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 45:16 minutes | 421 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Azul Music
Pianist with Osesp since 1999, Olga Kopylova was born in Uzbekistan and studied at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Her solo album Estrela da Manhã (2006) features works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Medtner and Scriabin.
As a soloist, she has performed with Osesp, the Campinas Symphony Orchestra and the Curitiba Chamber Orchestra, among others. She has performed chamber music at Osesp’s series of chamber concerts and with her own ensembles, such as the Sexteto São Paulo and Duo Virtuose. She also teaches at the Osesp Music Academy.
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Naoko Tanaka – I Fall In Love Too Easily (2017)
DSD256 (.dsf) 1 bit/11,28 MHz MHz | Time – 59:15 minutes | 9,34 GB
or FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 59:15 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Jazz
Official Digital Download – Source: e-Onkyo.jp | Front Cover | © King Record
Naoko Tanaka learned classical piano from childhood, active at Yamaha JOC. Winning prizes at various competitions, she went on to Toho Gakuen University piano course and won first prize at the Bulgarian International Competition while studying abroad. As a classical pianist, she was able to walk smoothly, but turn into the jazz world. At the same time, she was invited into Pop world, as a keyboard player, participating in lots of live recordings. “I Fall In Love Too Easily” is she’s fifth release as leader. Recorded as part of “Hi-Res Beauty Jazz Series”, in native DSD256 without any editing, and produced by Masahiko Osaka, this album is the first “standards” album of a female pianist who expresses a sharp head in a jazz scene by a beautiful and bold play that is intellectually brilliant and sometimes thrilling.
Read moreSwedish Radio Choir, Peter Dijkstra – Nordic Sounds : Music of Sven-David Sandstrom (2010) DSF DSD64
Swedish Radio Choir, Peter Dijkstra – Nordic Sounds : Music of Sven-David Sandstrom (2010)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:10:12 minutes | 2,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records B.V.
Sven-David Sandström (1942–) has acknowledged that it was thanks to Ingmar Månsson he began composing for choir. A member of Månsson’s Hägersten Motet Choir outside Stockholm for some twenty years, Sandström was given ample opportunities to have his works performed and was able to study the choral instrument and repertoire from the inside.Starting out in a complex modernist tradition; Sandström’s major works from the 1970s were orchestral compositions, including his breakthrough piece, Through and through(1972), which received great acclaim when performed in Amsterdam in 1974. The work that made him the most recognized Swedish composer was Requiem, Mute the Bereaved Memories Speak(1979), a work of almost two hours in length for soloists, two choirs, large orchestra, and tape, setting the poems of Tobias Berggren. The Requiem deals with humankind’s ability to forget its crimes, especially the murder of children during the Holocaust. Requiem is multifaceted; it contains black romanticism, violent outbursts, sublime sections, grotesque scenes, and banalities that give the work an enormous expressivity.When composing for choir Sandström does not hold back in terms of expression or technical demands. As choral director James Kallembach put it: “Choral singers will showcase a range of expressions when perusing a typical Sandström score for the first time. From uncomfortable giggling to disbelief to downright indignation, most singers cannot help but react to some of the higher-pitched passages.” Indeed, many works are incredibly technically difficult even for professional choirs. But there is more to Sandström’s mode of writing for choir. Kallembach identified eight characteristics of Sandström’s choral writing that make his musical language highly emblematic.
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Swedish Radio Choir, Peter Dijkstra – Nordic Sounds 2 : Sandstrom, Wikander, Jersild, Alfven, Hillborg (2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:11:04 minutes | 3 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Booklet, Front Cover | © Channel Classics Records B.V.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Europeappeared to be on the verge of a GoldenAge of choral music. There was an astonishingresurgence everywhere of music for men’s andwomen’s voices and for mixed choirs. From asearly as 1810, singing clubs, choral societies andLiedertafel (song-tables) shot up like mushroomsin Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Cologne andVienna. The best-known was the Liedertafelstarted up in 1808 by Mendelssohn’s teacherCarl Friedrich Zelter, who was leader of thechoral tradition that flourished in the nineteenthcentury has lost none of its strength. Accordingto statistics, no less than ten percent of its ninemillion inhabitants sing in a choir. Värmland,the western province of Sweden, even has areputation for its astronomical number of fivehundred choirs! A large part of the repertoireconsists of old Swedish folk songs, a culturalheritage that came to enjoy renewed and stronginterest in the nineteenth century. Composershave since arranged them for choir, often in anaccessible, neo-Romantic folk-song style and instrophic form. But songs were also adapted in acontemporary style and for all sorts of ensembles.One of the most familiar names in this respect is that of Hugo Alfvén, the foremost Swedish composer of the twentieth century. He becameknown for his furtherance of Swedish choral music and folk songs in Europe, and for his five post-Romantic symphonies and the Swedishrhapsody Midsommarvaka (1904). On the present recording, traditional Swedish folk songs are combined with contemporary choral music.Most of the pieces are Swedish, but Denmark (Jörgen Jersild) and Finland (Jaakko Mäntyjärvi) are also represented.
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Norah Jones – The Fall (2009/2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64, 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 45:59 minutes | 1,82 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © Blue Note Records/Analogue Productions
Part of Analogue Productions’ reissue of the Norah Jones’ solo catalog, featuring the individual albums Come Away With Me, Feels Like Home, Not Too Late, The Fall and Little Broken Hearts. Each album is also featured in exclusive LP and SACD box sets that include Norah’s Covers album!
Norah has taken a new direction on The Fall, experimenting with different sounds and a new set of collaborators, including Jacquire King, a noted producer and engineer who has worked with Kings of Leon, Tom Waits and Modest Mouse. Richly detailed and vocally lush on this DSD format reissue by Analogue Productions, The Fall, Jones’ fourth album, may surprise some of Jones’ die-hard fans, Billboard magazine notes. During the 13-song set, Jones ditches the gentle piano playing of her previous work and tears into fresh, beat-savvy arrangements, playing plenty of electric guitar and exploring the piercing quality of Wurlitzer electric piano. Jones’ smoky voice and soulful veneer highlight the opening track and first single, “Chasing Pirates.”
Jones displays a slinky kind of ambience on “Light As a Feather (co-written with Ryan Adams). The social commentary “It’s Gonna Be” offers a garage-rock attitude, and “You’ve Ruined Me” has a rich Americana flavor. But Jones is still a little bit country (“Tell Yer Mama”) and a little bit rock’n’roll (“Stuck”). Overall, writes reviewer Gary Graff, Jones straddles those lines in an entirely different manner than she ever has before.
For The Fall, Jones enlisted several songwriting collaborators, including Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, as well as her frequent partners Jesse Harris and Richard Julian. Musicians include drummers Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M.) and James Gadson (Bill Withers), keyboardist James Poyser (Erykah Badu, Al Green) and guitarists Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello) and Smokey Hormel (Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer).
Norah Jones – Not Too Late (2006/2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64, 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 45:42 minutes | 1,8 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © Blue Note Records/Analogue Productions
Norah Jones’ third studio album, Not Too Late, is an understated masterpiece from one of music’s greatest singer/songwriters. The album follows the success of her first two albums, Come Away with Me and Feels Like Home, which combined have sold over 27 million copies worldwide. The album, which features only self-penned material, finds Jones branching out and developing her signature crooner sound. The album highlighted by her extraordinary artistic growth is eloquently sung and immaculately performed. The outing topped Billboard’s Top 200 and featured the hit single, “Thinking About You.” This transitional effort is easily one of her most compelling and personal albums to date.
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Norah Jones – Little Broken Hearts (2012)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 45:03 minutes | 1,78 GB | Genre: Jazz
Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © Blue Note Records/Analogue Productions
Part of Analogue Productions’ reissue of the Norah Jones’ solo catalog, featuring the individual albums Come Away With Me, Feels Like Home, Not Too Late, The Fall, and …Little Broken Hearts. Each album will also be featured in an exclusive LP box set and an exclusive SACD box set that will include Norah’s Covers album!
Norah Jones’ Little Broken Hearts was created in collaboration with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, best known as the producing ace for Gnarls Barkley with singer Cee Lo Green. Jones and Danger Mouse wrote all of the material for the album together at the producer’s studio in Los Angeles, and the duo performed all of the instruments themselves. This is their second time working together — Jones previously appeared as a vocalist on Rome, Danger Mouse’s collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Luppi. Though Little Broken Hearts is the result of a partnership between Jones and Danger Mouse, the record will be credited only to her.
The album’s sound ranges from experimental chamber serenades to stark, electronic-embellished confessions. “It’s obviously very different than anything Norah’s ever done,” Burton says. “I don’t know what people will think — I hope they like it, and she doesn’t lose a bunch of fans.”
“I’d never gone in with nothing and wrote songs from scratch, and I’d never played bass before on a record,” Jones told Rolling Stone. “I was out of my comfort zone — but I was comfortable because we’re friends.”
Adds Burton, “The best thing was having just the two of us on those first sessions, not a whole band. Norah had as many, if not more, great ideas than I did.”
One of the boldest departures is “Take It Back,” which features fuzzed-out guitars and spooky, distorted vocals. “I never knew how to get weird sounds,” Jones says. “It was all about finding a balance between those effects and making sure my voice was clear and sounded like me.”
In its own quiet way, Little Broken Hearts hews closer to heartbreak classics like Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear than to anything in Jones’ back catalog, Rolling Stone reports, “This time, I’ve been way less concerned with self-editing,” Jones says. “I’m not sad, but there’s a lot of hurt in there. And it felt great to say what I felt and put it down on tape. Doing that made me so happy! This album is all about saying things that needed to be said.”
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Norah Jones – Feels Like Home (2004/2012)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 46:15 minutes | 1,83 GB | Genre: Jazz
Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © Blue Note Records/Analogue Productions
Part of Analogue Productions’ reissue of the Norah Jones’ solo catalog, featuring the individual albums Come Away With Me, Feels Like Home, Not Too Late, The Fall and Little Broken Hearts. Each album is also featured in exclusive LP and SACD box sets that include Norah’s Covers album!
Norah Jones took the world (and the Grammys) by storm with her debut album Come Away With Me. Now, she’s back for one of the most-anticipated follow-ups in recent memory. On Feels Like Home, Jones again teams with producer Arif Mardin, engineer Jay Newland and her close-knit touring band. And her pop, jazz, and country-tinged sound has never been richer.
On Feels Like Home, Jones has written several new songs, gathered a few more from her bandmates and also covered Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan and Duke Ellington. Jones plays piano, Wurlitzer electric piano and pump organ and features her stripped-down core group of guitar, background vocals, bass and drums. We needn’t describe Jones’ singing. Everyone recognizes it by now. The arrangements aren’t quite as mellow as Come Away With Me, but the music still centers on country, pop and jazz colors.
“I’m glad that people liked the last album,” Jones said. “It was where I was at the time, musically. This is where I am now. That’s what a recording is for me, like a snapshot. We had so much fun making this record.”
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