Matteo Mela, Lorenzo Micheli – Scarlatti: 12 Sonatas (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:32 minutes | 523 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Evidence (LTR)
Scarlatti’s sonatas are among the most original compositions of the Baroque period, bursting with rhythmic and harmonic invention, contrast and colour.
Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli take up this exceptional production and record, on two guitars, twelve of his 555 sonatas.
Scarlatti was well acquainted with the instrument, which he heard in Spain and Italy, where it permeated his keyboard compositions.
By going back to one of Scarlatti’s most obvious and greater musical sources of inspiration, the two performers underline the eloquence and inexhaustible invention of these rhapsodic miniatures, masterpieces of their composer’s art as a colourist.
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Kid Colling Cartel – Living On The Wild Side (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 41:33 minutes | 515 MB | Genre: Blues, Blues Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rock’n’Hall
An orphan born in Bogota (Colombia) and adopted by a Luxembourg family, Kid Colling, a singer-songwriter and modern blues-rock guitarist, grew up in Europe and developed a fascination for the magical sounds of blues, rock ‘n roll and big band rhythm from an early age. In 2009, he decided to change his life and move to Paris to study music at the American School of Modern Music and L’IMEP, where he discovered jazz under the tutelage of such musical luminaries as Peter Giron, Rick Margitza, Manuel Rocheman and Christopher Culpo. It was also during his studies that he recruited three fellow musicians to form his own group, which he named “Cartel” in reference to his Colombian origins. Taking his first musical steps from 2012, he released a debut EP entitled “Tomorrow’s Far Away” in 2014, followed by his debut album “In the devil’s court” in 2017, which was a hit with critics and audiences alike.
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Yasmin Rowe – J.S. Bach, Prokofiev & Others: Piano Works (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:16:47 minutes | 2,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Willowhayne Records
Following her highly praised debut album, Yasmin Rowe returns to Willowhayne Records for an engaging and delightful programme, in which she returned to Holy Trinity Church, Hereford for this recording. Now resident in Melbourne, Australia, Yasmin has gained critical acclaim as a soloist, collaborator and recording artist in Europe, Asia and Australia. As well as her concert hall recitals, she has given many free-to-air concerts As well as her concert hall recitals, she gives many live-to-air performances, appearing as a frequent guest on Melbourne-based 3MBS Radio since 2019.
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Vilmos Csikos – Vieuxtemps: Rarities for Violin & Piano (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:56 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos
Henry Vieuxtemps, famous for his deeply romantic violin concertos, revolutionized violin playing in the 19th century. His faithful pupil Eugene Ysaye described his teacher’s work as “a treasure that must be preserved at all costs” and “should be known in its entirety”. The bicentenary of Vieuxtemps’ birth in 2020 offers an ideal opportunity to rediscover lost and often unpublished manuscripts from the composer’s family. Among these rediscovered treasures is the world premiere of the Fantasy for voice, violin and orchestra, presented here in a piano reduction, an astonishing work in which the voice, evoking the composer’s memories in a wordless vocalise, wraps itself around the notes of the violin.
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The Montvales – Born Strangers (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 46:05 minutes | 564 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © —
Dynamic vocal melodies, intertwined with the heart and soul of country-folk music, Born Strangers by the duo The Montvales, embarks listeners on a captivating journey with rich storytelling. The Montvales consist of Sally Buice on banjo/vocals and Molly Rochelson on guitar/vocals.
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The Big Idea – Tales of Crematie (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:33 minutes | 786 MB | Genre: Garage, Indie Rock, Psychedelic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Room Records
If the genesis of The Big Idea was written both in the corridors of their high school and the surroundings of La Rochelle, the first chapter truly takes place in a big house in outskirts of Paris, where the six boys settled once they got their baccalaureate in 2015. Throughout these five years, The Big Idea hosted every European band playing in Paris with no landing place. The house of Champigny-sur-Marne, almost invisible in the monstrous metropolis, became a central location of the capital’s underground scene.
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Rodney Crowell – Tarpaper Sky (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:11 minutes | 457 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records
Esteemed musician, songwriter and author Rodney Crowell has teamed up with New West Records to release Tarpaper Sky, his new self-produced album. It comes fast on the heels of Old Yellow Moon, Crowell’s critically lauded collaboration with Emmylou Harris, which won a 2013 Grammy® Award and was named 2013 Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association. Crowell has pushed the boundaries of country, folk and roots music since long before the term Americana was coined as a genre, making a name for himself and gaining respect as both a songwriter and as an artist.
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Rodney Crowell – Christmas Everywhere (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:06 minutes | 421 MB | Genre: Country, Christmas
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records
My childhood memories of Christmas aren’t warm and fuzzy. The holidays were more of a nuisance for my parents than cause for celebration. This is not to say that on behalf of their only child they didn’t give the season a halfhearted try. There were Christmases when I found under the tree an electric football set, a Daisy pump air-rifle and a basketball goal that never got nailed up. But, there were also mornings when apples, oranges, hickory nuts and a hammer signified that year’s bounty. Which is to say that Christmas in our household was mostly a wait-and-see proposition. I was finally ready to record an album of original Christmas songs. With Dan Knobler producing and some very gifted musicians and vocalists lending their talents, the making of the album Christmas Everywhere ranks as some of the most enjoyable recording sessions I’ve ever experienced. The record was close to being finished when it occurred to me that to set the tone for the albums mostly irreverent subtext, I needed to compose a lyrical prelude. In honor of Clement Moore, who wrote the poem we all know as, “The Night Before Christmas,” I came up with a short piece called “Clement’s Lament (We’ll See You in The Mall)”. Tania Hancheroff and Kim Keyes stopped by the studio and performed the tune with Jordan Lehning’s orchestral backing and the album was pronounced complete. Seasons Cheer, – Rodney Crowell
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Roberte Mamou – Czerny: Nocturnes, Opp. 368, 537 & 604 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:22:41 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos
Czerny is remembered as Beethoven’s favoured interpreter of his own piano works and is well known as List’s teacher, but it is for his pedagogic works, still in use to this day, that he continues to enjoy renown. The Nocturnes offer a less familiar view of Czerny. These sensitively shaped, small-scale Biedermeier compositions offered domestic households the opportunity to savour their sense of delicacy and enigmatic mood changes. The Op. 604 set is rather more robust than Op. 368, which is exquisitely sensitive, but equally convincing in characterisation and scope.
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Reverend Bernard Avant – Reverend Bernard Avant & The St. James Gospel Choir (1972/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 42:05 minutes | 1,66 GB | Genre: Gospel, R&B, Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Craft Recordings
Directed by Southern California–based minister and radio show host Rev. Willie Bernard Avant, Jr., the St. James Gospel Choir’s sound isn’t far removed from the sound of gospel in the American South. Likely a holdover from Avant’s upbringing in Pierce County, Georgia, as well as his years studying in Florida at Bethune-Cookman College and Florida A&M University. It was at the latter institution where he met his soon-to-be wife, Dolly, who is granted a frequent spotlight as a soloist on the St. James Gospel Choir’s album.
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Perez Prado – Leyenda Mexicana (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:44 minutes | 497 MB | Genre: Mambo, Latin Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Barrio de Música
uban bandleader, singer, organist, pianist and composer (born December 11, 1916 in Matanzas, Cuba – died September 14, 1989 in Mexico City, Mexico). He is often referred to as the ‘King of the Mambo’.
He was born in Matanzas, Cuba, where he studied classical piano in his early childhood, and later played organ and piano in local clubs. For a time, he was pianist and arranger for La Sonora Matancera, Cuba’s best-known musical group. He also worked with casino orchestras in Havana for most of the 1940s, gaining the nick-name “El Cara de Foca” (“Seal Face”). In 1948 he moved to Mexico to form his own band and record for RCA Victor. He quickly specialized in mambos, an upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón.
In 1950 arranger Sonny Burke heard “Que rico el mambo” while on vacation in Mexico and recorded it back in the United States as “Mambo Jambo”. The single was a hit, which caused Prado to launch a US tour. His appearances in 1951 were sell-outs and he began recording US releases for RCA Victor.
Prado is the composer of such famous pieces as “Mambo No. 5” and “Mambo No. 8.” At the height of the mambo movement, in 1955, Prado hit the American charts at number one with a cha-cha version of “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White”
