Hi-Res Downloads

Florian Weber
Imaginary Cycle (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.ecmrecords.com; ECM 2782
Even by ECM’s standards, this release from composer/pianist Weber is both idiosyncratic and esoteric, but the fact it’s also so approachable ensures its appeal. A series of extended pieces – 'Opening', 'Word', 'Sacrifice' and 'Blessing' – are topped and tailed with a Prelude and Epilogue, the album drawing on a wide range of stylistic influences, drifting from the contemplative to the near-meditational. And while Weber’s piano is always front and centre, the rest of the instrumentation adds to the fascination. There are quartets of euphoniums and trumpets, a flute, and even a serpent, that curvaceous early brass instrument, intermingling and creating unusual textures to match the way the music progresses from the relaxed to the complex. Add to the mix the usual exemplary ECM production and engineering, here made explicit in this hi-res release, and you have an album as unusual as it is magical. AE

Sound Quality: 90%

Lab Report
Piano fills the first 10kHz and higher brass some kHz beyond, but it’s the higher harmonics of the flute that fully populate the ~40kHz bandwidth of this clean ECM production. Peaks stay below –1dB, and dynamic range is good. PM

John Escreet
Seismic Shift (48kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.whirlwindrecordings.com; Whirlwind Recordings WR 4793
Pianist Escreet is certainly a transatlantic artist – born in the UK, he spent plenty of time in New York before heading for the West Coast in 2020. This is his first trio set, on which he’s joined by fellow Angelenos (and Big Apple ‘expats’) Eric Revis on bass and drummer Damion Reid, for a set mixing original compositions and free-form improvisations, all stemming from a gig the three played in LA in 2021. The fourth track, “RD”, was written for that first outing, celebrating Escreet’s new colleagues, and is perhaps one of the more structured pieces here. Elsewhere there really is a sense of “seismic” disruption at play, a subject close to home in California, and readily apparent as the three fire off each other, each instrument captured beautifully in a dynamic, sparky recording able to hold and grab the attention. It rewards repeated listens with newly revealed details. AE

Sound Quality: 85%

Lab Report
The harmonic bandwidth of double bass and piano fall well within the ~24kHz available here, though percussion would have benefitted from a higher sample rate. All tracks are normalised to –0.1dB and dynamic range is below average. PM

Song Yi Jeon & Vinicius Gomes
Home (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.greenleafmusic.com; Greenleaf Music n/a cat. no.
The world of jazz sometimes throws up some unlikely – and often multinational – combinations of musicians, and this release is no exception: Jeon is a Korean-born, Swiss-based vocalist, and Gomes a Brazilian guitarist living in New York. They met at Switzerland’s Basel Jazzcampus, and this release is an excellent demonstration of Jeon’s belief that 'even if you’re coming from practically opposite directions, you can still meet at a common point'. That’s the theme of Home, with Jeon’s often wordless vocals set against the mainly acoustic nylon-strung guitar of Gomes – though he “goes electric” on the song that brought them together, here recorded as “A Timeless Place”. The only other vocal track here is Jeon’s waltz “Expecting Spring”. Home isn’t the last word in recorded quality, but it manages to entertain and involve the listener, and is well worth a listen. AE

Sound Quality: 80%

Lab Report
All the tracks here are normalised to –0.95dB while spectral analysis suggests trks 1-9 are upsampled from 48kHz and trk 10 from 44.1kHz [black spectrum]. Moreover, the original sampling(s) were taken hard up to the Nyquist limit(s). PM

Kjetil Bjerkestrand
HEKS (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)*
www.grappa.no; Grappa GRCD4809
Despite the technical foibles [see PM’s Lab Report below], HEKS may still be one to watch. This ensemble takes its name from its members – percussionist Helge Norbakken, guitarist Eivind Aarset, composer/musician Kjetil Bjerkestrand and violinist Sara Övinge – each of whom is a leading performer in the Norwegian music scene. The album combines acoustic instrumentation with the synthesised soundscapes of Bjerkestrand, who wrote all the pieces here, and Aarset’s guitars. Themes range from the opening 'Tung Tids Tale' ('Speech Of Hard Times'), written in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, via Martin Luther King’s 'Dream' speech, to the hugely enjoyable, cinematic 'Tribute', seamlessly transitioning from J S Bach to James Bond. Pattering drums combine with Eastern influences, the ensemble delivering a scale belying its minimalist headcount. AE

Sound Quality: 80%

Lab Report
Supplied as a 96kHz file – just what a DAC or streamer would have us believe – this looks more like an upsample of the 44.1kHz CD master, peaking at –0.4dB. Track 2 may be at 96kHz but it hosts an obvious alias signal [black]. PM

Pauline Anna Strom
Plot Zero (96kHz/24-bit, FLAC)
www.igetrvng.com; RVNG ReRVNG18
Here’s one to be filed firmly under 'turn on, tune in and drop out'. This 1983 album by the late Californian musician, healer and spiritualist was described by her at the time of its original release as a 'mind trip without chemicals', and in this remaster from her original tapes it’s not hard to see what she meant. Plot Zero is a series of extended synthesised soundscapes, with repeated rhythms laid over all kinds of phasey, spacey sounds – rather like early-period Jean-Michel Jarre, but without the big tunes. But then who needs tunes when you can have Strom’s vision of 'an enormous planetarium, the laser show and extreme brilliance of colors traveling through the infinity of the mind; getting lost with no limits or boundaries'. It’s undeniably a period piece, and while age has perhaps been unkind to its lofty ambitions, there’s much here to please synth fans. AE

Sound Quality: 75%

Lab Report
Dynamic range is slightly below average, best on trk 2, while peaks range from –1.3dB to –0.3dB. However, while your DAC/streamer will show this album as 96kHz, in reality it’s upsampled from 44.1kHz – probably set by the synths. PM