Mainstream Jazz

Artist: SHAI MAESTRO TRIO Label: Continuite du Torrent

Downloadcode. Containing five synthesiser-led pieces, ‘Loon’ was recorded in autumn 2014 across five days at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin, and continues on from the ambient sounds of ‘Stare’ but with the addition of more percussive elements and dub influences. For this new EP the duo wired an Oberheim 4 Voice and a Korg PS3100 to the mixing desk and performed live takes on both instruments. With all four hands on its pots, all mixes were recorded straight onto 2-track ½-inch tape. Like on ‘Stare’, their first collaborative affair in 2012, they simply followed what was laying in front of them, and this time they were driven by some new synths, a kick drum and tape effects. Indulging in dub, the tracks where all performed rather than engineered, with Ólafur riding a few elements on faders and Nils bringing effects in and out. After running several mixes, they went for the five strongest moments from this session. The release was announced on a joint website www.arnaldsfrahm.com together with the launch of an intimate 45-minute studio film titled ‘Trance Frendz’, featuring another seven improvisations. “Nils got some new synths and we thought we’d try them out. We loved them so much that we didn’t actually end up using anything else to make these songs.” – Ólafur Arnalds “When I was young I was smuggled to Goa parties by my brother. The music played there in the late nineties had a somewhat deep effect on me. ‘Loon’ is almost a blurry memory of these times. In other words, it is what I’d like to remember that music sounded like back then. In fact it sounded probably really cheesy.” – Nils Frahm Record Label: Erased Tapes Style: Pop

AT LAST! SINGS FOR LOVERS BONUS TRACKS (from "THE SECOND TIME AROUND"+ "ETTA JAMES") Original recordings remastered Record Label: Vinyl Passion Style: Soul

There are few artists in the music industry who have had more influence on acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B than Herbie Hancock. In 1963, Miles Davis invited Hancock to join the Miles Davis Quintet. During his five years with Davis, Herbie recorded many classics with the jazz legend including "ESP", "Nefertiti" and "Sorcerer", and later on he made appearances on Davis' groundbreaking "In A Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew". Hancock's own solo career blossomed on Blue Note, with classic albums including "Maiden Voyage", "Empyrean Isles" and "Speak Like A Child". After leaving Davis' fold, Herbie put together a new band called The Headhunters and, in 1973, recorded "Head Hunters". It was a pivotal point in Hancock's career, bringing him into the vanguard of jazz fusion. Hancock had pushed avant-garde boundaries on his own albums and with Miles Davis, but he had never devoted himself to the groove as he did on Head Hunters. Drawing heavily from Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, Hancock developed deeply funky, even gritty, rhythms over which he soloed on electric synthesizers, bringing the instrument to the forefront in jazz. It had all of the sensibilities of jazz, particularly in the way it wound off into long improvisations, but its rhythms were firmly planted in funk, soul and R&B, giving it a mass appeal that made it the biggest-selling jazz album of all time (a record which was later broken). Jazz purists, of course, decried the experiments at the time, but "Head Hunters" still sounds fresh and vital four decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul and hip-hop. Record Label: Acoustic Sounds AAPJ 084 Style: Jazz

CLASSIC 1976 STUDIO SESSION BY A YOUNG WARREN ZEVON Record Label: Good Ship Funke Style: Rock

Symbol is the solo effort of producer and multi-instrumentalist Christopher Royal King. Best known as a founding member and lead guitarist of the massive orchestral-rock ensemble This Will Destroy You, King has also composed and recorded scores for a host of prominent feature-films and documentaries, established Light Lodge Records, and moonlights in Austin's amorphous ambient collective AMASAGANA. Now on his first solitary odyssey apart from TWDY, King's masterful ear for signal processing and affinity for corroded elegance takes free reign over a vastly expanded inventory of instrumentation. Throughout Symbol's debut Online Architecture, organic sound-sources are meticulously transmuted through chains of modules and magnetic tape, each successive stage creating a compounded quantity of detail and decay. After four studio albums with TWDY, King has crafted an arresting solo debut that is both gorgeously tranquil and devastatingly heavy, offering a direct-line into his psyche which had not existed until now. Record Label: Holodeck Records Style: Ambient

Artist: Doe Paoro Label: Epitaph

Artist: National Youth Jazz Orchestra Label: Whirlwind Recordings

Artist: MILES DAVIS Label: DOL

Artist: Kreusch Bros. Label: Glm Gmbh (Soulfood)

Artist: Burial Label: Memento Mori

Artist: Eivind Aarset Label: Jazzland

Artist: Pete Mccain Label: Whirlwind Recordings

Artist: Prague Six Label: Supraphon

Artist: Francoise Hardy Label: Future Days Recordings

Artist: Dieter Ilg Label: Fullfat (Edel)

Artist: Eivind Aarset Label: Jazzland

Artist: Philip Clouts Label: Odradek

Whenever a dream becomes reality, the world becomes a bit richer. This is also true for Martin Kälberer who has fulfilled a long cherished dream through his new solo project, SUONO – a pure solo piano album. But SUONO is a double album, and thus, much more than that. The piano recordings with the name „einklang“ (one sound) stand in contrast to the album „vielklang“ (multiple sound), musically as well as conceptually – a multi-dimensional journey through the dimensions of metallic sound. Wait a minute, „Suono“? That’s Italian for „sound“, as well as for „I play“, and symbolises the thoughts underlying this project: playfully broadening the (sound) frontiers. With the double album of the same name, Martin Kälberer sets off on a melodic journey of discovery through his musical self. In his last project, “Goya” paintings were the starting point of the music. Now, SUONO is a soundtrack of pictures of the inside: a reflection of the moment; the innermost expression of the artist, shaped by current events in the world. And thus, SUONO is like a document of our times where great changes are taking place, not only in positive ways … At times accusingly melancholic, other times elegiac, pulsating, through to light and exhilarating, „einklang“ playfully opens up new facets of piano music. The deliberate focus on only a single instrument and voice was a liberating experience, providing new room for creativity. Martin Kälberer used the moment to find inspiration for the compositions. The song just played, formed the basis for the song to come. And so he only played what was within him in the moment. The entire album was virtually a live rehearsal – each song being accomplished within a few takes. And the way it came into being is the way it invites one to listen to the music, completely concentrated and reduced to only one instrument, „einklang“ surrounds the listener with fresh, organic sound aesthetically allowing the listener to sink into the moment. At two points in „einklang“ you can also hear voice. Not only the voice of Martin Kälberer, but especially the voice of Lisa Wahlandt, lends a special lustre to a very intimate version of „Both Sides Now“ by Joni Michell. This is incidentally the only ‚foreign’ composition which had been a long awaited wish to interpret. „vielklang“ is a melodic fusion of metallic sound. Partly exotic appearing instruments like the Hang, Gubal, Halo, Gongs, Waterphone, Musical Saws and Pendulum String possess very unique sounds with astonishing warmth and depth. Their archaic, sometimes mystical and yet direct, moving tones are a central component of Martin Kälberer’s musical language. He has been fascinated with metallic sounds for most of his life: as a child, drumming on pots, railings or bins; or later, his fascination for gongs and singing bowls, finding its peak in the discovery of the Hang, allowing completely new forms of musical expression. Reed instruments like the accordion, melodica or harmonium, and lastly the good old Fender Rhodes piano are also brought in, and shape the special atmosphere of “vielklang”. With these two different approaches, Martin Kälberer shows once again his great musical horizon and his broad repertoire of sounds. He concludes, “Suono is the album I’ve always wanted to make. All in all, I believe that with this album I have been able to come a little bit closer to myself.” Record Label: GLM Style: Jazz