Laura van der Heijden & Jâms Coleman – Path to the Moon (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:28 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
The performers write: ‘Selecting the repertoire for our album Path to the Moon, we wanted to explore a number of possibilities for binding together a programme. To place different works alongside one another is a wonderful way of bringing out new and unusual qualities in each piece. William T. Horton’s fantastic image The Path to the Moon immediately inspired a flurry of ideas, including works on the subjects of both night and the moon, as well as pieces which invoke the exploratory nature of humankind’s voyage to the moon. Britten wrote his Sonata for Cello and Piano only two years after the first object made by humans had touched the surface of the moon, in 1959. Humans throughout history and from all cultures have been drawn to and taken inspiration from the moon and we have tried to reflect this in our eclectic choice of song repertoire: from Tōru Takemitsu to Nina Simone and from Lili Boulanger to Florence Price. As we hope you will hear on this album, Walker’s Cello Sonata rings with echoes of the sound-worlds of blues and jazz and is infused with a beautiful lyricism. We really believe that Walker’s Cello Sonata deserves to become a staple of the chamber music repertoire and are absolutely thrilled to offer you a recording of it in the context of our own exploration of a path to the moon.’
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Laura Jane Grace – Hole In My Head (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 25:35 minutes | 295 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Big Scary Monsters
Hole In My Head opens with a shot of pure exhilaration: The title track is classic, racing punk rock with an absolutely great hollered chorus. It’s furious and thrilling and perfectly sets the tone for the second solo album from Laura Jane Grace, the anarcho-punk singer of Gainesville, Florida’s Against Me! who came out as transgender in 2012. Grace sounds fantastic—her voice less smooth and less shredded, but as passionate and aggressive as ever. “Dysphoria Hoodie” shifts gears back to the folk punk that Against Me! pioneered and perfected in the early aughts, when they defined the sometimes acoustic genre with strident attitude and a flair for the dramatic. Grace has explained that “Any trans person out there knows what a dysphoria hoodie is—it’s the hoodie you wear when feeling low and dysphoric and you don’t want the world reading your gender … Instant protection from the outside world.” The fitful acoustic track has the spirit of a protest song even as it begs for comfort: “Dysphoria hoodie, please do swallow me … Plenty reasons to fear whеn you don’t fit the mold/ You are my armor when facing thе world.”
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Neil Swainson – Fire in the West (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:00 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cellar Live
A long-time fan of the front-line pairings of the 1950s bands of Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Horace Silver (for whom “Silver Mine” is dedicated), Swainson shaped both his compositions and the blue-chip rhythm section of pianist Renee Rosnes (with whom he’d worked in the 1990s cross border band Free Trade) and Lewis Nash around this stylistic post-bop conception.
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Karl Bartos – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:15:48 minutes | 629 MB | Genre: Electronic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bureau B
Karl Bartos joined Kraftwerk during their Autobahn tour and played a crucial role in the band as they laid the groundwork for synth pop, electro, and techno. He helped write many of the group’s most iconic and best-loved songs, including “The Model,” “Computer Love,” and “Metropolis,” a haunting tune inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 dystopian classic of the same name. Decades after leaving the band and sporadically issuing efforts ranging from Kraftwerk-style electropop to guitar-driven pop-rock (as Elektric Music), Bartos decided to compose a score for another key work of the German Expressionist cinema movement, Robert Wiene’s 1920 horror touchstone The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Telling the tale of a respected yet mad hypnotist who drives a somnambulist to commit murders, the dark, visually striking film is often interpreted as a commentary on German society’s obedience to authority. Bartos’ 75-minute score is obviously meant to be heard while watching the film itself (it’s in the public domain, so it’s easy to view online for free), so that all of the tracks sync up with the corresponding scenes. As such, the track titles generally spell out the moods of the individual pieces. Both parts of “At the Funfair” sound like playful circus music, the “Scary Memories” are appropriately spooky, tracks like “Arrest of the Suspect” and “Interrogation” are tense and suspicious, “Cesare’s Attack and Escape” gets dramatic and alarming, and so forth. It all fits the film to a tee, and makes for a riveting audio-visual experience. Unfortunately, when listened to on its own, most of the score is indistinguishable from the type of generic background music heard on any number of children’s programs on public television, as it largely consists of preset keyboard tones and simplistic melodies. Yet there are moments that stand out, like the buzzy synths and excited crowd chatter of the “Funfair” tracks, and the hypnotic, post-minimalist rhythms and choral arpeggios of “Lunatic Asylum” and the title theme. Bartos’ score to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a treat for film buffs, but most Kraftwerk fans will likely find it underwhelming. – Paul Simpson
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Jeremias Fliedl, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian – Transformation (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:15 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics
“Transformation” is the debut album of Austrian cellist Jeremias Fliedl, who is at the beginning of an international career as a prizewinner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. On this album, he presents works such as Tchaikovsky’s famous Rococo Variations and Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 in a version for 9 cellos, for which he recorded all the parts himself and edited them in post-production. Jeremias Fliedl plays on the famous “ex-Gendron” Stradivarius from 1693 and is accompanied by the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn under the direction of Emmanuel Tjeknavorian.
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Nicholas Payton – The Couch Sessions (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:10 minutes | 1,45 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions
Music has the power to heal, a fact that has never been as relevant as it has over the challenging last few years. On his captivating new album, “The Couch Sessions,” the brilliant multi-instrumentalist and composer Nicholas Payton provides a session of musical therapy that draws on the compositions and words of some of the musics most visionary artists. The latest in a series that he has recorded pairing him with dream rhythm sections, Payton is joined by bassist Buster Williams and drummer Lenny White, who not only have forged one of the most distinctive rhythm tandems in recent decades but have also worked with many of the legendary artists to whom this album is dedicated. I decided to use Buster and Lenny for their shared history, Payton says, not only working with each other but also with my favorite artist ever Miles Davis. There are a lot of connections between the artists on the album and the lineages that they either came out of or were integral in starting. Working with Buster and Lenny together was a bucket list item for me. Throughout “The Couch Sessions,” Nicholas Payton and his stellar trio play therapist to listeners in need of some vital musical counseling. In these uncertain new times, the importance of music and the arts has come even more to the forefront, he says. With this album, I wanted to speak to music as a healing force, an essential source of light in our lives.
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Il Segreto delle Muse, Gabriel Garrido – Strozzi: Arias & Duets (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:36 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Pan Classics
Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) must have been an extraordinary woman. At a time when women were largely excluded from the public music scene, her musical talent was particularly encouraged. She was able to present both her wonderful voice and her extraordinarily artistic compositions in so-called “academies” of the highest Venetian society; she was even able to publish a total of eight operas with her music. The ensemble Il Segreto delle Muse presents here twelve selected arias and duets by Strozzi.
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![Nurit Stark - Bartók, Ligeti and Others: Works for Violin & Viola (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/30/gr15kdcrjs0ya_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Nurit Stark – Bartók, Ligeti and Others: Works for Violin & Viola (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:22 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
The works on this album were written between 1935 and 2019 by four Hungarian composers: Béla Bartók, who was the teacher of Sándor Veress, who taught György Ligeti, who in turn was an early but formative influence on Péter Eötvös. Their compositions all share the idea of a dialogue between cultured and popular elements, between a Western music tradition and folk music, particularly of Eastern Europe. This idea was formulated in the early 20th century by Bartók himself, who considered the use of folk elements in a piece of art music not only as a tool to revitalize the Classical tradition but also as a mean to unite different cultures.
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Niu Niu – Lifetime (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:30 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Ltd.
Hong Kong-based pianist Niu Niu releases his new programme Lifetime, a 17-track collection of works from a diverse selection of composers representing Niu Niu’s Classical upbringing. Included here are works from Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and many more!
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![Norma Jean - Thank You For Loving Me (1972/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/11/nqguq50wqs0tc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Norma Jean – Thank You For Loving Me (1972/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 25:16 minutes | 913 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA Victor
Written by Dallas Frazier and A. L. Owens. Released January 1972 from the album Thank You For Loving Me.
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![National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, Gianandrea Noseda - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/21/s1tym2sxbx4sa_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, Gianandrea Noseda – Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:18 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © National Symphony Orchestra
“Noseda’s Third [Beethoven Symphony] was a charm, deferential to the symphony’s deliberate designs but deliberate enough to enhance its details in high resolution, polish its surface, restore its gleam.”
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda will release the first installment of their complete Beethoven symphony cycle, a recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3.
In the 2021–2022 season,Music Director Gianandrea Noseda led the National Symphony Orchestra in performances of Beethoven’s symphonies 1, 3, 4, and 5. Next season, the NSO will complete its Beethoven cycle with performances of the remainder of Beethoven’s nine symphonies in May and June 2023. This initial release of the NSO’s performances of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 was recorded live in January 2022 at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall.
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Joshua Spacht – Chopin at Midnight (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:36 minutes | 362 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
“Chopin at Midnight” is a reimagining of some of my favorite Chopin pieces for solo piano. I’ve wanted to do a solo piano / classical project for years, and Signum’s Steve Long embraced my vision. While Chopin mostly wrote for small, live performances in the salons of Paris, I’ve wondered for some time what his compositions would sound like if he were alive today in the age of streaming? What lengths would they be; which motifs would he choose to repeat; which tempi and miking techniques would he use? I’ve approached these arrangements with those parameters in mind, while still embracing the idea that Chopin is fundamentally more harmonically complex than most Neo-classical music. I wanted to squeeze out melodic and secondary phrases and allow the listener to enjoy them in perhaps a way that one couldn’t in a typical, full-paced interpretation. I’ve found there’s an entirely different world of colors, textures, and moments when we’re allowed to linger a bit longer on the pieces — unhurriedly. The one original piece, “Dorothy’s Theme”, was largely improvised in the studio as we were wrapping up the recording session. It’s a tribute to my grandmother who was in hospice at the time or recording.
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Howard Griffiths, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg & Jonathan Fournel – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 18 KV 456 & 21 KV 467 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:19 minutes | 971 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
“Bravo Mozart!” exclaimed Emperor Joseph II as he stood up and tipped his hat at the end of the first performance of Piano Concerto No. 18 KV 456 , played by Mozart himself on 30 September 1784. Less than a year later, the composer pens his iconic 21st concerto, which is performed here by the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg conducted by Howard Griffiths, and pianist Jonathan Fournel. Winner of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2021, the French pianist has already made a Brahms recording for Alpha (ALPHA851). At the age of 30, he is developing a highly promising career, impressing audiences at every one of his concerts.
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