![Nektar - Remember The Future (Deluxe Edition) (1973/2023) [High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-Ray Disc]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2024/05/01/NjktMTk3MS5qcGVn.jpg)
Wham – Make It Big (1984) [Japanese SACD 2001]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 38:00 minutes | Scans included | 1,17 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Full Scans included | 1,11 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Full Scans included | 949 MB
This is the album that started it all for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley! Whether or not it will ever be “cool” to admit liking them, Make It Big sounds pretty good after all of these years. Granted, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is an impossible notion to begin with–who could possibly sleep after this sugar binge? But “Everything She Wants” has a sophisticated tension in its syncopation, and, wow, could the boy sing! “Careless Whisper” really showed that George Michael had a firm grasp on R&B and Soul.
Read more
The Bill Crow Quartet – Jazz Anecdotes (1997) [Japan 2016]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 61:04 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 1,86 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,67 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 751 MB
Bassist Bill Crow is better-known as being sideman in the band rather than a leader. His dreams definitely came true in this, his second release for Venus. Selections are composed of standards, classic jazz compositions, and a pair of originals.
Read more
Stefano Bollani Trio – I’m In The Mood For Love (2007) [Japan 2018]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 62:07 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 1,8 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,63 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 744 MB
Stefano Bollani is an artist of ebullient virtuosity, with uncommon sensitivity and range. The Italian pianist has proved to be at home on ECM improvising solo or leading a trio, as well as engaging in duos with Enrico Rava and Chick Corea. This album, recorded for Japanese Venus Records, features piano jazz renditions of your favorite American standards.
Read more
Mattias Wager – Hymne A L’univers (2013)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 63:25 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 1,54 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,35 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,18 GB
Hymne a l’univers is an album on Opus 3 Records from acclaimed organist Mattias Wager, whose previous release on Opus 3 Records was the best-selling album entitled Organ Treasures. Mattias also performed on the previous Opus 3 Records releases Live at Vatnajökull, and played on a couple of the Erik Westberg choir albums! The Stockholm City Hall is known around the world for housing the Nobel prize banquet. It is also home to the largest organ in Scandinavia. On this spectacular instrument, with its 10,400 pipes, Mattias Wager plays French music from the Thirties. The music, by Alain, Jolivet, Bonnal and Duruflé shows the scope and sheer creativity of its time, and its feeling of boundless musical possibilities. With its wealth of sound, the Stockholm City Hall organ is one of the few instruments that make it possible to really bring out all the colors in this repertoire. Additionally this is the first real recording of this organ, even though it was built in 1926, 3 years after the Stockholm City Hall was opened to the public.
Read more
Vladimir Feltsman – Schubert: Piano Works, Vol. 7 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:37:57 minutes | 2,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nimbus Alliance
In his music, if not in his life, Schubert was able to reconcile his innermost longings with the realities of life, to overcome the fear of death and restore the “lost paradise” of innocence and beauty. Very few artists have expressed their inner world, their vision of heaven, with such lucidity and conviction. Schubert composed an incredible amount of music during the last year of his life, as if knowing that he was running out of time. These works represent the pinnacle of his creativity, summing up his exploration of different musical forms, genres, and manner of writing. Among his finest compositions from this period are two sets of Impromptus and the Musical Moments that are included in this recording. [© Vladimir Feltsman]
Read more
Tom Reaves Jr – Soulful Strut (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 45:06 minutes | 544 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ShutterAxe Media
ShutterAxe Music and Photography
The album is done but the first single “Soulful Strut” is available now on all platforms.
Thierry Maillard – Maman (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 42:27 minutes | 774 MB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ilona Records
To tell the truth, it is above all the news of his performances that pushes me to write these few words precisely today (see calendar below). There is indeed the timing of an artist who prevails, because he must ensure his concerts, release his albums, but there is also also life that goes on and this formidable expression that imposes itself, whatever it is: the show must go on! And for Thierry Maillard, this is exactly that … a musician of whom we are used to saying the greatest good, whether solo, with his MLB Trio, the Chameleon Ensemble, A Tear of Rain, and the Moog Project who gave a sublime performance on June 27 this year at the famous Ronnie Scott’s in London … before Thierry lost his mother in July … And it is in a rush of love, creation and emotion that Thierry Maillard started composing and recording this album the following month. He had to find very close musical friends to accompany him through this painful ordeal, and for all of them, it was not the time to let go of a friend to perfect this opus-tribute to a mother. These are 11 titles, 11 memories of shared moments and intense emotions transmitted more or less surreptitiously, with tenderness, delicacy. Thierry is on the piano, Fender Rhodes and synthesizer to interpret his compositions, accompanied by Dominique Di Piazza on bass, Yoann Schmidt on drums and percussion, Olivier Gay on cello on 4 tracks and Philippe Gaillot on guitar on 2 other tracks. A very very beautiful tribute, modest and intense at the same time. An opus that will make you shiver, make you tremble with emotion and make you shed one or more tears as it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful…
Read more
Nicki Parrott – Fly Me to the Moon (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:48 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Venus Records, Inc.
Very relaxed you fly to the moon with the Australian singer and double bass player Nicky Parrott – the interpretation of Frank Sinatra’s classic song became the album title at the same time. With her 5-piece backing band, the jazz artist invites you to enjoy and switch off, like with the folk song “Waltzing Matilda”, which was proposed as the official Australian national anthem, or a wonderful version of Stevie Wonder’s “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer”.
Nicki Parrott (voc, b), John Di Martino (p), Lisa Parrott (bs, ss), Mark Sganga (g), Harry Allen (ts), Billy Drummond (d). Recorded at “The Avatar Studio” in New York on June 17, 18 and 19, 2008.
Venus LPs are pressed only once. After the first edition is sold out, the titles will be removed from the catalog. Collectors should therefore consider a purchase in time.
Read more
The Skinflicks – Let’s ‘ave it! (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 26:25 minutes | 359 MB | Genre: Punk Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Trisol
“Let’s ‘ave It!”, you angrily shout out seconds before settling the score, when determined to not let it stand – thoroughly fed up with the lot of them! “Let’s ‘ave It!” is the challenge uttered to your opponents when you are unafraid and ready to fight.
The above sums up THE SKINFLICKS’ general mindset nicely, as they present their new album as a follow-up to 2021’s surprising comeback-album-of-sorts “Old dogs, new tricks”.
Read more
Steve Grossman – Love Is the Thing (Remastered 2024) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 42:17 minutes | 518 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Red records
Steven Mark Grossman (January 18, 1951 – August 13, 2020) was an American jazz fusion and hard bop saxophonist.
Grossman was Wayne Shorter’s replacement in Miles Davis’s jazz-fusion band.[2] He played with Chick Corea on the album “The Sun” in 1970, then, from 1971 to 1973, he was in Elvin Jones’s band.
In the late 1970s, he was part of the Stone Alliance trio with percussionist Don Alias and bassist Gene Perla. The group released four albums during this period, including one featuring Brazilian trumpeter Márcio Montarroyos. The albums also feature an array of other musicians. They went on to release three live reunion albums during the 2000s.
SPRINTS – Letter to Self (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 39:39 minutes | 764 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © City Slang
“This is an exploration of pain, passion and perseverance,” is how Sprints present their debut album. After having developed their decidedly British garage-punk under Nice Swan Recording with the EPs A Modern Job and Manifesto, released in 2021, the young quartet from Dublin has moved onto the Berlin-based indie label City Slang (Calexico, Hauschka, Gold Panda, Tindersticks, as well as Anna Von Hausswolff) for Letter To Self. Produced by expert of noise texture and bassist of Gilla Band, Daniel Fox, and recorded in just 12 days in Anjou, this dazzling record of 11 garage tracks doesn’t hold back, seeking catharsis over subtlety.
Read more
Sofia Diniz, Fernando Miguel Jalôto – L’echo Du Danube (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:47:00 minutes | 2,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Challenge Classics
L’Echo du Danube is the poetic title Johann Schenck gave to his collection of pieces for viola da gamba, which were first published around 1703 / 04 as opus 9 in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger – the most important music printer of the time. L’Echo du Danube is the last complete work by Schenck to have survived, a fact which lends these pieces the weight of a “musical testament”. It comprises six sonatas for viola da gamba solo: the first two sonatas with basso continuo accompaniment, the next two also with basso continuo, but this time ad libitum (optional), and the last two for viola da gamba without any accompaniment. Although Marin Marais had already published his first book of pièces de viole in 1686 and the flourishing English viol tradition was well known in Northern Europe, Schenck’s approach to the instrument is an important step in the process of creating an independent repertoire written specifically for the viol by composers who were themselves performers and had mastered its idiomatic idiosyncrasies. Although Schenck fully exploits the potential of the viol as a melodic instrument, he clearly favors its possibilities for playing chords in a way that is strongly influenced by lute playing and repertoire: he tries to show the viol as a harmonically independent instrument that is suited for polyphonic writing in addition to its talent for melodic singing. This is why he wrote so distinctively: he used plenty of chords and double stops, constantly alternated between bass and treble registers and strove for an effective combination of lush harmony and depth of sound without losing sight of the viola’s delicate, cantabile voice.
Read more
Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch & Tuija Hakkila – Bach: Six Sonatas, BWV 1014-1019 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:34:55 minutes | 988 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ondine
All but the last of Johann Sebastian Bach’s six sonatas for violin and harpsichord (BWV 1014–19) commence with slow movements of intense feeling. This is music of implication and inference, the emotions no less real for their apparent lack of specificity. There is pleasure in the paradox: even without a text, the music sings. The copying and the performance of these sonatas were crucial to the mission of memorialising Bach’s music, but not merely as a matter of historical interest or archival fastidiousness. C. P. E. Bach described these works as among the best works of his ‘dear departed father’: they still sound very good and give me much joy, although they date back more than fifty years. They contain some Adagios that could not be written in a more singable manner today.’ C. P. E. Bach’s well-worn copy of the Sonatas shows that he played them frequently. In this recording, Tuija Hakkila plays a copy of a Gottfried Silbermann 1747 fortepiano by Andrea Restelli. J. S. Bach played one of his fortepianos in 1747 in Potsdam for Frederick the Great and his court musicians. In his last years Bach even seems to have served as a dealer for Silbermann’s fortepianos in Leipzig.
Read more