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Hi-Res Downloads
Pink Floyd : Endless River
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Mar 06, 2015
This is either the long-awaited 15th and final album from Pink Floyd, or a collection of edit-suite sweepings lashed together with some new material and, given the variable sound-quality on offer here, the latter description isn’t without justification. Based on recordings for The Division Bell in 1993/4 (and already rejected for release back in 1994 as The Big Spliff), it’s intended as both a tribute to Richard Wright and what Dave Gilmour calls ‘a 21st-century Pink Floyd album’, and while it has delighted Floyd fanatics, it adds little to the collection of the casual listener. In fact, it’s more a case of ‘spot the source’ if you’re familiar with the back catalogue, and comparing this 96kHz/24-bit version with the standard CD-quality release, there’s not much gained, and arguably the slightly rag-bag nature of the content is more obviously revealed. AE Sound Quality: 70% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Tracks 19-21 are upsamples of 44.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Craig Armstrong : It's Nearly Tomorrow
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Mar 06, 2015
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.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Riccardo Minasi, Et Al : Vivaldi: Concerti Per Due Violini E Archi, Vol. 1
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
This is the third programme by Il Pomo d’Oro (founded in 2012, the group takes its name from a ten-hour 17th-century opera written by Antonio Cesti) in Naïve’s ambitious plan to record all of the Vivaldi works lodged in the Turin library. You’ll need to do some internet searching to find what exactly you are listening to here, as only the cover comes with this download. The six concertos vary in mood and inventiveness, with some fugal writing in the G-minor, RV517(i), birdsong and concluding ‘percussive’ effects in the opening track of the A-minor, RV523(i). The C-minor RV509 is quite a sombrely sustained work and it contrasts with the lively E-flat, RV515, with its echoing phrases.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Jerome Sabbagh : The Turn
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
96kHz/24-bit FLAC, Bee Jazz BEE 064 (www. supplied by www. hdtracks. co.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Queras & Melnikov : Beethoven: Complete Works For Violoncello & Piano
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
96kHz/24-bit FLAC, Harmonia Mundi HMC 902183. 84 (supplied by www. eclassical. com) Early, middle and late period sonatas are prefaced by the three sets of variations on this release, complementary to the violin sonatas with Faust/Melnikov [HFN Yearbook 2010, ‘Album Choice’].
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Hi-Res Downloads
Luzerner Sinfonieorchester & James Gaffigan : Dvorak: Symphony No. 6. American Suite
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
Political ill-will meant that the planned Vienna Philharmonic premiere of the Brahms-influenced Dvo?ák Sixth was deferred for three years and it was first played by a Prague orchestra in 1881. The VPO’s only recording came in 2000 under Myung-Whun Chung – superb, like the BPO/Kubelík (both DG), and I don’t think this Lucerne Orchestra version offers any real challenge. In seeking out every tiny detail, their young American chief conductor, I think, loses a forward momentum – even in the furiant scherzo. Only in the finale does everything come together splendidly.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers : Hypnotic Eye
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
Rarely does the evergreen Tom Petty disappoint his fans, his 13th album with The Heartbreakers proving to be no exception – except that it was three long years in the making. Perhaps because of this it feels over-produced and lacks any feeling of ‘performance’, despite the album being the band’s most rollicking and hard-rockin’ collection of tracks in a very long time. Power chords and jangling guitars combine with tremendous harmony vocals reminiscent of Petty’s outings when an angry young man in the ’70s. Of course we’ve heard it all before, but Petty’s song-writing remains as sharp and incisive as ever.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Imogen Heap : Sparks
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 26, 2015
96kHz/24-bit WAV, ALAC, FLAC*, Absolute/Megaphonic megad007 (supplied by www. naimlabel. com) As our Lab Report warns, there’s nothing ‘hi-res’ about the sound of Imogen Heap’s latest assemblage of sonic sculptures. Nevertheless she’s as inventive and eclectic as ever in her musical explorations in which she has cut ’n’ pasted a patchwork of myriad samples and ‘sound seeds’ (field recordings of mundane sounds sent in by her fans).
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Hi-Res Downloads
Sons Of Kemet : Burn
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 25, 2015
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.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Anna Malikova : Alexander Scriabin: The Piano Sonatas
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Feb 25, 2015
The Moscow composer-pianist Alexander Scriabin wrote his first five piano sonatas between 1893 and 1907; the other five date from 1911-13 (Nos 5-10 are in single-movt form). They show a development from a Chopin-influenced style – eg, ‘Funèbre’ in Sonata 1 – to one where ‘the tonic became distantly perspectived… existing only in the imagination’. Some have associated texts or sub-texts. Also Moscow trained, Anna Malikova made her recordings in a German studio in Feb/March of 2012, ’13 and ’14, playing a Shigeru Kawai pianoforte – then a newly launched model.
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