Nigel Stanford

TimeScapes was the first 4k movie, featuring stunning time-lapse footage from Tom Lowe, the Astronomy Photographer of the Year. This album is immersive, dramatic, and engaging, without becoming maudlin. Stanford avoids tropes and simple repetition to weave compelling tone poems that evolve and develop - in the best tradition of Heart of Space.

"Solar Echoes" is the name of a double album by an ambient electronic artist named Nigel Stanford, who is a native New Zealander and now lives in New York. Nigel Stanford is the kind of musician that has a deep sense of how precise and well-adjusted things have to be in order to produce an efficient music track. And "Solar Echoes" is a clear-cut demonstration of his attention to detail. This is one of those rare albums that doesn't just include great music but it's actually very moving. It's a cinemascape of electronic genius reminiscent of Jon Hopkins and Eno. The quality of sound engineering on this album is at the highest level and although compositionally the music isn't hugely complicated, it doesn't need to be to transport you into another world. This is one of those rare electronic albums that was written for music's sake rather than for a festival crowd.

Deep Space is a set of "compelling trance rhythms (and) expansive themes" from John Stanford. He juxtaposes acoustics and electronics throughout the set. They play off each other and sequenced rhythms run around and inside the atmospheres. The pace evolves into a techno beat. While the atmospheres and samples are definitely sci-fi, the rhythms ground the set and take it to a new ambient groove. In that style, this is a great disc. Overall, however, it is good. This CD will appeal to fans of the Orb, Banco de Gaia, Eat Static, and System 7.

Automatica is the new album from YouTube and social media sensation Nigel Stanford whose wildly popular 2014 video, Cymatics, heralded a brand-new synthesis of music, art and physics. This album takes Stanford s trademark synthesis of dance-pop, electronica and technological innovation to a new level and features a groundbreaking new title-track video. For the Automatica single/video Stanford came up with the idea of programming robots to play instruments keyboards, bass, drums and after a month of programming, Stanford had achieved a technologically stunning video. Automatica is the first Stanford album with vocals and features guest singers Catey Shaw, Elizaveta, Dallin Applebaum and rapper Noah Caine.

Pianist Piers Lane possesses a vast repertory of solo, chamber, and concertante works, which he has performed in more than 40 countries and on over 50 recordings. While he plays many standards by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov, he is unafraid to perform works by little-known composers. Indeed, he has made numerous recordings in the Romantic Concerto series for the Hyperion label, performing concertos by the likes of Stanford, Parry, Sinding, Alexander Dreyschock, Theodor Kullak, Eyvind Alnæs, and other neglected composers.

The Great War was the first major conflict to generate an outpouring of creative work from those who either fought on the battlefields, or were somehow deeply affected by it, including writers, painters and musicians. Almost unwittingly, they became commentators for their age, and changed society’s conception of what war meant. Charles Villiers Stanford alone taught numerous composers affected by the war, including Charles Wood, Henry Walford Davies, George Dyson, Gustav Holst and Ivor Gurney, all featured on this recording, and others, including George Butterworth and Cecil Coles, who were among those killed in action, their music silenced at a tragically young age.