Indestructible Art

Blue Note will issue a never-before-released studio album by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Just Coolin’, on 17 July. It was recorded on 8 March 1959 in the Hackensack, New Jersey studio of feted recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Indestructible (1964) {2003 Blue Note RVG Edition}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 320 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 106 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 34 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1964, 2003 Blue Note / Capitol | 7243 5 80915 2 6 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Hard Bop / Drums

Maybe one of the most famous records ever from master drummer Art Blakey – in part because of the cover, which has come to stand for the Blue Note aesthetic of the 60s! But despite that famous image, the music is more than worthy of attention – as the group features that unusual sextet lineup of the Jazz Messengers that made some amazing sounds in the mid 60s – Blakey on drums, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on piano, and Reggie Workman on bass! Morgan and Shorter are really growing and pushing themselves in different ways than their work with Blakey at the start of the 60s – and the addition of Fuller, and especially Walton, really gives the group this rounded warmth that shows a new level of maturity – a quality that comes through both in the playing, and the writing – as songs are all originals by Walton, Fuller, Morgan, and Shorter.

Indestructible is one of Barretto's most solidly consistent efforts, a series of Afro-Cuban rhythms and song styles illustrated by a stomping band that knows how to move the classic material in a jazz manner into improvisation and then back again. The opener, "El Hijo de Oblata," is a case in point: a piano line playing a steaming son line sets the base for the horn section to widen it; next comes the chorus on the vocal melody, propped up all around by an army of percussionists, and they all meld together before the tempo slows momentarily and slips into a five/eight Latin-tinged jazz number where the pianist takes a solo rich in arpeggios, and smooths the rough-edged rhythms out with large augmented and suspended chords.

Loney Dear - Loney Dear (2017) {B&W Society of Sound 112 Official Digital Download 16-44.1}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (bowers-wilkins.com) -> 200 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 87 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 2017 Real World Records / B&W Society of Sound | SoS no. 112
Dream Pop / Indie Pop

Swedish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emil Svanängen makes records and plays shows under the enigmatic name of Loney dear. In the early 2000s, in his Stockholm apartment studio, Svanängen made a name for himself by creating homemade CDRs with a minidisk microphone and a home computer, self-releasing albums which by 2007 had pricked Sub Pop’s ears and they released Loney Noir. Two more albums - Dear John and Hall Music - followed, as did glowing reviews in The Guardian, BBC, Drowned in Sound, Pitchfork and earlier this year the Line of Best Fit went as far as calling him a "brilliant genius".

As many artists have experienced, the past two years hit the entire music and culture industry hard. But MY SLEEPING KARMA – they have truly faced the abyss. Formed almost 20 years ago as a strong bond of best friends with a steady line-up ever since, the band has amassed an incredibly successful back catalogue of five highly acclaimed records and a live album in 2017, as well as extensive touring performances at sold-out venues and prestigious festivals that have marked them as one of the most well-respected instrumental post- and hypnotic rock bands within the heavy music community. Closing a seven-year gap since their latest studio album, Moksha, MY SLEEPING KARMA will release their most emotional, deepest, darkest record to date, inspired by tragic events, on July 29, 2022.

This fascinating set provides a refreshing window onto a much studied, much idolized, and oft performed master of composition, allowing many of his familiar works to appear in a new light, recognizable and yet transformed. Bach's music is often described as indestructible, in the sense that no matter how it is performed, or in whichever arrangement, it's essential spirit survives. Many of the transcriptions included here represent the work of contemporary, world-class performers bringing Bach's masterpieces into the repertoire of their own instruments or ensembles, thereby giving new timbres to the genius of Bach's contrapuntal lines.