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192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, Linn Records CKD 432 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) This second Linn album by the young Japanese artist Kuniko Kato comprises arrangements, mostly for marimba, of well-known minimalist pieces by Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. She also plays a solo work by Hywell Davies, Purl Ground, premiered by Kuniko at Cheltenham in 2011.

192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, Linn Records CKD 430 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) The two hunting horns played by Anneke Scott and Joseph Walters make a glorious noise at the start of Concerto 1, and their duo in 1(v), 6m 25s-7m 27s, is as clean as a whisker. Similarly, 4(iii) seemingly holds no terrors for trumpeter David Blackadder.

Authentically Norwegian as Torvik and trio may be, Tranquil Fjord commences just as you might fear, the opening title track plinking a New Age path into a gentle guitar-led arrangement, meandering slowly through shallows rather regimented in their quantisation, and underlain by an intrusively full-width soundstage granted to the percussion of Hermund Nygård – close-miked snare brushes lent distracting prominence. These two qualities, forward percussion and ‘swinglessness’, continue even on speedier pieces such as ‘Kryssande’ and ‘Land Veg Helm’, bass and guitar each lacking a fully resolved space in either soundstage or equalisation, all three performers instead firing from the same place. When Torvik gives his guitar synth a few directionless refrains at the close of ‘Endelaus Veg’, it encapsulates the general meaninglessness of it all. JF Sound Quality: 70% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Unlike the ‘96kHz’ Mike Oldfield: Five Miles Out download (reviewed here) the limited ~20kHz bandwidth of this 24-bit recording is perfectly in keeping with its claimed 44.

It is 30 years since Jarrett’s mesmerising Standards Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette took its first try at taking known tunes to unknown places, but there’s nothing remotely stale in this 2009 performance recorded live in Switzerland. From the start the trio’s familial empathy allows a spectacular rise from an unpromising intro into Miles Davis’ ‘Solar’, while the big J’s melodic modifications of ‘Stars Fell On Alabama’ are as entrancing as the bastard rhythm slices of ‘Devil And The Deep Blue Sea’ are baffling. The grail here is the central 20-minute coupling of Bernstein’s ‘Somewhere’ with Jarrett’s own complementary composition ‘Everywhere’, the former’s bluesy sequences yielding rich plateaus of improvisation. All is enhanced by engineer Martin Pearson’s delivery of both ambient soundstaging and close stereo-miked piano clarity; you’ll never miss a moan.