The Art or The Darkness

The success of a story often hinges on the art of the telling. Listen to vocalist Sara Gazarek with pianist Josh Nelson and you immediately see that to be true. These two use ripples of inflection to elicit tidal waves of emotion, uncover new wrinkles in the oldest of thematic fabrics, paint scenes and/or inhabit characters so deeply and convincingly that they blur or erase the lines separating true self from role, and willingly reveal all that this world has to offer—blessings, drama, and slings and arrows included. On Dream In The Blue, Gazarek and Nelson alternately elicit tears of joy and sorrow by moving from escape to reality, heaven to earth, and mirth to melancholy, reaffirming their collective position as one of the most arresting voice-and-piano pairings out there in the process.

The success of a story often hinges on the art of the telling. Listen to vocalist Sara Gazarek with pianist Josh Nelson and you immediately see that to be true. These two use ripples of inflection to elicit tidal waves of emotion, uncover new wrinkles in the oldest of thematic fabrics, paint scenes and/or inhabit characters so deeply and convincingly that they blur or erase the lines separating true self from role, and willingly reveal all that this world has to offer—blessings, drama, and slings and arrows included. On Dream In The Blue, Gazarek and Nelson alternately elicit tears of joy and sorrow by moving from escape to reality, heaven to earth, and mirth to melancholy, reaffirming their collective position as one of the most arresting voice-and-piano pairings out there in the process.

Healing expressive art activities in nature

Art of Noise (also The Art of Noise) were an English avant-garde synth-pop group formed in early 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn and music journalist Paul Morley. The group had international Top 20 hits with "Kiss" and the instrumental "Peter Gunn", which won a 1986 Grammy Award. The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on digital sampler technology, which was new at the time. Inspired by turn-of-the-20th-century revolutions in music, the Art of Noise were initially packaged as a faceless anti- or non-group, blurring the distinction between the art and its creators. Collection includes: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! (1984); In Visible Silence (1986); In No Sense? Nonsense! (1987); Below The Waste (1989); The Ambient Collection (1990); The FON Mixes (1991); The Seduction Of Claude Debussy (1999).

Apocalypse Now is one of the great films. Photography, score, acting and direction are without flaw. Coppola never scaled such heights subsequently. It seems the sheer effort to produce such a work extinguished much of his creative spark. Stravinsky frightened himself with the awesome force of his Sacre Du Printemps, and changed directions after, never to match this achievement; Richard Strauss fled into Neo-romanticism after writing the disturbing Elektra and Salome, unable to equal their innovation and power. But these seminal works (Le Sacre, Salome, Elektra, Apocalypse Now) remain as peaks of Art. Like the great classics of literature, each viewing of this film reveals deeper levels of meaning. It's stupid to even apply an arbitrary rating to this work. It would be like writing, "Brothers Karamazov gets 5 out of 5." It cannot be rated.

The trumpet can be traced back for almost 4000 years in many cultures and more than any other musical instrument it is surrounded by the aura of something special: it was the signal giver at ritual, religious, military or royal state occasions. The sound of the trumpet is still ambivalent today: even where it presents itself as sweet, it always resonates with a near-death shaking that can also become infernal and violent at any time. This sound remains connected with cosmic, divine or at least princely royal attitude. Reinhold Friedrich is one of the most uncompromising artists in this field. He is one of the world’s leading trumpeters – sometimes celebrated in the press as the ‘Trumpet God’ – and impresses with a breathtaking variety of repertoire: whether classical valve trumpet, whether the high piccolo trumpet, natural trumpet, historical keyed trumpet, whether with the Jewish shofar or the softer flugelhorn, – his playing always becomes that event which is then able to provoke reactions ranging from goose bumps to a mental flight of fancy. Whether a complex score of new music, whether baroque music and virtuoso classical music or ‘just’ a little melody of folk music: Reinhold Friedrich always knows how to create with his playing that overwhelming presence of ‘Now!’, which characterises the trumpet so uniquely. He is joined by equally exposed masters of their craft: solo trumpeter Hannes Laubin, long associated with Reinhold Friedrich as an equal duo partner and friend, and ‘Grisha’ Gregory Ahss, whose violin playing displays a similar stylistic breadth ranging from classical virtuosity to melodically heart-warming emotionality. This distinctive sound college is rounded off by the Munich Symphony Orchestra / Munchner Symphoniker, conducted by Martin Baeza-Rubio, which is as colorful as it is sensitive.

Existing at the forefront of the Polish black metal movement, Blaze Of Perdition return with their fifth full-length, The Harrowing Of Hearts – their most urgent, refined, dynamic and accomplished work to date. Richly layered, it is also their most textured release, and they dive ever deeper into the themes they have been exploring since dropping their debut full-length in 2010, Towards The Blaze Of Perdition. "I would say the new record is to 2017's Conscious Darkness what [2011's] The Hierophant was for Towards The Blaze Of Perdition - a continuation of the initial idea, but in more energetic and catchy form. Perhaps more approachable and listener-friendly, but it's not up to me to decide," states vocalist Sonneillon. "Although some gothic rock influences could be heard on Conscious Darkness, here we took them out of the shadows and let them shine in the spotlight. It's also our most collectively written effort so far, with every band member throwing something meaningful to the whole."