Hi-Res Downloads

96kHz/24-bit WAV, ALAC, FLAC*, Naim CD195 (supplied by www.naimlabel.com)

Burn is the 2013 debut album from the winners of a MOBO award last year. Sons Of Kemet are a London-based band famed for rattling the rafters with boisterous and eclectic jazz-with-a-twist. Fronted by 29-year-old Shabaka Hutchings (reeds) who spent most of his childhood in Barbados, the band comprises Oren Marshall (tuba) and two drummers: Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner. That’s it. Bass lines are provided by the parping tuba of Marshall, the twin drummers thumping out variously riotous and mesmerising poly-rhythmic beats to underpin Hutchings’ joyously sculpted musical meanderings. (London Jazz News aptly described it a ‘galumphing sound’.) The band has infectious verve and delivers a rollercoaster of adrenaline-fuelled fun. Unfortunately, the album appears to have been mastered with everything turned up to 11, so it’s far from easy listening. JB

Sound Quality: 65%

Hi-Fi News Lab Report

Not unlike Max Raptor’s Mother’s Ruin (another 96kHz offering from the Naim stable) this download contains mixed sample-rate content, most obvious in tracks 5 and 6 [see Graph above]. Strictly, this is not a native 96kHz file. PM