Russian Avant Garde Cd1.cue

Modernity in Russian music emerged despite its struggles with the Soviet regime in the early 20th century, with the mystical vision of Scriabin’s musical legacy providing a foundation on which to build. In these acclaimed albums we discover Medtner’s life affirming Sonatas, and hear Lourié’s journey from Impressionism to pioneering Cubist conceptions. Mosolov’s works are bold and complex, while Roslavets new tonal system brings ‘fire and ice’, and Stanchinsky’s sophisticated virtuosity anticipates many aspects of 20th-century style. These remarkable works represent a time of profound change in Russian culture that is still being discovered and assessed today.

Collecting five CDs for about the price of three, this set of Boulez recordings is without parallel among the conductor's new-music releases. Imagine getting Boulez's celebrated single CD of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia and Eindrücke and his equally impressive single CD of Arnold Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande and Variations for Orchestra, bundled with four pivotal Elliott Carter works, Sir Harrison Birtwistle's electrifying …AGM…, Gérard Grisey's Modulations, Iannis Xenakis's Jalons, Hugues Dufourt's Antiphysis, and Brian Ferneyhough's Funerailles, and you have an idea how far this set stretches.

“This is not at all what I wrote, but play it like this. Do play it this way!” exclaimed Dmitri Shostakovich after Yudina performed the freshly written 24 Preludes and Fugues. This exclamation contains the key to understanding of Maria Yudina’s performing art – a controversial and disputable one that left a profound imprint on the cultural environment of the twentieth century. The 10-album set is the biggest part of Maria Yudina’s surviving studio and concert recordings from the Melodiya archive made between 1948 and 1969.

Masahiko Togashi + Masabumi Kikuchi - Concerto (1991) {Japan Studio Songs Remaster YZSO Series rel 2016}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 335 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 269 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 190 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1991, 2016 Studio Songs Japan / Nippon Crown | YZSO-10064
Jazz / Post Bop / Chamber Music / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano / Percussions

Two Japanese jazz greats pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and percussionist Masahiko Togashi recorded “Concerto” in 1991 – quite prolific period for both (especially for Kikuchi who founded one of his most successful project Tethered Moon with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian right at that time). Released soon after, this duo album hasn't been noticed and became an obscurity. Many Kikuchi fans even don't know such release exists. In 2016 it has been re-issued in Japan so it is much more accessible now. Being mostly known as an object of discussions between collectors (as rule no-one of them ever heard its content) – is this album really all that good?

Alexei Lubimov is a Russian pianist who also plays fortepiano and harpsichord. In his early years he studied at the Moscow Central Music School, and in 1963, entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus and Lew Naumov. He developed a strong interest in Baroque music and 20th century modernist works. Lubimov gave the Soviet premieres of many western compositions, including pieces by Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, Terry Riley, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, which brought censorship from the Soviet authorities.

The S.A.D.O. (Società Anonima Decostruzionismi Organici, Anonymous Society of Organic Deconstructionisms) band took shape in 1994 in Italy, from the Arcansiel group (Gianni Opezzo, Paolo Baltaro and Sandro Marinoni), with Diego Marzi on percussion. In the same year, they recorded the songs that would be included in Implosioni, their first album. One year later, in 1995, they recorded Teratoarchetipia, followed by La Differanza in 2002. In the meantime, the group went on tour in Italy and Europe. In 2007, with Boris Savoldelli on vocals, Luigi Ranghino on piano, and Andrea Beccaro on drums joining in, they recorded Holzwege (published by AMS) and carried out a live sound deconstruction in seven movements based on the seven propositions from the "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus" by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Brian Eno - The Shutov Assembly (1992) {2CD All Saints Records Deluxe Expanded Edition WAST032CD rel 2014}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 418 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 212 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 561 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1992, 2014 All Saints Records / Opal Ltd. | WAST032CD
Ambient / Electronic / Avant-Garde / Experimental

Brian Eno will soon issue expanded versions of four of his albums originally released in the 1990s Nerve Net (1992), The Shutov Assembly (1992), Neroli (1993) and The Drop (1997) will each be reissued as a two-CD deluxe editions containing the original album and an additional disc of unreleased and rare Eno work specific to each record. Nerve Net includes the first ever commercial release of lost Eno album My Squelchy Life; The Shutov Assembly features an album’s worth of unreleased recordings from the same period; Neroli includes an entire unreleased hour-long Eno ambient work New Space Music; and The Drop includes nine rarely heard tracks from the Eno archives. Each album comes in deluxe casebound packaging and is accompanied by a 16-page booklet compiling photos, images and writing by Eno that is relevant to each release.

Arvo Part - Kanon Pokajanen (1998) {2CD Set, ECM New Series 1654/55}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 263 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 198 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1998 ECM Records | ECM New Series | ECM 1654/55 / 78118-21654-2
Classical / Choral / Avant-Garde / Modern Composition

Arvo Part's Kanon Pokajanen is a work of starkly radiant beauty, a deeply felt plea for forgiveness so resonant it seems to bear its own expiatory power. The piece is a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Church's canon of repentance, believed to have been composed by St. Andrew of Crete sometime in the late seventh century. Part had experimented with the canon in earlier works, but when the Cologne Cathedral commissioned him to compose a choral piece for its 750th anniversary, he took the opportunity to immerse himself in it completely. Over two years of intense quality time with the work, Part produced an 80-minute choral setting of the entire canon that mines each word of the original Church Slavonic (a language used exclusively in ecclesiastical texts) for its maximum musicality and meaning.