Jovino Santos Neto, André Mehmari
Guris is a charming and in places romantic Brazilian antidote for super-hot summer days of the sort we occasionally experience in the UK. It is a musical smorgasbord that contains flavours from many musical styles but is fundamentally a testament to the very unique charm and magic of Brazilian music and culture. Those looking for […]
Various Artists
Subtitled The birth of electric maloya on Réunion Island 1975 – 1986, the music on this compilation is something else. Réunion is part of the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and a melting pot of different cultures for centuries, maloya is it’s traditional music, originally described as the music of slaves. This album however […]
National Symphony Orchestra
Earlier in the year Mike Valentine’s most ambitious recording project to date came to fruition when he brought the NSO together with conductor Debbie Wiseman and mezzo soprano Rosie Middleton at Air Studios in north London. This was the first orchestral direct cut vinyl recording he had done and as you can imagine it wasn’t […]
Omer Klein
Every few years one comes across an album such as Sleepwalkers. An album that jolts one awake with its brilliance, but Sleepwalkers is that kind of an album. It is played with talent and confidence that justifies putting Omer Klein on a scale normally reserved for the work of fellow pianist Tord Gustavsen, it has […]
Yogev Shetrit
Yogev Shetrit and his fellow musicians are a brilliant bi-product of the land they live in. It would appear that in addition to being a pressure cooker, Israel is a melting pot of many cultures and musical genres which are represented here in a polished and mighty impressive set of world music style jazz that […]
Rez Abbasi & Junction
Rez Abbasi, a stalwart of the New York jazz scene with a good twenty five years’ experience and twelve recorded albums under his belt informs us that the music on this new release is intended to create an intersection, a junction where all the music that he and his band love can come together. In […]
Nucleus with Leon Thomas
It is almost unbelievable that this recording has sat in a vault for well over four decades. Thankfully, Gearbox saw fit to release it first on 180gram vinyl and now in a gatefold cover CD. On paper nobody would have ever put Leon Thomas on the same stage as Nucleus but, thanks to Peter King […]
Ross Hammond
The life of the purist finger guitar player is not an easy one. The potential audience for acoustic finger pickers appears to be a tiny fraction of what it is for those that sing at the same time. At any given time there are only a handful to be found producing commercial releases, that’s one […]
Club D’Elf
This conclusion to this review goes as follows: This is likely to be the most impressive release of 2017. Get it now. Live at Club Helsinki is as immense as it is intense. A double album that in uncompressed WAV form requires 1.2Gb of space on the hard drive, with a set of 12 tracks […]
Melissa Menago
Binaural recordings are made using a pair of omnidirectional mics mounted inside a pinnae-equipped dummy head at the precise location of the ear canals, capturing the same naturally-reverberant, three-dimensional sound a listener would experience if they were present at the performanc. Due to the way the brain processes directional cues, enjoyment of binaural recordings has […]
Ross Hammond & Sameer Gupta
Ross Hammond is a genuine troubadour, seemingly spending his life on the road playing acoustic and electric guitars to anyone that has the sense to listen. His style on Upward will be familiar to those who appreciate the work of John Fahey and Ry Cooder, steel string picking on 12-string acoustic guitar with a strong […]
Erlend Apneseth Trio
If you think Arvo Pärt’s Fratres sounds beautiful then this gem from the consistently fascinating Norwegian label Hubro should be on your must hear list. It’s stark music lead by Hardanger fiddle player Apneseth but it is also radiant with Nordic light, timbrally rich and unquestionably essential. Stephan Meidell provides accompaniment on guitar and electronica […]
Stein Urheim
If there’s a stringed instrument that Stenin Urheim can’t play and play well I’d like to know what it is. However that’s not a reason to listen to his third release on the excellent Hubro label, unless of course you enjoy hearing different stringed instruments that are very well played and recorded. The best reason […]
John Renbourn
In the early sixties when British ‘folkies’ like John Renbourn were honing their licks, few were truly aware of the origins of the blues tunes they were playing. YouTube wasn’t even a notion and genuine blues musicians were very scarce in the UK ,so they learnt songs from friends and records. This excellent collection of […]
All Times Big band
For readers who like big band music we have selected a real audiophile production, mastered by the Dutch company STS-Digital, cut and pressed in Germany on 180 grams vinyl. Tunes by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Cole Porter are among tracks like ‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore’, ‘Our Love Is Here To Stay’ and ‘Love […]
Gregory Porter
It’s unusual for ascendant artists to stick with the backing bands that got them started, which makes Gregory Porter a bit different, after all it’s his name that sells and he’d probably do just as well with session musicians. But Porter is a singer with integrity, that much is clear when you listen to this […]