Orbs Saåad

Radiant drone works from Siavash Amini (Room 40, Flaming Pines, Umor Rex) and Saåad (HITD, In Paradisium) combining for the first time together in this lambent collection of field recordings, strings, guitar and synthesiser. Amini's presence is perhaps best felt in the soaring, widescreen orchestration where the real and unreal is embdedded together with no seam to recognize. Saåad proffer oblique chiming notes and guitar so smeared across the horizon it's impossible not to see the curve. Together the two styles cement gracefully in calm union. 'Dragging the Harrow' pulses a Messiaenic organ line into a blossoming filter revealing increasingly plasticine detail while choristic blooms and groaning room smother…

Ad Astra, a sci-fi thriller set in the future, stars Brad Pitt as an elite astronaut who travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. His journey will uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos. Max Richter’s score, informed by detailed conversations with Brad Pitt and the film’s director James Gray, combines strings, electronics and vocals creating an epic soundscape underpinning the emotional power and scale of the movie. His soundtrack has been described as “a stunning kind of symphony” by Vanity Fair. Max Richter first began composing the music for Ad Astra almost two years ago, in the initial phase of the film’s production.

After almost two decades of hibernation under the ambient waves and dub currents of the Sargasso Sea, LSD announces the next installment of the seminal ‘Auntie Aubrey's' series, an Orb Remix Project. This 2 x CD compilation is a veritable smorgasbord of classic, new and unreleased labour-of-love remixes that span three decades yet still transcend space and time.

Rather than coasting on the vapor trail left by Dawn in Space, Pyramidal re-ignite the boosters, taking their blend of space and psych rock further out - for them and us - by pumping in some flares of prog into the tanks. Frozen Galaxies is still alive with trace elements of rock’s core, but the mixture has been recalibrated. No slouchers before by any means, Pyramidal sound reinvigorated after Dawn. The songs are fiercer, more intense and their playing is pushed deeper. That doesn’t mean it’s jackhammers-on-the-asteroid time. Obvious fans of pioneers such as Hawkwind and more experimental leaning Sabbath, Pyramidal get that heft isn’t about indulgence in distortion or useless bombast. That’s just turning a knob or two. The songs themselves, the structure, is what has the weight.

The Montecassino Monastery recently hosted the score of this comic opera by Leonardo Leo, one of the leading Neapolitan composers of the 18th century, who introduced new stylistic elements to the genre. Cirillo shows in a very exciting way in his direction how nothing actually happens in this opera - apart from a very subtle play of the relationships between the seven protagonists. As with Marivaux, this is about the social differences when the middle class turns to the servants and vice versa, and as in a Feydeauschen comedy, they wander on stage (and leave again) to spy, to portray themselves, or to court someone until everyone is eaten away by doubt.

REFERENCE RECORDINGS is pleased to announce SPANISH IMPRESSIONS, our second album with this elite trio. The Hermitage Piano Trio consists of violinist Misha Keylin, cellist Sergey Antonov, and pianist Ilya Kazantsev. The trio has been praised for its “polished and spirited interpretations” (The Washington Post), “absolute rhythmic precision and dynamic exuberance” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), and “powerful, intelligent and deeply moving performances” (The Seattle Times). Their first album on our label, Rachmaninoff, was nominated for three 2020 GRAMMY® Awards in the categories of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, Best Engineered Album, Classical, and Producer Of The Year, Classical.