Cbc Doc Zone: Deluged by Data (2015)

Perhaps the pairing of Cassandra Wilson and Billie Holiday carries a whiff of inevitability, but there's nothing predictable about Coming Forth by Day. Released to coincide with Holiday's centennial in 2015, Coming Forth by Day explicitly celebrates Lady Day by drawing upon standards she sang in addition to songs she wrote, but Wilson deliberately sidesteps the conventional by hiring Nick Launay as a producer. As a result of his work with Nick Cave, Launay mastered a certain brand of spooky Americana, something that comes in handy with the Holiday catalog, but Coming Forth by Day is never too thick with murk.

John Hicks Trio - I'll Give You Something To Remember Me By… (1987) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 289 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 125 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 260 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1987, 2015 Timeless Records / Solid Records Japan / Ultra-Vibe | CDSOL-6405
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano Trio

Reissue with the latest remastering and the original cover artwork. Comes with a description written in Japanese. John Hicks works in some really wonderful company here – a trio with bassist Curtis Lundy and drummer Idris Muhammad – both of whom really add a lot to the date! We're always big fans of Lundy's sound on bass – and his approach here has the same warm-rolling quality you'd find in his own best 80s work – really helping to push Hicks' lyrical agenda on the piano with a rhythmic support that's tremendous. Muhammad's pretty great too – definitely on the understated side of his talents, that nicely subtle sound he developed in the 80s – and Hicks, as always, is more than a cut above most of his contemporaries, and continues a long legacy of extremely soulful work on the keys of the piano.

In 1819 composer and publisher Anton Diabelli got the idea to invite composers from the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire to compose variations on a waltz by his own hand. This was meant to be a monument of the musical art of his time, and a money maker for his publishing house. A lot of composers, 51 in total, answered to his request, and sent their variations, among whom celebrities like Liszt, Schubert, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Moscheles. The most famous composer of the time, Ludwig van Beethoven, first rejected the idea in scorn, later however wrote his immense Opus 120, comprising no less than 33 variations on the theme, thus outpassing his “competitors” by an immeasurable degree in both invention and profundity.

Blancmange's first ever instrumental album, Nil By Mouth was originally released on 25 September 2015. The album consists of 12 tracks, all written and performed by Neil Arthur except for the 2005 re-record of Holiday Camp from the Irene & Mavis EP (1980) which features original member Stephen Luscombe.
In many ways Nil By Mouth goes right back to the roots of the band when they experimented with art student film soundtracks and improvised music created by primitive synths and cassette recorders. But there's also a melodic flair throughout the album, and a palpable sense of freedom.

Though Andy Sheppard has a long relationship with ECM via his work in Carla Bley's various bands, Surrounded by Sea marks only his third date as a leader for the label. On this album, Sheppard once again employs double bassist Michel Benita and drummer Sebastian Rochford from 2012's Trio Libero, and adds guitarist/electronicist Eivind Aarset, who played on the saxophonist's ECM debut, Movements in Colour, in 2009. The guitarist, who almost never plays conventionally, provides the additional atmospheric element Sheppard sought to express in these tunes. The album's centerpiece is a reading of the Gaelic "Aoid, Na Dean Cadal Idir." It was initially intended to be part of a collaborative album with Hebridean folk singer Julie Fowlis, but the project never came to fruition…

A profoundly modern dimension emerges from this confrontation between English works from the 17th century (Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke) and works from the 20th and 21st centuries (Philippe Hersant, Franck Martin, Thierry Pécou). Coming from highly different musical universes, each composition is, however, largely inspired by the founding themes of Shakespeares play, sometimes taking up excerpts from it. The text is recited in English, or rather Shakespeares Old English, as are all the sung parts, in order to reproduce the strong, sweet accent of that tongue.