Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attackRadiohead that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead create a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair – it's cerebral anthemic rock. Occasionally, the album displays its influences, whether it's U2, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., or the Pixies, but Radiohead turn clichés inside out, making each song sound bracingly fresh. Thom Yorke's tortured lyrics give the album a melancholy undercurrent, as does the surging, textured music. But what makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible. It makes the record compelling upon first listen, but it reveals new details with each listen, and soon it becomes apparent that with The Bends, Radiohead have reinvented anthemic rock.
Original soundtrack collection from Studio Ghibli includes 12 soundtrack CDs for animation films directed by Hayao Miyazaki all composed by Joe Hisaishi. These CDs have been remastered in the HQCD format for the best sound and are fully compatible with standard CD players. Their covers are cardboard sleeves faithfully replicating the original LP cover artworks. Comes with a bonus CD and a catalog booklet.
Sophisticated Swing is the fifth album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his fourth released on the EmArcy label, featuring performances with Nat Adderley, Junior Mance, Sam Jones, and Jimmy Cobb. A couple of decades ago Sophisicated Swing was the title of an instrumental tune - by Will Hudson, if our memory holds up - and the music that corresponded with it had a certain sleekness that probably justified the title by the standards of that era. But today sophistication in jazz has a somewhat deeper meaning. The true jazz sophisticate has absorbed the lessons of a new musical generation, one that brought with it great advances in harmonic, melodic and rhythmic subtlety. The word "swing", too, has acquired a significance mare far-reaching than any of us could have imagined in the days of monotonous four-to-the-bar rhythm sections and comparatively limited and unimaginative syncopation.
After Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, Jordi Savall continues his journey into the 19th century with the Italian Symphony of Felix Mendelssohn, a composer he records for the first time. He delivers 2 versions of the work: the one which was performed at the wolrdwide premiere in 1833 and the revised one from 1834. The most conspicuous changes are to be found in the last tree movements. The comparison of the two scores and the performance on period instruments take us as close to Mendelssohn's work and original intention as we will ever get. Thanks to Jordi Savall's insightful conducting, there is still something to discover in Mendelssohn's most famous symphony.