a Capella

This recent gospel compilation from Swedish producer and collector Per Notini is a three disc, 84 track set focused exclusively on a capella singing without any instrumental accompaniment. Featuring many well-known quartets such as the Fairfield Four and Soul Stirrers as well as lesser known artists, the set traces stylistic changes over a thirty year period, concluding in 1969 before the ‘contemporary’ gospel era. These groups created some of the most inventive and progressive African American vocal music of the post-war period, which had a profound effect on later R&B and soul artists, not to mention artists across all other genres.

Bläck Fööss - A Capella
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 340 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: EMI Electrola # 7243 8 28572 2 8 | Country/Year: Germany 1993
Genre: Rock, Pop | Style: Kölsch Rock, A Capella

The Bläck Fööss are a music group from Cologne, Germany, started in 1970. The band's style of music is a cross between Schlager and pop, but they also perform songs with jazz, blues, rock and reggae styles. The group is famous for its lead singer's a cappella singing. Many of the band's songs are popular carnival songs, while others are covers of bands such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Beatles, Hollies or Willi Ostermann.

Founded in 1991 by French choral director Laurence Equilbey, the 32-member Choeur de Chambre Accentus' 1996 Virgin recording of a cappella songs and ballads by Brahms and Schumann is as clear and lovely as a cloud-flecked sky in early October. Composed during his early years in Hamburg, Brahms' Gesänge, Op. 42, are robustly romantic, while his Gesänge, Op. 104, composed during his late maturity in Vienna, are autumnally nostalgic. Composed primarily in Dresden, Schumann wrote his Romanzen und Ballades about the same time he started his long, slow decline into madness. But in these performances by the Accentus Chamber Choir, all the music – early, mature, or melancholy – sounds crisp, alert, and strong.

This "two-fer" from the acclaimed French vocal troupe features Bach Hits Back and A Cappella Amadeus. Fans of the group's impeccable a cappella versions of classic Baroque, fugues, madrigals, and orchestral overtures will find much to love here, while those who pass the collective off as talented purveyors of whimsical novelty will only make it through the first two or three tracks.