Hi-Res Downloads

Joseph Fort/King’s Coll. Choir
Rachmaninoff: Vespers – All-Night Vigil
(96kHz/24-bit, FLAC)
www.delphianrecords.com; Delphian DCD34296

The All-Night Vigil is hardly an under-recorded work, but this release from the choir of King’s College London opens in sensational style from the first note, sounding vibrant, superbly dynamic and wide open. The voices of the choir – an Anglican chapel ensemble singing Russian Orthodox liturgy – and the acoustic of the recording venue – All Hallows’, Gospel Oak – are captured with both vivacity and fine detail by Delphian’s Paul Baxter, and the result has wonderful clarity and real power. The bass is powerful, the soloists emerge from the group in an entirely natural manner, and the musical whole is entirely thrilling. All credit to director Joseph Fort and the recording team for what must be one of the finest presentations of this massive work. This release is both musically satisfying and a sensational sonic experience – recommended without reservation. AE

Sound Quality: 90%

Lab Report

Recorded at All Hallows’, Gospel Oak with a 24-bit signal chain, this 96kHz file has an above-average dynamic range with movements peaking between –0.5dB and –8.5dB (1, 8-13 are all normalised to –1.0dB). Bandwidth is well used. PM

Pilc Moutin Hoenig
YOU Are The Song (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.justin-time.com; Justin Time Records JUST 281-2

It took almost a dozen years for this trio – pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, bassist François Moutin, and drummer Ari Hoenig – to come back together in the studio after their 2011 Threesome album, and this time they have that easy familiarity of joint experience. The trio has been playing together for three decades, and Pilc and Moutin go back even further, meaning the result is a relaxed, intuitive set mixing standards and originals, all with that easy air of improvisation and synchronicity. There’s a superb take on 'Straight No Chaser' – opening with Moutin’s bass, joined by stopped piano strings and minimal drumming, it takes the familiar and turns it into something innovative and new. It’s all enhanced by a recording throughout the set that’s crisp, lean, well-weighted and punchy, giving the listener plenty of opportunity to appreciate the skill of the interplay here. AE

Sound Quality: 85%

Lab Report

All trks on this set peak at around –1.3dB and dynamic range is ‘average’ (better on trks 5 and 10). Otherwise this is a very clean, genuine 96kHz download with percussion filling the top end of the available ~40kHz bandwidth. PM

Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli
Our Time (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.ecmrecords.com; ECM 2813

I’m not sure who has written these sleeve notes, but apparently ‘For the past 25 years, saxophonist Trygve Seim and accordionist Frode Haltli have compacted dirt together as musical allies one step at a time. In this successor to 2008’s Yeraz, the duo opens a new door of their advent calendar into a world of freshly tilled land’. OK, whatever – but clearly all that compacting and tilling has paid off in an album sounding so much more attractive than a sax and squeezebox should, thanks in no small part to another one of those spacious, atmospheric ECM recording jobs. The two instruments are allowed scope to fuse, part, intertwine and resonate with each other, creating sonic artwork and imagery as well as conventional music. Sometimes playful, sometimes plaintive, it’s a set more than justifying multiple listens to extract and enjoy all the musical subtleties on offer. AE

Sound Quality: 80%

Lab Report

With no normalisation in post-production this is a ‘natural’ recording, so peaks vary from –6.7dB/trk 8 to –1.0dB/trk 2 and dynamic range is good. It’s also a true 96kHz file, free of spuriae and where saxes fill the ~48kHz bandwidth. PM

Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas, Misha Mullov-Abbado
Za Górami (96kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.ecmrecords.com; ECM 2810

You want influences? This set’s got the lot, from Eastern folksongs in lost languages to chamber music, acoustic jazz and free-form improvisation. Of course, it helps to have on hand musicians of the calibre of vocalist/violinist Alice Zawadzki, pianist Fred Thomas (who doubles on vielle and drums) and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, while the usual superb production standards of the ECM label do no harm, either. The result is an album with a close-detailed sound that’s at turns exotic and affecting: it’s some way from what one might consider conventional jazz – if there is such a thing – but has a freshness and depth that delights as much as it intrigues. And that it works so well is to a great part down to the way the accompanying musicians are prepared to step back and showcase Zawadzki’s remarkable voice. AE

Sound Quality: 80%

Lab Report

While the noise floor of this 2023 ECM recording – a true 96kHz file – remains a little untidy [black spectrum], and trks 5 and 9 peak at a too-high 0.0dB, the overall dynamic range of the album remains well above average. PM

Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer
One Voices (48kHz/24-bit, WAV)
www.grappa.no; www.simax.no; Simax Classics n/a cat. no.

Every so often, the music submitted for these pages throws up an oddity, but even by those high standards, this one is either completely barking or strangely beautiful in places. It’s very high-concept... Meyer is the only performer here, her unprocessed voice performing all kinds of vocal gymnastics, recorded in the long-reverb acoustic of Oslo’s Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum, and in her somewhat drier-sounding home studio. The album is composed as one long piece, albeit with short ‘reset’ breaks, Meyer saying that ‘I am in pursuit of a vocal and tactile sound language, one that unveils new sonic realms when various forms of orchestrated vocalisation come together in unexpected harmony’. It’s intriguing, if not something you’d put on to get the party started, and be prepared for strange looks from others when it segues into something akin to an XXX movie soundtrack! AE

Sound Quality: 80%

Lab Report

Ruth W. Meyer’s claimed seven-octave vocal range (cf. piano) is accommodated within the ~20kHz bandwidth of this 48kHz download! Peaks never exceed –1.0dB and the dynamic range is wide (supremely so on trks 3 and 8). PM