Illuminations

John Zorn - Rimbaud (2012) {Tzadik}
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© 2012 Tzadik | TZ 8301
Jazz / Avant-Garde / Avant-Garde Jazz / Chamber Music

An eclectic suite inspired by revolutionary French writer Arthur Rimbaud! Featuring a remarkable classical chamber work whose tempo is constantly in flux (Bateau Ivre), a powerful electronic composition (A Season in Hell), a fully notated virtuosic piano piece accompanied by an improvised free jazz rhythm section (Illuminations) and an outrageous file card piece with Zorn on sax, piano, guitar and foley effects and renegade actor/director Mathieu Amalric reading texts from Rimbaud’s intense and hilarious L’Album Zutique (Conneries). One of his most personal creations, this is a CD only Zorn could conjure up!

The Bernardino de Ribera whose works are recorded here, all but one for the first time, is all but unknown; he is not to be confused with the Spanish-Mexican composer Bernardino de Ribera Sahagún. He was active in the city of Toledo, Spain, a generation before Tomás Luis de Victoria, whom he taught and influenced. His obscurity is due to vandalism rather than to any issue of musical quality: the splendid manuscript that forms the main source for his music was cut up by someone who wanted the illuminations, and on the reverse of those were many sections of Ribera's works.

This two-disc archival set includes live performances from the short-lived incipient 1969 incarnation of King Crimson. After months of arduous sonic restoration - or what Robert Fripp (guitar) refers to as "necromancy" - the results are well worth the painstaking processes involved. The first volume contains material from three different sources - BBC Radio Sessions, the Fillmore East in New York City, and its Bay Area counterpart, the Fillmore West. The second volume consists of nearly another hour-long set from the latter venerable San Francisco venue. Joining Fripp are Ian McDonald (flute/sax/mellotron/vocals), Greg Lake (bass/vocals), Michael Giles (drums/percussion/vocals), and the only non-performing member, Peter Sinfield (words/illuminations)…

The Radio Legacy is a compilation of the seven part Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the four box sets devoted to the orchestra s chief conductors Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, Bernard Haitink and Riccardo Chailly, and also featuring more recent recordings with Mariss Jansons.

Piers Lane brings all his pianistic panache to this splendidly eclectic recital of works from the 1700s to 2019, in a programme exploring very different aspects of the dance.

Various Artists - Milk Of The Tree: An Anthology Of Female Vocal Folk & Singer-Songwriters 1966-73 (2017) {3CD Set}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.21 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 523 Mb
Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 24 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1966-73, 2017 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red Record | CRSEGBOX039
Folk Rock / Pregressive Folk / Psychedelia / Pop Fok / Electric Folk / Singer- Songwriters

Notwithstanding one or two isolated exceptions, it wasn’t until the mid-Sixties that independent female voices really began to be heard within the music industry. The feminist movement naturally coincided with the first signs of genuine musical emancipation. In North America, Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged through the folk clubs, coffee-houses and college campuses to inspire a generation of wannabe female singers and musicians with their strong, independent mentality and social compassion, while the British scene’s combination of folk song revival and the Beatles-led pop explosion saw record company deals for a new generation of pop-folkies including Marianne Faithfull, Dana Gillespie and Vashti Bunyan.

When you listen to The Poem of Ecstasy', Scriabin advised, 'look straight into the eye of the Sun', and he made sure that Ecstasy was orchestrated in such a way as to burn itself onto the consciousness. Whether by design or not, and without leaving you with tinnitus, this new performance, in its moments of joyful - and finally tintinnabular - climactic clamour, does just that. There is a sensational resolve from (and resolution for) the horns as they eventually take over and expand the trumpets' assertions and reach for the heights. And, thankfully, Pletnev, his fearless players and his engineers have left room to maximize this moment of arrival.