Neo 6.54

When Gilles Peterson's Brownswood imprint released American vocalist and composer José James' debut album Dreamer, the effect in club culture and throughout the jazz communities in New York, Japan, and Europe was immediate. Jazz Times selected it as one of its albums of the year in 2008. James' voice echoed the social consciousness of Gil Scott-Heron, the hipness of Babs Gonzales, the sophistication of Jon Lucien, and the soulfulness of Terry Callier, whether he was improvising over a piano trio playing Mingus, or singing his own lyrics over electronic beats.

Stephan Micus is an extraordinary musical traveller, exploring the world, collecting instruments and then creating his own musical worlds from them. This is his 23rd album for ECM and on each one he composes the tracks, plays and overdubs them to create unique and exquisite pieces of chamber music. The ten tracks on ‘White Night’ particularly rely on the sound of various sub-Saharan kalimba (thumb pianos) and the oboe-like Armenian duduk. There are two purely solo tracks, ‘All the Way’ on a kalimba from Botswana and ‘The Moon’ on Armenian duduk, while ‘Fireflies’ has 22 overdubs of Indian whistles, Micus’s voice and other instruments. “I dedicate this album to the moon which has always been a source of magic in many cultures,” says Micus. “Music too is a source of magic which is where the two connect.” Aside from his 14 string guitar, Micus plays instruments from Armenia, Tibet, India, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia and Ethiopia, most of them in combinations never heard before.

Here is a collection of familiar classical music adagios given new interpretations by Windham Hill artists. Although most of the tracks do have synthesizer harmonies and embellishments, there are some that do not. The Brahms Intermezzo contains its own intermezzo in the form of a jazz piano trio improvisation. Edgar Meyer on double bass and Mike Marshall on mandolin perform a nice, straightforward transcription of the Prelude in C sharp minor from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, with no synthesized embellishments.

The year was 2001 and metal had exploded across Europe, ushering in a new generation of power, progressive, and symphonic metal acts. Though the competition was quite stiff, self-made metal sage Olaf Lenk is still a cut above most with his vintage brand of power metal…

Belgian band Mindgames influences are to be found in the whole progressive rock history. Element of Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Marillion and too many others to mention can be found in here. The band grouped in 1997 but it took 2 years until they entered the recording studio to shape their first recording demos. The rehearsals for their debut album took the next three years until the album was ready, in 2002, and was finally released in 2003. This output was carefully structured with mid-long pieces and three epics. It's a very sophisticated music, precisely played and perfect balance between energy and softness. Strong melodies, multiple rhythm changes and a nice instrumental colouring of the songs are warp and woof on "International Daylight", an album that achieved a great success among the lovers of Symphonic Progressive.