D&s Vol. 59

With Harmonic Ascendant, released in 1979, Robert Schroeder has stamped electronic music (EM) with his own particular sound, a flowing synth with strident and melodious laments on a progressive minimalist rhythmic movement. At that time the musician from Aachen was building his own equipment, hence the singularity of his harmonies. This was followed by Floating Music, Mosaique and the sublime Galaxy Cygnus-A. A period strongly influenced by the Berlin School à la Klaus Schulze. And for some, it was his best phase. D.MO Vol.1, for demo, is a collection of unreleased tracks that retraces this era of the German synthesist who from 1978 to 1982 was experimenting with his new devices. And this is the spirit behind this compilation which is mainly addressed to the fans of this period…

Musica Alta Ripa was founded in 1984. The recorder player Danya Segal, two violinists Anne Röhrig and Ursula Bundies, cellist Juris Teichmanis, and harpsichordist Bernward Lohr, all outstanding, sought-after musicians in their fields, joined forces to form an ensemble that owes its special aura to the commingling of their individual personalities.

The Collector's Edition - Celebrating a groundbreaking label - The true legacy of a legendary label. Long hailed as an audiophile's label, Mercury represents an important milestone in the history of classical recordings. A s The New York Times described, 'One feels oneself in the living presence of the orchestra'. 60 years after the landmark first recording, Mercury Living Presence: The Collector's Edition celebrates this special anniversary.

Masaaki Suzuki was an organist before he was a conductor, and his recordings of Bach's organ works have made a delightful coda to his magisterial survey of Bach cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. This selection, the second in a series appearing on the BIS label, gives a good idea of the gems available. You get a good mix of pieces, including a pair of Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions. Fans of Suzuki's cantata series will be pleased to note the similarities in his style between his conducting and his organ playing: there's a certain precise yet deliberate and lush quality common to both. And he has a real co-star here: the organ of the Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel, built in 1983 by French maker Marc Garnier. The realizations of Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos fare especially well here, with a panoply of subtle colors in the organ. Sample the first movement of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, with its mellow yet transcendently mysterious tones in the string ripieni. BIS backs Suzuki up with marvelously clear engineering in the small Japanese chapel, and all in all, this is a Bach organ recording that stands out from the crowd. Highly recommended.

Master Series is the title of a line of greatest hits albums, released in European countries primarily by PolyGram International, as well as A&M Records, Deram Records, FFRR Records, Mercury Records, and Polydor Records. In addition, some albums were reissued by Universal Music Group under the Universal Masters Collection and Millennium Edition titles.

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

Continuation of an extensive live retrospective from the archives of Anyone's Daughter. The CD offers songs from all creative periods of the band which, apart from one coincidence (an early version of 'Anyone's Daughter'), were not included on the first volume due to lack of space, for instance four tracks which cannot be found on any studio album: 'Schwärzer als die Nacht', a German language cover version of UK's classic 'In The Dead of Night', the instrumentals 'Stampede' and 'Pegasus', as well as an alternative version of 'Land's End', already included on the regular 'Live' album.