Hi-Res Downloads

96kHz/24-bit WAV/FLAC/ALAC*, BMG/Chrysalis 538013154 (supplied by www.naimlabel.com)

This solo outing from award-winning composer Craig Armstrong was started when he was in Australia working on the music for the recent Baz Luhrmann remake of The Great Gatsby. Take all that on board, and you’ll probably have an inkling of what to expect from the generous 17 tracks that are on offer here, 11 of which are instrumental – it sounds pretty much like film music, the songs having a distinct air of being rolled out to underpin the end titles of a movie. The sound has good instrumental definition given the big, lush arrangements of most of the tracks here, but there’s nothing to trouble even fairly modest systems, let alone stretch anything designed for high-resolution playback. Armstrong says ‘I see it as quite a romantic album’, so it’s one to sit back and let wash over you. Whether you’ll want a second play is another matter. AE

Sound Quality: 75%

Hi-Fi News Lab Report

Another download that’ll light the 96kHz LED but which is evidently an upsample from 44.1kHz. Tracks 3, 4 and 12 are direct upsamples while the remainder [see Graph] show excess ultrasonic noise almost as if downsampled from SACD. PM