Michael Alexander Willens – Lukas-Passion (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:30:45 minutes | 987 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CPO
Kölner Akademie and Kölner Akademie Choir’s rendition of Lukas-Passion is a powerful and moving interpretation of this lesser-known work by German composer Johann Heinrich Rolle. This oratorio retells the story of Christ’s Passion according to the Gospel of Luke, and Kölner Akademie’s and Kölner Akademie Choir’s performances bring the emotional depth and spiritual intensity of this work to life. The soloists are exceptional, with their rich and expressive voices conveying the drama and pathos of the story. The choir’s nuanced and dynamic singing creates a sense of collective urgency and devotion that is both compelling and uplifting. Kölner Akademie’s period-instrument playing is also remarkable, lending a unique and authentic timbre to the performance. This album is a must-have for anyone looking to explore the rich tradition of German Baroque music and to experience the profound beauty and power of sacred choral music.
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Metallica – 72 Seasons (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:10 minutes | 1,85 GB | Genre: Metal, Heavy Metal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EMI
Metallica’s twelfth studio album, ’72 Seasons’, is produced by Greg Fidelman alongside frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. The 12-track, 77 minute album is Metallica’s first full length collection of new material since 2016’s ‘Hardwired… To Self-Destruct’.
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Melissa Lesnie & Jean-Baptiste Franc – The Wonderful Things To Come: The Songs of JC Hopkins (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 37:14 minutes | 373 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Twee-Jazz Records
The Wonderful Things To Come – The JC Hopkins Songbook. a new album by Parisian vocalist Melissa Lesnie and pianist Jean-Baptiste Franc of original compositions by JC Hopkins: The album features intimate, exclusive interpretations of Grammy-nominated songwriter’s unabashedly romantic jazz tunes, performed by Paris-based duo Melissa Lesnie (voice) and Jean Baptiste-Franc (piano), with jazz quartet (William Brunard, double bass and Jonathan Gomis, drums), and additional string quartet arrangements by Daniel Garlitsky. Based in Brooklyn, the composer and songwriter JC Hopkins has built a career in the entertainment industry on originality and quality, co-authoring songs for Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, and other major singers. His ensemble the Biggish Band has performed with Norah Jones, Jazzemia Horn, Jon Hendricks, Andy Bey and Elvis Costello, among others. In February 2022, Hopkins traveled to Paris to produce an album of his own songs in an intimate setting, Studio Libretto. World champion of stride piano (2018) Jean-Baptiste Franc was entrusted with the task of recording these songs (many for the first time), alongside Australian-born jazz singer Melissa Lesnie, with whom Franc had already released a first album of standards in 2020. Of the ten songs on the album, some were entirely new compositions written in the wake of the pandemic; others among Hopkins’s most beloved hits, such as Painter Song, originally recorded by Norah Jones. The Wonderful Things to Come is a hope-filled journey through memory, romance, cohabitation and second chances. The JC Hopkins Songbook showcases not only the composer’s skill as a lyricist and melodist, but also the talent and tenacity of these Parisian musicians at a time when the City of Lights was reawakening following the pandemic, with many lost souls seeking a soundtrack to a better world they are building for themselves and their communities.
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Mecca – Everlasting (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:14 minutes | 548 MB | Genre: Melodic Hard Rock, AOR
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Frontiers Records s.r.l.
Frontiers Records is proud to present “Everlasting”, the brand new studio album from Mecca, the classic AOR band founded by vocalist Joe Vana. “Everlasting” is the first new Mecca album since 2016 and sees Vana returning to the classic AOR style he is known, admired, and loved for.
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Max Raabe, Palast Orchester, Peter Plate – Wer hat hier schlechte Laune (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:30 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © We Love Music
Who is in a bad mood here, Max Raabe asks with his new album and sings about love, about its tender blossoming and fading, about feelings and their confusion. It is about the amalgamation of happiness and doubt, of euphoria and insecurity, of joy in others and quarrels with oneself.
With »Who’s in a bad mood here«, Max Raabe follows up on his last productions and goes one step further. He preserves the aesthetics of the Weimar Republic that he has come to love, but more than ever he translates his artistic influences into modern musical forms. For the first time, some of the new songs rest on a foundation of electronic rhythms.
All the friends from the »Raabe-Pop« phase are back: Annette Humpe, Christoph Israel, Peter Plate, Ulf Leo Sommer, Joshua Lange and Achim Hagemann.
Max Raabe is quite unique in today’s pop music landscape – animated by the humor of bygone times, but also by knowledge about the changing world.
The 14 pieces on »Who has a bad mood here«, including a purely instrumental version of »It will be good again«, will be released as a CD in a digipack. The design of the 24-page booklet for the album ties in with the last lines of the song “Hummel”: It comes with Zebra and a text by author and columnist Jens Balzer.
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Mary Mundy – Mother Nature (1960/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 32:33 minutes | 691 MB | Genre: Funk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Image Records
Mary Mundy’s 1980 album for the obscure Image label goes for hundreds of bucks if you can find it at all (which, as of this writing, you can’t). Loaded with bass-heavy, disco-soul grooves over which Mundy’s voice floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, Mother Nature lives up to the collector hype. That Mundy’s discography consists of this album and a few scattered singles just adds to the mystique of this intriguing one-off, which sees its first reissue in any format here.
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Martina Dasilva – Milky Way (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 43:05 minutes | 425 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © La Reserve Records
ChimyTina, the viral vocal-bass duo known for their innovative arrangements of jazz classics, remarkable interplay and creative DIY-approach return with their new full length album “Milky Way”. Made up of New York-based vocalist Martina DaSilva (The Ladybugs) and much sought-after bassist Dan “Chimy” Chmielinski, ChimyTina first captured international attention in 2014 with the release of eye-catching duo performance videos, racking up thousands of views on social media.
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Martin Klett, Armida Quartett – FRANCK & MARTIN: Piano Quintets (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:58 minutes | 993 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CAvi-music
Martin Klett together with the Armida Quartett perform late Romantic Piano Quintets by Cesar Franck and Frank Martin.
We only have two hands, and our ten fingers are not capable of exploiting all the possibilities”: that is how composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) once described the inadequacies of the keyboard.
However, pianist Martin Klett and the members of the Armida Quartet view things somewhat differently.
Similarly to the string quartet as a whole ensemble, the piano forms “a perfect unit in itself”, Klett affirms.
And the musical genre of the piano quintet has its own special charm, owing to that autonomy and independence of its two main elements.
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Martha Argerich – Martha Argerich Performs Beethoven and Ravel (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:02 minutes | 821 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2023 Avanticlassic
Martha Argerich, the ageless Argentine, was approaching her 80th birthday when these live recordings were made in Israel in 2019, but it is hard to hear any diminution of her powers. Israel Philharmonic conductor Lahav Shani pushes her with quick tempos in the passagework of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19, and she interacts with him very closely here and in the first movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major, where the blues aspect is deemphasized in favor of keeping things moving. Really, despite the presence of the star Argerich, this is Shani’s concert. By 2023, when this album was released, Shani was preparing to take the reins at the Munich Philharmonic and was generally accounted as one of the hottest young conductors on the scene. Those following his career may find this release useful in terms of understanding how he began to get people’s attention in the first place. His readings are original. The Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in his hands is quite original, avoiding Haydn’s playfulness in favor of a drive and edge that points directly toward the middle-period Beethoven. The central movement of the Ravel is unusually contemplative, and the finale seems exuberant when it arrives. The live recording from the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv is reasonably clear, and there is a certain electricity to the results; vigorous applause is retained at the end. An intriguing document from Argerich’s late career and Shani’s early one. – James Manheim
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Mark Guiliana – Mischief (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:49 minutes | 963 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Edition Records
Mischief is Mark Guiliana’s new release from the sessions that produced 2022’s acclaimed the sound of listening. Effortless and flowing, this is music by a band of eight years standing at its most spontaneous. This is the sound of the band just as they are. Setup, Hit Record and Play.
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Marden Abadi – The Classic Joplin (1976/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:33 minutes | 716 MB | Genre: Ragtime
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Baroque Records
Classically trained concert pianist and founder of the La Jolla Piano Institute, which teaches according to the Suzuki Method.
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Marc Bourdeau – Montréal Musica (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:01 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Centrediscs
Montréal Musica is a wide-ranging project reflecting Canadian creativity and diversity. It features 22 solo piano pieces by 9 celebrated composers associated with Montréal, along with 8 music videos or short films by 4 award-winning filmmakers – a first in the country!
The piano works span 99 years, from 1918 to 2017, and embrace postromantic, jazz, minimalist, and modern styles. In chronological order, the acclaimed composers are Claude Champagne, Oscar Peterson, François Morel, André Mathieu, Jacques Hétu, John Rea, Denis Gougeon, Rachel Laurin, and Marc-André Hamelin.
The videos and shorts display the inspired artistry of filmmakers from Canada, Brazil and Switzerland, encompassing the genres of short fiction, music video, contemporary dance, and experimental animation
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Mamas Gun – At PizzaExpress Live – In London (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:34 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Px Records
Globally acclaimed British soul-pop outfit Mamas Gun announcedthe release of their very first live album, a 13- track set recorded at PizzaExpress Live in Soho in 2022, which will be one of the first releases on the brand new PizzaExpress label PX Records.
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Makoto Ozone – A Night in Tokyo (Live at Bunkamura Orchard Hall 2013) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:53 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UNIVERSAL MUSIC LLC
A live recording by the Super Quartet that was realized at Makoto Ozone’s annual Christmas concert held in Tokyo in December 2013 has finally been released 10 years after the performance.
Ozone, Branford Marsalis, and Jeff “Tane” Watts studied together at Berklee College of Music in the early 80’s and were old acquaintances who played together in Boston at the time. In 2012, Ozone, Tein, and Christian McBride released a trio album, My Witch’s Blue.
All songs are Ozone’s original songs. Starting with “Encounter” written for this stage, they are developing dynamic and straight-ahead jazz.
Mixing by Branford Marsalis and Rob “Wakko” Hunter.
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M.E.B., Miles Davis – That You Not Dare To Forget (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 27:33 minutes | 340 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Legacy Recordings
M.E.B. (formerly Miles Electric Band) led by Vince Wilburn, Jr collects a progressive All-Star jazz ensemble featuring Miles Davis alumni and the players Miles inspired. This brand new, never-released studio recording captures a multi-generational who’s who of acclaimed artists performing new Miles-inspired compositions. Two tracks of the five on the album include unreleased trumpet performances by Miles and the album, produced by Miles’ alumni Lenny White and Wilburn, features music legends including Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, Donald Harrison, Darryl Jones, Vernon Reid and John Scofield amongst many others. This album is dedicated to the memory of Wallace Roney and Bernard Wright and contains some of their final recordings. The cover is an original painting from artist and Miles’ associate Mikel Elam.
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