LATEST ADDITIONS

Hi-Res Downloads
Laurence Jones : What's It Gonna Be
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Sep 01, 2015
The third album from 23-year-old British blues guitarist Jones opens with a bang, as the band slams into ‘What’s It Gonna Be’, and from there on in the pace doesn’t let up until the closer ‘Stop Moving The House’, taking in along the way a duet with Sandi Thom on the more reflective ‘Don’t Look Back’, and Jones’ labelmate Dana Fuchs deploying her considerable pipes on a cover of ‘Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love’. As a vocalist Jones is an excellent guitarist, and while this album isn’t the last word in subtlety, being more about slam, drive and soaring guitar solos, while the occasional downbeat track sounds rather too AOR, it does its job effectively enough. The rhythm section has real weight and drive, while Jones’ guitar powers out of the mix just as you might hope it would. But somehow I still can’t help hearing the opening of ‘Evil’ and thinking ‘Devil Gate Drive’… AE Sound Quality: 80% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Keen though I am to promote this album’s charitable association, the content itself is evidently compromised.
Continue Reading »
EISA Awards
EISA Awards 2015 2016
Anton van Beek  |  Aug 14, 2015
The European Imaging and Sound Association celebrates the year's most desirable hi-fi hardware Welcome to the EISA Awards for 2015-2016. The European Imaging and Sound Association is the world’s largest independent awards panel and one that reflects the collective opinion of the 45 most respected specialist magazines centred on, but not exclusively based within, the European community. While fiscal turmoil within the Euro Zone continues to dominate headlines in the UK, the collaboration of EISA’s member magazines continues without pause just as the aspirations of our fellow hi-fi and music enthusiasts remain undaunted. From the EISA Convention held in May to the final General Meeting in June, member magazines pool their combined experience to arrive at a consensus of the very best in sound and vision products available across the wider Euro continent.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton : Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 Scythian Suite
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2015
96kHz/24-bit FLAC, BIS-2124 (supplied by www. eclassical. com) The Fifth Symphony has fared well on records, right back to the 1946 Koussevitsky/RCA and particularly with American orchestras. Prokofiev’s 1915 Diaghilev ballet commission for Ala et Lolli, a mythological Scythian concoction, met with rejection: the composer ‘did not understand a thing about dance’, said Balanchine.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Emily Barker : The Toerag Sessions
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2015
94kHz/24-bit WAV, Linn Records AKD531 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) This session came about by public demand – in between touring with her bands, Emily Barker was also playing solo acoustic shows of songs old and new, and kept being asked whether these versions of her catalogue were available to buy. As a result, she went into London’s Toerag Studios, known for its use of vintage equipment, along with producer Liam Watson, and recorded this live-to-tape, no edits set, accompanied only by her guitar and harmonica.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Cassandra Wilson : Coming Forth By Day
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2015
Cassandra Wilson will need no introduction to most audiophiles as the singer is a demonstration-room favourite, and it’s not hard to hear why in this latest album – Wilson’s homage to Billie Holiday. Wilson’s voice is close-focused and centre-stage, and the instrumentation captured with every detail intact, from the sparse backing to ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ to the cinematic orchestra on ‘Strange Fruit’. The roster of musicians is also pretty impressive: production is by Nick Launay, T Bone Burnett adds guitar, and Van Dyke Parks wrote the string arrangements. And yet there’s something oddly one-note here as too many of these standards sound slow and mournful, while the Bond-esque orchestra on ‘Strange Fruit’ is at odds with the subject matter.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Daniel Hope, Paul Neubauer, David Finckel, Wu Han : Brahms, Schumann, Mahler: Piano Quartets
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2015
Daniel Hope and colleagues (the pianist is the wife of former Emerson Quartet cellist David Finckel) recorded this programme live at Lincoln Center in March ’15. Mahlerians will want primarily to hear the fragment composed in 1876, not well represented in the catalogue. But it’s rather repetitive and Mahler only found his true voice a few years later in the Klagende Lied. The Brahms (First) Piano Quartet is the one orchestrated by Schoenberg.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Jose James : Yesterday I Had The Blues: The Music Of Billie Holiday
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2015
Like Cassandra Wilson’s Coming Forth By Day [reviewed here], this album marks the centenary of Billie Holiday’s birth – and while one might expect James’s voice to be less well suited to the music most associated with the singer than Wilson’s, in fact exactly the opposite is true. Whereas Wilson’s set sounds mannered and highly constructed, James’s has a more sincere feel to it, not least due to the relaxed interplay between his voice, Jason Moran’s piano, John Patitucci on bass and Eric Harland’s controlled, expressive drumming. The band sounds tight and intuitive – listen to the bluesy opening of ‘Fine And Mellow’ to appreciate that – and the perfect foil for James’s warm, rich voice. At the risk of labouring the point, this album’s gospelly, plaintive take on ‘Strange Fruit’ moves in a way Wilson’s widescreen epic reading entirely fails to.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Scottish Chamber Orchestra Wind Soloists : Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Divertimenti
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2015
192kHz/24-bit ALAC/FLAC, CKD 479 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) Most collectors will have discovered the Mozart Divertimenti and Serenades via Decca and its mono/stereo LP series with various Viennese ensembles, from the time of Willi Boskovsky. Linn’s enjoyable programme with the SCO players – pairs of clarinets, horns and bassoons – has more of an ‘outdoors’ style, fresh and open.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Jacob Young Et Al : Forever Young
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2015
See what they did with the album name? Hmmm – but obvious title aside, this is a striking set, combining the talents of guitarist Young with the piano of Marcin Wasilewski (whose trio also contributes bass and drums) and saxophonist Trygve Seim, to form a quintet clearly locked together and understanding each other’s every move. It works well, from the reflective opener, ‘I Lost My Heart to You’, through to the rather more upbeat ‘Bounce’, for which Young swaps acoustic for electric – and an electric with a lovely hollow-bodied tone – and the changing paces of 1970. The appeal is extended by a typically up close and personal ECM recording, though at times it does seem a little ‘hot’, with a bit too much sax breathiness and cymbal splash. However, it’s always interesting and involving, and the musicianship on offer here is peerless.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Diana Krall : Wallflower
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2015
I guess when you get to your 12th studio album you might be forgiven for running out of steam a bit, but this latest package from jazz diva Diana Krall has been received with somewhat mixed reviews, since its belated release due to the singer/pianist’s illness. It’s a bit of an oddity, comprising mainly of ’70s ballads by the likes of Randy Newman, The Carpenters and Elton John, and with not much sign of the piano fireworks Krall has brought to bear on some of her previous outings. It may be the familiarity of so much of the material, or that these new recordings don’t bring too much we didn’t already know, but this does seem something of an exercise in treading water. Even a new song by Paul McCartney doesn’t help much, a duet on Georgie Fame’s ‘Yeah Yeah’ is only 50% successful(!) and, while the sound is workmanlike, even that doesn’t really stand out.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X