Sony Music Japan

Masabumi Kikuchi - Susto (1980) {Blu-spec CD2 Sony Music Japan SICP 30310 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 357 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 113 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 21 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1980, 2013 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP 30310 | Legacy Recordings Series
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Funk / Keyboards

The latest DSD remaster. Features the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD2 format (compatible with standard CD players).A great album of funky Japanese fusion – one that features a variety of keyboards from Masabumi Kikuchi, plus work by Terumasa Hino on trumpet, Steve Grossman and Dave Liebman on saxes, and James Mason on guitar! The best cuts have a funky feel that's in the CTI/Kudu mode – perhaps mixed with a bit of Herbie Hancock keyboard jamming – and the album's a surprisingly lost funky gem in the Columbia catalog of the early 80s, with a much harder edge than some of the other work on the label at the time! Titles include "Circle/Line", "New Native", "Gumbo", and "City Snow".

Miles Davis & Tadd Dameron - In Paris Festival International De Jazz, May 1949 (1991) {Sony Music Japan SRCS 5695}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 92 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 90 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 23 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1949, 1991 CBS / Sony Music Japan | SRCS 5695
Jazz / Bebop / Trumpet / Piano

Miles Davis was best-known during the late '40s for offering an alternative approach to trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro, emphasizing his middle register, a softer tone and a more thoughtful approach. This concert performance, which was not released until nearly three decades later, shows that Davis was just as capable of playing hard-driving bebop as most of his contemporaries. In a quintet with tenor-saxophonist James Moody and pianist-composer Tadd Dameron, Davis confounded the French audience by playing very impressive high notes and displaying an extroverted personality. Never content to merely satisfy the expectations of his fans, he was already moving in surprising directions. This LP also gives one a very rare opportunity to hear Miles Davis verbally introducing songs in a voice not yet scarred.

How muted was the reaction to Beady Eye's 2011 debut Different Gear, Still Speeding? It was so underwhelming – and so clearly overshadowed by rival Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds later in 2011 – that even Liam Gallagher, that torchbearer of everything that's real in rock & roll, agreed it was time for a new set of threads, so he and the rest of the gang turned to somebody unexpected: renowned indie-art rocker Dave Sitek, a member of TV on the Radio and producer of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Foals, Thee Oh Sees, Liars…

Yoshio Suzuki - Friends (1973) {CBS–Sony Music Japan, Paper Sleeve, SICP 10048 rel 2007}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 337 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 118 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 35 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1973, 2007 CBS / Sony Music Japan | SICP 10048 | DSD mastering
Jazz / Post Bop / Post Fusion / Jazz Funk / Bass

The debut album as a leader by Yoshio Suzuki featuring saxophonist Kohsuke Mine, pianist Takehiro Honda, drummer Hiroshi Murakami & special guest flutist Hideo Miyata. "Friends" is an essential japanese jazz masterpiece ranging from Hard Bop (The Past, K'S Waltz) to Modal jazz (Burning Point) passing by Bossa Nova (Samba De Chico), it includes only Suzuki's own compositions.

Jean-Marc Luisada - Schubert (2014) {Sony Music Japan DSD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 244 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 170 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 79 Mb | 5% repair rar | DSD
© 2014 Sony Music Japan | 88843054212
Classical / Romantic / Piano

French only. C'est le fameux portrait présumé de Schubert, adolescent timide qui semble fuir l'intrusion du peintre assis en face de lui, qui nous invite à l'écoute du dernier album du pianiste Jean-Marc Luisada qui se fait trop rare au disque. Avec des musiciens parfaitement soudés, il nous offre une version particulièrement joyeuse et amicale du Quintette en la majeur, cette Truite que l'on partage dans le plaisir d'une Schubertiade. Comme tout est ici vivant, ensoleillé ; c'est à peine si un voile de mélancolie vient ombrer l'andante à variations. La majeur, la bémol majeur, la mineur, Luisada virevolte avec gourmandise et malice autour de cette note qui se décline sous trois habits différents, un peu comme un peintre (ou un cuisinier) restant dans un camaïeu de couleurs et de goûts.

Fleetwood Mac - English Rose (1968) {2009 Sony Music Japan Blu-Spec CD Remaster}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 257 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 95 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 218 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Sony Music Japan / Epic | EICP-20031
Rock / Blues Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Reissue in the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (fully compatible with standard CD players.) For reasons that no one seems to recall in detail – but for which we can be grateful – when it was time to release a second Fleetwood Mac LP in America, producer Mike Vernon and the band didn't just send the existing Mr. Wonderful album across the Atlantic – a little fine-tuning and retooling was in order. The band had just expanded by one member, to a quintet – with the addition of guitarist Danny Kirwan – by the end of 1968, whereas Mr. Wonderful represented them as a four-piece outfit. Additionally, the group had just toured the U.S. for the first time, as a quintet, playing to very enthusiastic audiences, and so there was some point to sending U.S. licensee Epic Records something extra, representing who they were at the start of 1969.

Chad & Jeremy - The Ark (1968) {Columbia–Sony Music Japan, MHCP-979 rel 2006, Cardboard Sleeve}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 332 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 126 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1968, 2006 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | MHCP-979
Rock / Pop / Psychedelic / Baroque Pop / British Invasion

While The Ark contained nothing quite as elaborate as "The Progress Suite" that had taken up one whole side of Of Cabbages and Kings, it was another psychedelic mishmash of styles – Indian one minute, musichall the next – of a kind so many popular performers had been indulging in at the time in hopes of making the next Sgt. Pepper. The difference was that most of Chad & Jeremy's peers had gotten it out of their systems the year before. But C&J were upper-class types who took naturally to the pretensions of the form – they thought they were making Art. Their listeners thought differently: The Ark missed the charts, and Chad & Jeremy broke up.

Chad & Jeremy - Of Cabbages And Kings (1967) {Columbia–Sony Music Japan, MHCP-978 rel 2006, Cardboard Sleeve}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 364 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 141 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1967, 2006 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | MHCP-978
Rock / Pop / Psychedelic / Baroque Pop / British Invasion

Andy Shernoff of the Dictators once wrote a song called "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?," which featured the memorable verse "June first, '67/Something died and went to heaven/I wish Sgt. Pepper never taught the band to play." Maybe Shernoff was going a bit far to make a point, but the unfortunate truth is that once the Beatles released their magnum opus, it would be many years before an album that was simply a collection of great songs would seem to be enough in the eyes of the rock cognoscenti. Seemingly every act of any significance during the late '60s made a high-gloss concept album, and Chad & Jeremy were no exception; while they had a sure knack for smart and subtle folk-influenced pop with outstanding harmonies, the times demanded more of them, and in 1967 they released their response to the Sgt. Pepper's phenomenon, Of Cabbages and Kings.

Art Garfunkel - 7 Albums Collection (2012) {Columbia Sony Music Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CDs}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (image)+CUE+LOG -> 2,17 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1.79 Gb | DSD Mastering
© 2012 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP-20426~7 / SICP-20428~33
Rock / Soft Rock / Contemporary Pop

Cardboard sleeve reissue from Art Garfunkel featuring the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (compatible with standard CD players) and 2012 DSD remastering. Part of a six-album Art Garfunkel Blu-spec CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Angel Clare," "Breakaway," "Watermark," "Fate For Breakfast," "Scissors Cut," and "Lefty." The Singer info: Greatest hits album release from Art Garfunkel including two new songs recorded in 2012. Features the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (compatible with standard CD players).

Masahiko Satoh - All-In, All-Out (1979) {Sony Music Japan SRCL1978 rel 1991}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 245 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 96 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 33 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1979, 1991 Sony Music Japan | SRCL1978
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Fusion / Piano

This unkown gem - that will amaze casual listeners and still conquer regular ones - stars both Masahiko Sato's talent in displaying a wide variety of tones and fusion scales and Dave Liebman's fierce and intense saxophone playing. Sometimes "All-in, All-Out" recalls Weather Report's edgy style of abstract fusion, and Sato's work here serves that purpose very well,which means, painting soundscapes simultaneously dreamy and cerebral. "Sapajou Walk" begins like an orchestrated blues lament, but by the time we reach "Fallout", the last track, we realize that this is not just a pop-oriented jazz thing, but a trip to something much deeper. This is truly great stuff, so check it out.