Chinese

It is not clear what took Sony Classical five years to issue these performances, recorded by violinist Joshua Bell and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra in 2018. Having had it in the can, it would have made ideal pandemic-era listening. However, better is certainly late than never, and the recording is a real find. It made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. Most musical fusions have one tradition or the other at the core, but in this one, the trips between Western and Chinese are so numerous that one loses track.

Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell’s forthcoming recording Butterfly Lovers features one of the most renowned works in the Chinese classical violin repertoire, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto. Recorded with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) and conducted by Tsung Yeh, the work is a distinctive adaptation for an ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments.

VA - The Hugo Masters: An Anthology of Chinese Classical Music (4CD, 1992)
MP3 320 kbps | 4 CD | Covers included | Label: Celestial Harmonies | 231 min | 602 mb
Genre: World, Ethnic, Classical Chinese

The liner notes of The Hugo Masters: An Anthology of Chinese Classical Music contain extensive documentation of the various instruments used in Chinese solo and orchestral music, with descriptions of their history and modifications, as well as an essay to help Western listeners understand the background of Chinese classical music.

"In the Meantime" was a huge hit, and Resident Alien went gold, but Spacehog's debut earned them no critical respect. At any other time, the group's glitzy revival of Bowie, Roxy and Mott the Hoople would have earned kudos, but it arrived at the height of Brit-pop, when other, more celebrated (and, frankly, better) bands were dominating the media spotlight. So, when it came time to deliver their second record, Spacehog knew they had to make a big splash, and The Chinese Album delivers on that promise. A faux song cycle layered with details and hooks, The Chinese Album is a big album conceptually, but the band doesn't quite have the gravity required to make it the sweeping achievement they desire.

Seigen Ono - The Green Chinese Table (1988) {Venture–Virgin CDVE10}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG ->240 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 122 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 33 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1988 Venture / Virgin Records | CDVE10
Jazz / Contemporary / Post-Classical / Japanese Traditions / Electronic / Experimental

This one is a bit special. Last we heard from Seigen, he was introducing us to his very jazz-influenced take on Japanese New Age music. On the follow up to that epic debut, The Green Chinese Table, we find Seigen dividing his time up between recording sessions in Tokyo and New York City. It’s impossible to stress how that meeting of western and eastern minds really seasons the conditions that make this record sound like it does.

At the time Philip Bailey persuaded Phil Collins to produce his second solo album, Chinese Wall, Collins was among the hottest pop stars in the world. The advantage to that, of course, is the exposure it affords, and after the merely modest success of his debut solo album, Continuation, Bailey needed the reflected glory. On the other band, it's hard to shine yourself in such a glare, and although Bailey's name was on the gold-selling hit single "Easy Lover," a duet with Collins that helped the album take off, it's Collins' singing and drumming that one remembers. Elsewhere, tunes like "Photogenic Memory" and "Walking On The Chinese Wall" better represent Bailey's ability to handle a variety of material from ballads to techno dance tracks with his elastic falsetto. Still, Chinese Wall was a gold-selling standoff that made Bailey a solo hitmaker without really establishing him on his own.