Living Stereo Sacd

Morton Gould's Brass & Percussion is an artifact from the halcyon days of high fidelity, a lost era when "Radio Row" in New York City was bursting at the seams with shops selling every kind of cutting-edge audio gear to hi-fi enthusiasts eager to blow away their wives, neighbors, and everyone else with big audio systems. Forthwith, Brass & Percussion has a BIG sound – recorded in Manhattan Center with classic Neumann U-47 microphones and a huge symphonic band made up of crack East Coast professionals.

This is not exactly the Mario Lanza "best-of" album its title might imply; it consists of recordings made during the last 18 months of the great crossover tenor's life, when he was beginning to suffer serious effects from the health problems that killed him in the fall of 1959…

This is a conceptual album which is based on the Danish author H.C. Andersen´s dramaturgy of the story of "The Little Mermaid", and where the genre is soft jazz with colors Latin rhythms! Most delightfully, the entire album was a audience-less live recording in the Jarna Kulturhus’ Concert Hall with no post-recording dubbing. The result is a dynamically well-balanced work of art infused with high transparency and complex tonality. Though closely miked and hence cast effectively to the front and over the instrumentalists, Yamina’s voice never eclipses her band mates.

Anatole Fistoulari was always a specialist in the interpretation of ballet music. He was also, a noted conductor of Tchaikovsky and the Russian School, as well as romantic and impressionistic French music. This album, originally released in 1960, features selections from William Tell, Khovantchina, Aida, and Samson and Delilah, performed by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Fistoulari. Recorded by renowned Decca audio master Kenneth Wilkinson, it shares most of that disc's electrifying sound. Very lively midrange with superbly coherent staging, top rank clarity and deep, powerful and well-defined bass.

Gaucho — Steely Dan's Grammy-winning seventh studio album reissue Hybrid Stereo SACD release from Analogue Productions!Mastered by Bernie Grundman from a 1980 analog tape copy originally EQ’d by Bob Ludwi Plays in all CD and SACD players. In their review of Gaucho, Rolling Stone proclaims, "Steely Dan have perfected the aesthetic of the tease. Their sound is as slippery as their (lyrical) irony." Gaucho — the seventh studio album by Steely Dan released in November 1980 — and Grammy-winner for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, was also nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The sessions for Gaucho represented the band's typical penchant for studio perfectionism and obsessive recording technique. To record the album, the band used at least 42 different musicians, spent over a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label.

This is the first recordings ever made in the Soviet Union by american musical and technical stuff and equipment, recorded on lovation in Moscow. This SACD presents, for the first time, the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra's legendary recordings in their original 3-channel (left, right & centre) versions. Using the original 35mm film masters, the disc features a DSD 3-channel stereo and a new DSD stereo transfer.

This SACD presents a new three-channel mix–something that was not offered by the disc’s original producer–of these 1956-59 Mercury Living Presence recordings. The two-channel version (also included on the disc) brings a noticeable improvement in clarity and presence over previous issues, as if a layer of gauze had been removed from the speakers, and it interestingly remains a more natural listening experience than the three-channel alternative. The primary concern however, remains the music, and Antal Dorati’s vibrant, colorful performances, with stunning playing from the London Symphony Orchestra (the sweetly swooning strings in Le Coq d’Or; the brazen brass in the Russian Easter Overture; the gorgeous woodwinds in the Polovtsian Dances) should be reason enough to purchase this disc.

Don't Give Me Names is the second album by the German band Guano Apes, released in 2000. It includes the singles "Big in Japan" (a cover of the Alphaville song), "No Speech", "Living in a Lie" and "Dödel Up". The album was certified gold in Germany and in Switzerland.

It's hard to imagine another orchestra and chorus coming as close to perfection as the LSO do on this disc. With even tempo, clear articulation and well-mannered dynamics throughout, like Handel himself would have felt his composition was given as fine a treatment as any. The piece itself needs no introduction. If the climax on this recording of the Hallelujah chorus doesn't send chills down your spine while simultaneously uplifting your soul, well, I don't know what will! Absolutely magnificent.