Jordi Savall's exemplary performance of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks is among the finest available on disc: refined and precise, but very big, with blood-stirring grandeur. This is just the kind of extroverted, rousing presentation that best highlights the music's open-air ceremonial function. Savall's Le Concert des Nations is essentially a chamber orchestra with double or triple winds, but the sound he elicits from the group is majestic and surprisingly powerful. The playing is crisp and the rhythmic articulation bracing, but the sound is never brash. In fact, more often than not it is seductively sensual, a heady integration of precision and supple, shapely phrasing. Handel left no authoritative edition of the score of Water Music and it has traditionally been divided into three suites, but Savall reorders the material into two suites, a decision that makes more sense in terms of key relationships and that sounds entirely satisfying.
Some people will seek out the debut album by Lovelock, because the man behind it is Steve Moore of the band Zombi – a New York duo who play faintly absurd horror soundtrack music enjoyed mainly by metalheads. Yet they will discover, in ‘Burning Feeling’, one of the least horrific or metallic records ever. Lovelock is where Moore lives out his oiliest, most moustachioed cosmic-disco-meets-yacht-rock fantasies. Largely paced languidly enough for the cruise ship dancefloor’s erection section, synths fizz like fireworks and vocals, when they feature, are shameless requests for unnamed ladies to disrobe. Despite being a good 30 years out of time, it’s absolutely brilliant.
In 2017, Naxos Records celebrates its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, the label now boasts a catalogue of over 9,000 albums spanning every genre of classical music. This limited edition anniversary boxed set comprises thirty CDs spanning the wide range of the label's repertoire. Featuring releases from 1987 to 2016 and a host of stellar artists, every one of these discs has received critical acclaim and has contributed towards the huge success of Naxos: the world's largest independent classical record label. Naxos was launched in 1987 as a budget classical CD label, offering CDs at teh price of an LP when CDs cost about three times more than LPs.
In 2017, Naxos Records celebrates its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, the label now boasts a catalogue of over 9,000 albums spanning every genre of classical music. This limited edition anniversary boxed set comprises thirty CDs spanning the wide range of the label's repertoire. Featuring releases from 1987 to 2016 and a host of stellar artists, every one of these discs has received critical acclaim and has contributed towards the huge success of Naxos: the world's largest independent classical record label. Naxos was launched in 1987 as a budget classical CD label, offering CDs at teh price of an LP when CDs cost about three times more than LPs.
The ever-elusive Americana maverick Jim White returns with his most upbeat, hallucinogenic record to date.
Limited edition of 1500 copies. Housed in a white cardboard box, containing another black velvet box and all albums and the EP, re-mastered on hybrid stereo SACD in vinyl replica sleeves. SACD mastered at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab…
For the 100th and final instalment of the iconic FABRICLIVE mix CD series, in its current form, two UK pioneers unite for a hypnotic 74-minute mix. Burial and Kode9 are each credited with fostering esoteric, hyperlocal sounds and steering them to global recognition, helping to shape the landscape of contemporary electronic music as we know it. They are also close peers, having influenced each other’s careers immeasurably over many years.