Every Frenchman Has One

Though there are many beautiful singing voices in jazz today, Viktoria Tolstoy is one of a kind. A great melodramatist of jazz who is also bipolar, she makes happiness sound fragile and threatened, and bitterness sweet and enchanting. She has framed and perfected this art on a conceptual level since becoming an ACT artist in 2003, whether concentrating on material from Esbjörn Svensson - whose e.s.t. began to some extent as her accompanying trio - or, most recently, on Herbie Hancock, classical originals, Swedish standards or repertoire from Russia, the home of her ancestors.

The songs on Some Waking Woman come up like ragged wildflowers in the unnameable heel of wasteland between the end house of the terrace and the already-dated concrete and plastic of the new business park. Too much? The songs come up from the hot gap between the weird dissociative dreamscape and the phone-alarm of a slate Tuesday morningtime. They look out from the record with a gaze that’s lost between doe-eyed affection and a murky voyeurism. They’re made of a music caught between the battered nylon-string and a layered orchestration turning between lush and gritty.

Now in its 2nd Season, the story of archaeology fascinates both laymen and professionals. In these installments we accompany Ernst Herzfeld on his last expedition to Persepolis in 1923; we travel to Mexico with the man who cracked the code of the Aztec calendar; we visit the greatest pre-industrial city on earth at Angkor; we join Isidoro Falchi as he discovers proof of the existence of the Etruscans; and we watch Alfred Merlin found the discipline of marine archaeology when he discovers shipwrecks in the Mediterranean..

Beyond their brilliant virtuosity and craftsmanship, Camille Saint-Saëns’s epic Piano Concerto No. 2 and irresistibly exotic No.5 (‘Egyptian’) invite listeners on a riveting and richly imaginative journey. Hailed ‘the new French prince of the piano’ (Diapason), Bertrand Chamayou also reveals a more intimate side to the great composer-pianist, exploring the hidden charm and secret sensuality of his rarely-heard etudes and solo piano miniatures.

The new edition moves from New York classics by Liquid Liquid and Bill Laswell's Material to early Detroit machine music, Belgian New Beat and a healthy dose of UK originals from Pigbag, Quando Quango and more on seminal labels like Y and Factory. Watch out too for rare gems from unexpected sources including Sisters Of Mercy side project The Sisterhood, '70s prog collective Isotope and free jazz legend Ornette Coleman.DISCO NOT DISCO is packaged in a deluxe digipak with full booklet featuring sleeve notes by Bill Brewster, author of 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life', extensive track by track notes and rare photos.

The two composers, who represent their country as figureheads of color and sound, have almost identical dates in their lives: The Pole Karol Szymanowski and the Frenchman Maurice Ravel. The Swiss pianist Matthias Roth has put together an exquisite program for his GENUIN debut CD, which he has recorded with a crystal-clear sound and lively articulation that is unrivaled in terms of quality. You don't know what to admire more: The great works of Ravel that one knows well but experiences anew, or the unexplored beauty of Szymanowski's works, which are worth the exciting voyage of discovery in every moment!