When Melanie De Biasio released No Deal in 2014, it was embraced by jazz critics, DJs, and club audiences simultaneously. Gilles Peterson was so taken with its monochromatic ambient textures, stark arrangements, and clever improvisational intimations that he commissioned an album of remixes. Blackened Cities is not a conventional follow-up, but an adventurous endeavor rife with risk. The release consists of a single 24-minute track that unfolds like a suite. The conservatory-trained Belgian vocalist and flutist and her longtime musical associates – Pascal Mohy on piano, Pascal Paulus on analog synths and clavinet, and Dré Pallemaerts on drums (with guest double bassist/cellist Sam Gerstmans) – deliver a full-scale sonic drama that crosses a wide musical expanse and evokes an encyclopedia of stylistic references, yet comes across as a totally original whole. Its title comes from impressions of postindustrial cities De Biasio visited on her international tour: Detroit, Manchester, her native Charleroi; each has a storied past and a devastated façade, yet reflects its own unique beauty and tenacity.
Yes, I'm A Witch Too is a collaboration and remix LP from Yoko Ono. The street date is February 19, 2016 via Manimal Vinyl Records. The LP features remixes and collaborations from Death Cab for Cutie, Moby, Portugal. The Man, Sparks, Peter Bjorn and John, Miike Snow, Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto and others. It is a sequel to 2007's acclaimed Yes, I'm a Witch. The LP features cover art by Scott Rudd with an image of Ono by Karl Lagerfeld.
Saxophonist Houston Person and bassist Ron Carter have a duo partnership that goes back at least as far as their two 1990 recordings, Something in Common and Now's the Time! Since those albums, the legendary artists have released several more duo collaborations, each one a thoughtful and minimalist production showcasing their masterful command of jazz standards, blues, and bop. The duo's 2016 effort, the aptly titled Chemistry, is no exception and once again finds Person and Carter communing over a well-curated set of jazz standards. As on their previous albums, Chemistry is a deceptively simple conceit; just two jazz journeymen playing conversational duets on well-known jazz songs.
Well into the first half of the 20th century, Sergei Bortkiewicz remained an unreconstructed Romantic composer, a product of the influences of Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and Robert Schumann in his youth, and his long career showed little change in this style. Bortkiewicz's solo piano music offers flashes of technical brilliance, and in some ways it is comparable to the early work of his Russian contemporaries, Sergei Rachmaninov and Alexander Scriabin, though its sentimentality often makes it seem derivative of parlor music of the fin de siècle.
Complex re-release of the most remarkable and worldwide sought after series The Dark Side Of The Moog by German electronic pioneers Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlook (aka Peter Kuhlmann) in three slip lid boxsets, each with 5 CDs, incl. bonus material and new linernotes. The third box contains Vol. 9 to Vol. 11 and two bonus CDs. The relationship between Klaus and Pete and the exchange of ideas was unorthodox from the beginning of their co-operation, in that they rarely met personally. The most remarkable contacts they had were outside of their studios, for instance their concert of April 1999 at the Jazz Festival in Hamburg , which was released as an edited version on 'Dark Side Of The Moog, Vol.8' (will be released in the second Boxset) - the interplay and chemistry between them is clearly evident, and it becomes even clearer on the un-edited version of the concert (which will be released as bonus CS on the third boxset).