Alva Noto – Kinder der Sonne (From “Komplizen”) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:15:15 minutes | 774 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient, Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © NOTON
Alva Noto soundtracks Simon Stone’s theatre piece ‘Komplizen’ with a suite of sci-fi zoners with a romantic, oceanic depth sealed by his prized production methods.
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Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS Remix Edition) (2022/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:08:57 minutes | 756 MB | Genre: Indie Rock, Art Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Infectious Music
The body count on alt-J’s fourth album is high. At least three songs portray a death, another (“Losing My Mind”) explores the psyche of a serial killer, and “Get Better” is an intensely moving depiction of grief. That said, The Dream also delights in the pleasures of drinking Coke (“Bane”), instant attraction (“Powders”), and getting wasted at festivals (“U&ME”). “If you want to move people, it’s with storytelling,” singer/guitarist Joe Newman tells Apple Music. “You want to tell the best story, and that is by giving people both sides of the coin.” Here, that storytelling is set to characteristically adventurous music. The Leeds-formed trio finds improbable tessellations between pneumatic art-rock and Stravinsky, psychedelic folk and Chicago house, and Jimi Hendrix and Cormac McCarthy, binding those patterns with iron-strong hooks. “We’ve always seen ourselves as cowboy writers,” says Newman. “We don’t know how to write a pop song, but we know that we have catchy ideas. So we just sew them together, regardless of whether it makes much sense structurally. Maybe in this album, we’re also mastering the craft of writing more traditionally.”
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BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alpesh Chauhan – Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Francesca da Rimini, The Voyevoda, Overture and Polonaise from ‘Cherevichki’ (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:11 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Born in Birmingham, Alpesh Chauhan studied cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Masters Conducting Course. Alpesh has studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, participated in masterclasses with Juanjo Mena, Vasily Petrenko and Jac van Steen, and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the CBSO 2014-16. Newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Dusseldorfer Symphoniker from the 21/22 season, he is also Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company. He frequently appears as guest conductor with acclaimed international orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d?Ile de France, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Malmo Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. For this his debut recording for Chandos, he has chosen a collection of Tchaikovsky?s symphonic fantasias, alongside the Overture and Polonaise from the comic opera ?Cherevichki?. The Tempest, from 1873 is based on the Shakespeare play, and shows that Tchaikovsky?s unique voice and style were already fully developed. Francesca da Rimini (based on the tale in Dante?s Inferno) was written only a few years later, but after Tchaikovsky had attended the premier of Wagner?s Ring cycle in Bayreuth ? an influence discernible particularly in the brass chords. Cherevichki (the Slippers) is a revision of his earlier opera Vakula the Smith, based on Gogol?s Christmas Eve. Tchaikovsky?s Symphonic Ballad The Voyevoda is based on Adam Mickiewicz?s poem ?The Ambush?, and is the first orchestral work to include the (newly invented) Celeste.
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All India Radio – Space: The Demos (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:24 minutes | 471 MB | Genre: Electronic, Downtempo, Ambient, Trip-Hop, Post-Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SPECTRA
Demos, early versions and outtakes of tracks from ‘Space’ (2018).
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Alison Goldfrapp – The Love Invention (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:16:09 minutes | 919 MB | Genre: Synth-pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Skint Records
Alison Goldfrapp has set a towering bar for British synth-pop in the 21st century and she’s only just getting started. The magnetic London-born singer, songwriter and producer’s seven albums with Goldfrapp were fuelled by an unfailing modernity and a sixth sense for sounds that were more timeless than any trend. With the release of her debut solo album The Love Invention—an electrifying dance-pop suite—her multi-faceted musicianship reaches a new peak.
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Alison Brown – On Banjo (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:00 minutes | 712 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Compass Records
As Amelia Earhart is to aviation, as Julia Child is to the culinary arts, Alison Brown is to the five-string banjo. She has broadened the instrument’s sound and identity with her distinctive voice as a player and composer, taking the banjo far beyond its Appalachian roots and earning praise from a variety of national taste-makers including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, and USA Today. She is a frequent collaborator with Steve Martin and Indigo Girls as well as the bandleader of the Alison Brown Quintet which is on a self-declared mission to bring the banjo to mainstream audiences.
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Alicia Keys, Kris Bowers, Vitamin String Quartet – Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Covers from the Netflix Series) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 29:29 minutes | 328 MB | Genre: Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Legacy Recordings
The Bridgerton universe is dripping in glamour thanks to its sumptuous set design and intricate costumes. But one element really makes this world pop — the orchestral pop covers lighting up the soundtrack. Everything from Madonna’s 1980s hit “Material Girl” (covered by Kris Bowers) to Billie Eilish’s Gen Z banger “bad guy” (as performed by Vitamin String Quartet) has graced the Bridgerton ballroom.
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Alice Howe – Circumstance (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:09 minutes | 473 MB | Genre: Folk Rock, Americana, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Know Howe Music
On Circumstance, her second and latest album, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter-guitarist Alice Howe displays her vocal prowess and introspective writing in abundance, mining both her heart and her musical tastes for a deep, personal journey across an Americana soundscape dotted with blues, folk, country, soul and rock. Produced by her creative partner, iconic bassist Freebo (Bonnie Raitt) and recorded at legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where Etta James and Wilson Pickett once shook the walls, the record channels their spirits with 11 stirring tracks that pull no punches diving into the vagaries of the heart and her own personal journey.
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Alfredo Campoli – Handel: Six Violin Sonatas, Op. 1 by Alfredo Campoli (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:47 minutes | 945 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording
Alfredo Campoli (20 October 1906 – 27 March 1991) was an Italian-born British violinist, often known simply as Campoli. He was noted for the beauty of the tone he produced from the violin. Campoli spent his childhood and much of his career in England.
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Alfa Mist – Variables (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:25 minutes | 495 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Anti – Epitaph
On Variables, his second release for ANTI-, Alfa achieves his most fully realised, expressive musical work to date, coupling his keen ear for looping, memorably emotive piano melodies with intuitive grooves and a free-flowing jazz improvisation. Since the release of his first full-length project Nocturne in 2015, Alfa has established himself as one of the UK’s most focused, in demand and distinct musical voices. He has worked with the likes of Jordan Rakei and Tom Misch. Artists look to him for his unique blend of intimate bedroom production and expansive jazz group orchestration, since Alfa is yet to be boxed into a specific genre. His music spans everything from hip-hop beat-making to producing for artists such as rapper Loyle Carner, composing neo-classical works for the London Contemporary Orchestra, and reworking tracks from composer Ólafur Arnald’s and pioneering jazz label Blue Note.
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Alexandre Tharaud – François Couperin: Tic toc choc (Remastered) (2007/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:15 minutes | 355 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
This album was first released in March 2007. Following a benchmark Rameau album, Alexandre Tharaud continued in 2007 his exploration of French Baroque music with a programme focusing on the idea of play: ‘Taking Le Tic-Toc-Choc, a colourful piece I often use as an encore, as the centrepiece, I gathered together Couperin’s most “pianistic” pieces, concentrating on the playful aspect of some of them.’ This sensitive, inspired interpretation has in its turn become a landmark in the catalogue.
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Alexandre Baldo, Mozaique – Caldara: Arias for Bass (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:00 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Pan Classics
Antonio Caldara, a native of Venice, spent almost two decades at the beginning of the 18th century in the service of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI as Vice-Kapellmeister.
His musical duties also included supplying the Vienna Court Opera with a constant stream of new works.
The present programme is based on extensive research by the bass Alexandre Baldo in the Vienna National Library.
In the manuscripts of Caldara’s vocal works, Baldo repeatedly came across bass arias that impressed him for their virtuosity and expressiveness.
Baldo discovered that Caldara had written them without exception for Christoph Praun, a highly esteemed bass player and member of the imperial court orchestra at the time.
For this recording, Alexandre Baldo presents a selection of arias composed by Caldara for Praun between 1717 and 1736.
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Alexander Melnikov – Fantasie: Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:21 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
lover of historical keyboard instruments, Alexander Melnikov has already successfully met the challenge of exploring ‘Four Pieces, Four Pianos’ on disc and in concert back in 2018. Today, he has chosen to perform seven emblematic works of the fantasia genre on harpsichord, fortepiano, tangent piano, early grands, and so on. In this journey through the keyboards of time, we can discover these pieces as they sounded at the time of their creation, but also grasp the invisible thread that links them to each other.
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Alexander Chance, Toby Carr – Drop not, Mine Eyes (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:06 minutes | 981 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
British countertenor Alexander Chance (b. 1992) was named the winner of the 2022 International Handel Singing Competition (including the audience prize!). Drop not, mine eyes is a touching program of English lute songs full of melancholic warmth by Dowland, Campion, Danyel, Purcell and others. Toby Carr provides sensitive accompaniment on lute and theorbo.
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Alex Paxton – Alex Paxton: Happy Music for Orchestra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 46:26 minutes | 509 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Delphian Records
‘In every moment of the piece’, says Alex Paxton, ‘I’m asking myself what is the most sonically sensual thing that can happen here, and here, and here.’ The result, from a multi-award-winning composer described as ‘unique, inventive, brave and arresting’, is an album of joyful music performed by orchestra, ensemble and improvisers.
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