Norah Jones – The Fall (2009/2012) DSF DSD64

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).

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Nils Landgren Funk Unit with Ray Parker Jr. – Unbreakable (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Nils Landgren Funk Unit with Ray Parker Jr. – Unbreakable (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:59 minutes | 678 MB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music

“Unbreakable” is the 11th studio release from Swedish band the Nils Landgren Funk Unit. The brainchild of trombonist Nils Landgren, this record features legends such as Ray Parker Jr., Randy Brecker, and Tim Hagans, making for an undeniably funky listen. The album was recorded in November 2016 in the legendary Atlantis Studios in Stockholm, also the recording site for artists like ABBA, Scorpions, Elvis Costello and Esbjörn Svensson.

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Nick Lowe – Haw River Ballroom 2019 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Nick Lowe – Haw River Ballroom 2019 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:36:26 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Yep Roc Records

We are not in the times of 100 Club Oxford Street, The Nashville, Hope and Anchor … when a multitude of young people tried to escape from the musical prison that prevailed in England in the mid-70s, where rock stadium and virtuosity They made up the bars for a bunch of low-class misfits who just wanted to get out of the routine between paints.

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Metropole Orkest – Metropole Studio Sessions: Dutch Jazz Jam I (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Metropole Orkest – Metropole Studio Sessions: Dutch Jazz Jam I (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 47:49 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Metropole Orkest

Since 1945, Netherlands big-band the Metropole Orchestra (aka Metropole Orkest) has been globally renowned for their live and recorded performances of jazz, pop, electronic, classical, world, and avant-garde music; the orchestra is comprised of musicians from those genres and more. They are the world’s oldest multi-genre orchestra with a catalog of more than 100 albums. Their roster can be broken up into smaller configurations of 17 and larger ones of nearly 100. In addition to their own body of recorded work, they have collaborated in concert and on recordings with dozens of prominent artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Steve Vai, Snarky Puppy, and prog metallers Within Temptation. A first-call orchestra for film scores and soundtracks, they have recorded original works for countless films on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2014, a year after Jules Buckley took over as conductor and music director, the group committed itself to working with international vocalists. Their first such projects were Laura Mvula with Metropole Orkest, and Live in Holland with Asha Bhosle. In 2017 they collaborated with electronic composer Jameszoo for the in-concert Melkweg, and with Argentine composer and jazz pianist Pablo Ziegler for Amsterdam Meets New Tango. A year later, they collaborated with Raul Midon on his If You Really Want and in 2019, made their debut performance at the annual extreme music festival Roadburn in collaboration with Triptykon for their commissioned original work Requiem. The Metropole Orkest was founded in 1945 by the Dutch Radio Foundation under the leadership of conductor Dolf van der Linden; the 17-member ensemble made its debut on November 25 of that year, and in the decades to follow established itself as an institution of the European jazz community, backing everyone from Tony Bennett and Shirley Bassey to Natalie Cole. After 35 years at the helm, van der Linden left the orchestra in 1980 and was replaced by Rogier van Otterloo; in the wake of van Otterloo’s 1988 death, the reins were handed to artistic director Dick Bakker, who held them until American composer, arranger, and conductor Vince Mendoza took over the baton in 2005 and held it until Jules Buckley, a guest conductor from 2008 on received it from him in 2013. The orchestra’s reputation flourished over the next several years. They issued globally acclaimed albums including Revolutions with Jim Beard in 2008,El Viento: The Garcia Lorca Project, Ivan Lins & the Metropole Orchestra and Morricone: The Maestro, The Music, And the Orchestra, all in 2010. Despite releasing 20 albums between 2008 and 2011, the Dutch government seriously considered withdrawing the group’s funding. In December, a budget was assured through 2017. Metropole Orkest issued some of its most prestigious recordings over the next five years, including Edu Lobo & Metropole Orkest, Perfect Vision: The Esquivel Sound, and Sylva with Snarky Puppy. In 2017 a concert with Argentine jazz pianist Pablo Ziegler was released with the title Amsterdam Meets New Tango; it drew global acclaim from critics and airplay all over Europe and Asia. In the build-up to another Dutch parliamentary debate over public funding for arts and culture in May 2018, the Metropole Orkest announced that budget cuts during the preceding five years had caused a 50-percent work reduction. Many faced problems when trying to combine the orchestra’s irregular work hours with part-time jobs required to make ends meet. Metropole Orkest issued only a one recording in 2019: a retrospective collaborative performace with Jameszoo (aka Mitchel van Dinther) entitled Melkweg, titled for the famed concert venue. They performed a commissioned collaboration with Triptykon at the year’s Roadburn Festival. Entitled Requiem, it featured the entire performance of Celtic Frost’s unfinished work of the same name; it composed by their the band’s guitarist Tom Gabriel Warrior, who founded Celtic Frost in 1986. The set was released by Century Media in the spring of 2020. The same year, a limited edition, double vinyl release of Melkweg was sold through Bandcamp – Thom Jurek & Jason Ankeny

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Melody Gardot – Sunset In The Blue (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Melody Gardot – Sunset In The Blue (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:32 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca (UMO)

Sunset in the Blue is an orchestral celebration of her jazz roots. She is reunited with the multi-Grammy award winning production team of her platinum-selling album My One and Only Thrill: Producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock), arranger and composer Vince Mendoza ((Björk, Robbie Williams, Elvis Costello) and the legendary engineer Al Schmitt (Frank Sinatra, Joao Gilberto, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney).

An underlying theme of determination to create and evolve her craft has always been present in Melody Gardot’s work but never more so than during the production of Sunset in the Blue, despite all obstacles she has assembled a stunning new body of collaborations in this most challenging of times.

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Richard Boothby, Asako Morikawa – Music to Hear… Alfonso Ferrabosco: Music for Lyra Viol from 1609 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Richard Boothby, Asako Morikawa – Music to Hear… Alfonso Ferrabosco: Music for Lyra Viol from 1609 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:52 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Recorded during the 2020 lockdown, Richard Boothby explores the solo and duo Viol music of Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger. The lyra viol and it’s music is one of the last undiscovered gems of music, and Alfonso Ferrabosco is it’s greatest exponent. It is in the category of ‘hard to define, easy to recognise’: it is at once an instrument, a style of playing and a genre of instrumental music, and, while not exclusively English, by far the largest part of it’s repertory is from these isles. A composer favoured by Queen Elizabeth I and James I, Ferrabosco also wrote music for stage works by playwright Ben Jonson, some of which would by heard in performance at Shakespeare’s Globe. Added to this he was a renowned player of the viol – a visiting court musician declaring that there was no player of ‘La lyre’ in Italy: “who was fit to be compared with the great ‘Farabosco d’Angleterre’.” Richard Boothby has been playing the viol ever since David Fallows handed him a tenor viol in 1977. After further study with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, he helped to found The Purcell Quartet in 1984 and Fretwork in 1985. He has endeavoured to enrich the viol-consort repertory with new music from today’s finest composers, from Elvis Costello to George Benjamin, from Alexander Goehr to Nico Muhly. With the Purcell Quartet, he recorded nearly 50 albums for Hyperion and Chandos; and with Fretwork over 40 albums for Virgin Classics, Harmonia Mundi USA and most recently, Signum Classics.

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Ute Lemper – Time Traveler (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Ute Lemper – Time Traveler (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:49 minutes | 815 MB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazzhaus Records

Ute Lemper, the New York-based German singer and dancer, is renowned for her interpretations of Brecht Weill songs; she slipped into the skin of Marlene Dietrich and has made a name for herself worldwide as a musical performer and specialist for the repertoire of the 1920s. “Time Traveler” is not the first album on which Ute Lemper sings her own material and yet, since the story of this collection of songs already began 23 years ago, it is a turning point in her self-perception.

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Marshall Crenshaw – Marshall Crenshaw (1982) [MFSL 2009] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Marshall Crenshaw – Marshall Crenshaw (1982) [MFSL 2009]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:15 minutes | Scans included | 1,36 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Scans included | 763 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2036

Marshall Howard Crenshaw is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist best known for his song “Someday, Someway”, a top-40 hit in 1982.

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Linda Ronstadt – Live In Hollywood (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Linda Ronstadt – Live In Hollywood (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:51 minutes | 1002 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

Billed as Linda Ronstadt’s first-ever live album, 2019’s Live in Hollywood captures highlights from an April 24, 1980 concert previously aired on HBO in 1980. Live in Hollywood doesn’t match the set list of the HBO special. Instead, Ronstadt selected 12 performances from the 20-song concert, nine of which didn’t make the air back in 1980. Generally, the songs selected for Live in Hollywood avoid the new wave elements that characterized Mad Love, the 1980 album Ronstadt was promoting at the time — the propulsive “How Do I Make You” and “I Can’t Let Go” made the cut, but the title track and Elvis Costello cover “Party Girl” were left behind — but there are certainly elements that date the performance to 1980, particularly the synth drum pinging in the background. Set such period accoutrements aside, and the album glides by with the skill and ease of seasoned SoCal professionals, and Ronstadt stands at the center of it all as a compelling presence. These 12 tracks casually illustrate her facility with both soft rock and old-time rock & roll, and if the set list leans heavily on oldies, the combination of guts and polish makes her renditions memorable. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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Melissa Lesnie & Jean-Baptiste Franc – The Wonderful Things To Come: The Songs of JC Hopkins (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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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Laura Nyro – Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Laura Nyro – Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:04:15 minutes | 698 MB | Genre: Folk, Pop, Singer-Songwriter, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Omnivore Recordings

A member of both the Songwriters and Rock & Roll Halls of Fame, Laura Nyro not only wrote songs that became hits for acts including The 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, Barbra Streisand, and many more, but has been cited as a major influence by Kate Bush, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Todd Rundgren, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked), and countless others. She recorded 10 studio albums (one released posthumously), but a live performance from Nyro was always an event.

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Loretta Lynn – Full Circle (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Loretta Lynn – Full Circle (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:54 minutes | 768 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Legacy Recordings

Full Circle is the first new studio album in over ten years from American music icon Loretta Lynn. Produced by Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash, and recorded at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Full Circle takes listeners on a journey through Loretta’s musical story, from the Appalachian folk songs and gospel music she learned as a child, to new interpretations of her classic hits and country standards, to songs newly-written for the project. Drawing inspiration from personal memories and deep connections to American music, Lynn’s 13 new recordings capture the essence of these songs in intimate new performances. The album is volume one of the Cash Cabin recordings, a series of new album projects imagined and created at the storied Cash Cabin Studio.

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Krononaut – Krononaut (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Krononaut – Krononaut (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:28 minutes | 457 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © tak til

Coming out of the fertile London jazz and experimental scenes, Krononaut is a richly textured new ensemble helmed by guitarist /producer Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Imogen Heap, Jon Hopkins) and drummer Martin France (Nils Petter Molvær, Evan Parker). The album features an esteemed group of collaborators and a sonic footprint that channels spectral ambiance, ‘fourth world’ expansions and a gorgeous slow-boiling pointillism.

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Chris Duarte – Ain’t Giving Up (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Chris Duarte – Ain’t Giving Up (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:20 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Blues Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Provogue

Blues-roots guitarist Chris Duarte releases Ain’t Giving Up, his 15th studio album. Featuring a wide range of outlaw blues, Americana, roots, and even alt-country influences, Ain’t Giving Up finds the Austin, Texas guitarist teaming up for the first time in 22 years with producer-guitarist Dennis Herring, also known for his work with artists like Buddy Guy, Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, and the Hives. But the resulting album isn’t a calculated return to roots affair. Recorded live on the studio floor with vintage gear and minimal overdubs, it’s a raw and revved-up showcase for the virtuoso’s jaw-dropping chops; his mastery of the elusive Texas shuffle; and his deep love and commitment to the blues. Ain’t Giving Up is intimate and gritty, but it also boasts pristine fidelity, as if we the listener are in the studio with Duarte and his buddies. It’s a reset for Duarte that shows his resilience and his undiminished love of the blues and American roots. “I am so grateful to be signed to Provogue and to work with Dennis again-it’s been a dream come true,” Duarte enthuses. “I have been so fortunate to play music and do my thing for almost 30 years, and I couldn’t ask for a better life.”

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Katarina Henryson, Svante Henryson – High, Low or In Between (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Katarina Henryson, Svante Henryson – High, Low or In Between (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:10 minutes | 869 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Svante Henryson, the Swedish cellist, composer, double bass and electric bass guitar player, has been awarded the Nordic Council Music Award of some 50’000 Dollars in a ceremony on Iceland. Starting as a double-bass player in the Oslo Phil, he continued as a rock musician in one of Sweden’s more famous hard rock bands, while at all times exploring the classical cello in his own imaginative way, fusing the classical with impulses from other genres.

I have deeply admired him for many years, but only when hearing him and his singing wife Katarina (of Real Group fame) at a private party, had the chance to really approach them with a recording idea. This materialized and the SACD was recentky released.

We take this opportunity to re-present it at very favourable conditions here and now for a few days. Congratulations, Svante! Way to go!!! And congrats to the Nordic Council for a choice, as excellent as it is daring! –Robert von Bahr

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