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Punch Brothers : The Phosphorescent Blues
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  May 01, 2015
There’s nothing like being ambitious: according to Punch Brothers lead singer and mandolin player Chris Thile, this album grew out of the question ‘how do we cultivate beautiful, three-dimensional experiences with our fellow man in this day and age?’. So we have songs about recognising a song – the epic ‘Familiarity’, all ten minutes plus of it – and about shining your light by holding a smartphone in the air at a gig, complete with a backing chorus comprising vocals submitted by fans, these two topping and tailing the set. All sound a bit icky and navel-gazing? Far from it: with the assured production of T Bone Burnett, some serious dynamics and close focus on the performers, this set is at turns attention-grabbing, unpredictable, quirky and sincere. It swings from folk to classical to even a little rocky, but all in a good way, and is hard not to like.
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Bobby Hutcherson, David Sanborn, Et Al : Enjoy The View
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  May 01, 2015
The veteran vibes player Bobby Hutcherson marks his return to the venerable Blue Note label with this all-star set, produced by label president Don Was and with an all-star line-up including saxophonist David Sanborn, organist Joey DeFrancesco, and drummer Billy Hart. None of these stalwart performers are exactly strangers to the recording studio thanks to extensive careers. As you might expect, this is a joyful set, with DeFrancesco’s Hammond bouncing off Hutcherson’s understated vibes, and assured rhythm-keeping by Hart. It’s a relaxed, good-time set of tunes, played by a bunch of old masters completely at ease with themselves and what the others are doing.
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Anouar Brahem : Souvenance
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Apr 02, 2015
Recorded by the Swiss Italian-language broadcaster RSI, this album by oudist Anouar Brahem apparently draws its inspiration from the recent political and social traumas of his native Tunisia. It sees Brahem’s lute-like instrument front and centre in the mix. He’s helped by close miking, and partnered by Francois Couturier (piano), Klaus Gesing (bass clarinet) and Bjorn Meyer (bass) – oh, and the small matter of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. Here the orchestra performs the function of the backing drone so often heard in Middle Eastern and North African music, underpinning Brahem’s lyrical, reflective playing and the rich interjections of Gesing’s clarinet.
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Vijay Iyer Trio : Break Stuff
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Apr 02, 2015
Jazz pianist Vijay Iver’s been busy of late: having changed label from ACT to ECM last year, he’s managed to put out three albums, of which this is the latest, as well as being appointed a Professor of the Arts at Harvard. Here he rejoins with long-term travelling companions Stephan Crump on double-bass and Marcus Gilmore wielding the sticks – the three have been playing together for over a decade – for a set combining Iver’s takes on some jazz classics as well as self-compositions. Iver and company pay tribute to Monk, Coltrane and Strayhorn with impressive takes on ‘Work’, ‘Countdown’ and ‘Blood Count’ respectively, but it’s in the original pieces that there’s the strongest sense of musicians who know each other well both locking together and playing off each other. It’s all recorded with typical ECM clarity by label founder Manfred Eicher.
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Joshua Bell & Academy Of St Martin In The Fields : Bach
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Apr 02, 2015
Joshua Bell became artistic director of the St Martin’s Academy in 2011. New to his discography, Bach’s concertos in E and A minor are followed by contemporary adaptations, with strings, by Julian Milone (composer/academic, he also plays in the Philharmonia), from older violin/piano transcriptions of two solo pieces, plus the ‘Air’ – taken at a rather old-school slow tempo, and with Bell prominent in the mix as leader/director. He introduces tasteful modest decorations. These are very cleanly played concerto performances, seriousness in slow movements contrasted with joyous finales, tempos steadily maintained.
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Paul Lewis : Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures At An Exhibition/robert Schumann: Fantasie Op. 17
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Apr 02, 2015
You can’t help noticing that Paul Lewis’s recorded repertoire closely follows that of his mentor Alfred Brendel, whose early Vox LPs included Pictures at an Exhibition, a work he redid 30 years later for Philips. Issued with a bold Kandinsky cover, this Teldex Studio coupling is from Nov ’10/Feb ’14 and there’s a real disparity in sound quality. Pictures. .
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Various : Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Apr 02, 2015
Almost 50 years on, this is the companion to Dylan’s original The Basement Tapes album. In 2013 Dylan’s publisher sent musician and producer T Bone Burnett a collection of lyrics unused at the time of the original sessions. Burnett then assembled a group of musicians including Elvis Costello, Jim James and Marcus Mumford to compose music for these lyrics. Of 40 recorded, the 20 tracks here make up Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes Vol 1.
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Christopher Palameta : Marais: Suites For Oboe
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Mar 06, 2015
Born in Paris in 1656, Marin Marais studied the viol under Sainte Colombe and worked under Lully in the court orchestra. He wrote over 800 pieces for viol, many in suite form and the Canadian oboist has transcribed six of those here. (The baroque oboe was first heard in a work by Lully a year after Marais was born and it quickly became very much in demand in France. ) The suites are typically in seven-movement form – Prélude, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet, etc – with a few concluding Gigues having descriptive titles: ‘La Chicane’, ‘La Badine’, ‘La Petite’.
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Voces8 : Lux
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Mar 06, 2015
With Oliafur Eliasson’s 2003 installation from Tate Modern as cover (and texts white on orange – hard to read!) this vocal collection of arrangements covers a wide time-span, like their Signum album Choral Tapestry. Their second Decca programme, on the theme of a comforting warmth that music can bring, introduces one or two instrumental ‘guests’ – cello, saxophone, water-tuned glasses – and spans from Tallis and Allegri (Miserere Mei) to contemporary writers in the pop field: ‘Teardrop’ from Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and Ben Folds’ ‘The Luckiest’ from a Richard Curtis film soundtrack – an item I found intrusive. Voces8 (two sopranos, counter-tenors and tenors, baritone and bass) were recorded in helpful acoustics at Dore Abbey, in Herefordshire, and more intimately, a Highgate, London, church. Hard to fault, though arguably best for ‘dipping into’.
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Jason Seizer : Cinema Paradiso
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Mar 06, 2015
Coming to this one hot on the heels of the Craig Armstrong's It's Nearly Tomorrow, it might be tempting to think ‘Not another album of film music’, but though German-born saxophonist Jason Seizer has created an album drawing on music from some celebrated movies, he combines with his band – Pablo Held on piano, Matthias Pichler on bass and drummer Fabian Arends – to come up with a set that’s both smooth of sound and perfect for a little late-night listening. Not surprisingly Seizer’s breathy sax is to the fore, underpinned by delicate playing from his fellow musicians, with plenty of brushwork and cymbals in the percussion department, a rich, warm bass and every touch of the piano crystal-clear. It’s not the most challenging jazz album you’ve ever heard, but the musicianship is beyond question, and the recorded sound serves the performers well. AE Sound Quality: 85% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Digitally recorded and mastered, this 96kHz rendering offers very low levels of white noise (hiss).
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