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SACD

Donovan – Storyteller (2003) [Audio Fidelity] [SACD / Audio Fidelity – AFZ 015]

adminSeptember 30, 2025 169 Views

Title: Donovan – Storyteller (2003) [Audio Fidelity]
Genre: Folk Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

This set makes a nice introduction to Donovan’s peak years in the mid- to late ’60s, including both his Baroque flower power material for Epic Records like “Sunshine Superman” and the fairy tale funky “Hurdy Gurdy Man” as well as his earlier and more folky recordings for Pye Records (they were released in the U.S. by Hickory Records) like “Catch the Wind,” “Colours,” the stylistically prescient “Sunny Goodge Street,” and the beautiful “Turquoise” (which is as gorgeous as it is ridiculous). The sides included here are perfect examples of Donovan’s unique Woody Guthrie meets Timothy Leary style, and having both the Pye and Epic material side by side is a definite plus.

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1 min read

SACD

Dolly Parton – Little Sparrow (2001) [Reissue 2003] [SACD / Sugar Hill Records – SUG-SACD-3973]

adminSeptember 30, 2025 146 Views

Title: Dolly Parton – Little Sparrow (2001) [Reissue 2003]
Genre: Country
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Though Dolly Parton had been exploring her musical roots to various degrees throughout the last half of the ’90s, her true return to form didn’t occur until the release of the Grammy-winning The Grass Is Blue, and its 2001 follow-up, Little Sparrow. Critics and fans alike agreed that the latter record was easily among the best Parton had ever recorded, and that was certainly saying something. One of the leading tracks on Little Sparrow was its love-wary title track, which kicked off an album that was filled with enough heartache-related songs to cover three separate country records. Parton’s lyrics use the familiar folk metaphor of symbolizing a bird as freedom and rebirth, and she looks to it wishing to escape a world that has crumbled due to a insincere lover. She grippingly moans, “Little sparrow, flies so high, feels no pain,” while fantasizing, “If I were a little sparrow, oe’r these mountains I would fly/I would find him, I would find him/look into his lying eye.” Besides simple escape, Parton also wants justification for her sorrow, singing “I would flutter all around him…I would ask him/why he let me love him then.” By the end of the song, however, she realizes she is merely a victim of an “evil cunning scheme,” leaving no other lesson to pass on to her “maidens fair and tender” other than “never trust the hearts of men, for they will crush you like a sparrow.” By this time, Parton has realized that even the sparrow is a victim of man’s evil, and it is only free until it meets up with a man, who will casually destroy it. It’s an ingenious metaphor that, along with a slow, aching melody, and a flawless production and performance, helps round out what is truly one of the best songs Dolly Parton has written in years.

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2 min read

SACD

Doc Severinsen – Rhapsody For Now! / Doc (1973/1972) [Reissue 2018] [SACD / Vocalion – CDLK 4609]

adminSeptember 30, 2025 130 Views

Title: Doc Severinsen – Rhapsody For Now! / Doc (1973/1972) [Reissue 2018]
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Two groovy Doc Severinson albums – back to back on a single CD! Rhapsody For Now is kind of a cool concept album for Doc Severinsen – one that has him blowing amidst some larger suites arranged by Oliver Nelson, Harry Betts, and Tommy Newsom – each with a slightly different feel! The set starts out with the hip “Rhapsody For Now” – comprised of some cool 70s tunes like “Live & Let Die”, “Soul Makossa”, “Shambala”, and “Touch Me In The Morning” – done up in hip big band arrangements by Nelson that are totally great. The same groove follows in the shorter “Pictures”, arranged by Lenny Stack – which is a sweet funky number! “Rhapsody For Then” is next – but the “then” is really just the late 60s – as Severinson blows trumpet over big band versions of “California Dreamin”, “Look Of Love”, “A Song For You”, and “Sweet Caroline”. The set ends with straighter jazz on “I Remember Louis” – a suite of tunes associated with Louis Armstrong, but still given a pretty 70s twist in the arrangements. Doc is a set of upbeat, jazzy ditties all arranged by Dick Hyman – with a brightly swinging feel that’s a hip mix of late 60s mod and early 70s funk! Doc’s brassy sound is perfect for the setting – and he really polishes off the top of Hyman’s arrangements nicely – never stretching out too far in his solos, nor straying to far from the melodies – but always providing more than enough “voice” with his horn to deepen the cuts past standard instrumental modes. Titles include “Liberia”, “Theme From Portnoy’s Complaint”, “Living Free”, “Bonnie”, “The Godfather Waltz”, “Lucky Me”, “I Only Want To say”, and “Theme From Summer Of 42”.

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2 min read

SACD

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra – Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Studio Ghibli Symphonic Collection (2005) [SACD / Studio Ghibli Records – TKGA-502]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 180 Views

Title: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra – Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Studio Ghibli Symphonic Collection (2005)
Genre: Classical
Format: DSF DSD64

The greatest songs from Studio Ghibli films performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a super-audio CD hybrid disc.

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1 min read

SACD

Mischa Maisky, Lars Anders Tomter, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy – Strauss: Don Quixote (2001/2009) [SACD / Exton – OVGL-00006]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 177 Views

Title: Mischa Maisky, Lars Anders Tomter, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy – Strauss: Don Quixote (2001/2009)
Genre: Classical
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Mischa Maisky (cello), Lars Anders Tomter (viola) and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy performs Richard Strauss’ “Don Quixote (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character)” & “Symphonic Poem “Death and Transfiguration” on this Japanese SACD. A pure DSD recording.

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1 min read

SACD

Cyrille Aimee & Diego Figueiredo – Just The Two Of Us (2011) [Japan 2016] [SACD / Venus Records – VHGD-167]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 171 Views

Title: Cyrille Aimee & Diego Figueiredo – Just The Two Of Us (2011) [Japan 2016]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The young and talented duo of French-born singer Cyrille Aimée and Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo is a perfect match! As a duo, they cover a large musical territory from jazz standards, pops, samba, French chanson and Cuban bolero to original compositions, Aimée’s expressive vocals and Figueiredo’s virtuosic guitar playing combine to create a unique aesthetic that is upbeat and very attractive.

Cyrille Aimée was born in a suburb of Paris to a French father and a Dominican mother, and began singing the so-called French Gypsy jazz. She moved to the United States in 2005 to attend a conservatory at State University of New York Purchase and studied under Pete Malinverni, Jon Faddis and Jimmy Greene. She won the Montreux Festival Jazz Voice Competition in 2007 and was a finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition of 2010. Diego Figueiredo was born in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and began playing the guitar professionally at age 15. He won a music contest in 2009 and obtained a scholarship at Berklee School of Music. Winner of numerous awards, he moved to New York in 2006.

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2 min read

SACD

Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual (1983) [Reissue 2000] [SACD / Epic – ES 38930]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 201 Views

Title: Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual (1983) [Reissue 2000]
Genre: Rock, Pop
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

She’s So Unusual is the debut studio album by American pop singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper. Released in 1983 by Portrait Records, the album catapulted Lauper to stardom with such hits as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, “Time After Time”, “She Bop”, “All Through the Night”, and “Money Changes Everything”. All five singles reached the top thirty of the Billboard Hot 100, with first four singles of them becoming Top 5 hits. Lauper thus became the first female singer to have four top five singles on the Hot 100 from one album.

One of the great new wave/early MTV records, She’s So Unusual is a giddy mix of self-confidence, effervescent popcraft, unabashed sentimentality, subversiveness, and clever humor. In short, it’s a multifaceted portrait of a multifaceted talent, an artist that’s far more clever than her thin, deliberately girly voice would indicate. Then again, Lauper’s voice suits her musical persona, since its chirpiness adds depth, or reconfigures the songs, whether it’s the call to arms of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” or the tearjerking “Time After Time.” Lauper is at her very best on the first side, all of which were singles or received airplay, and this collection of songs — “Money Changes Everything,” “Girls,” “When You Were Mine,” “Time,” “She Bop,” “All Through the Night” — is astonishing in its consistency, so strong that it makes the remaining tracks — all enjoyable, but rather pedestrian — charming by their association with songs so brilliantly alive. If Lauper couldn’t maintain this level of consistency, it’s because this captured her persona better than anyone could imagine — when a debut captures a personality so well, let alone a personality so tied to its time, the successive work can’t help but pale in comparison. Still, when it’s captured as brightly and brilliantly as it is here, it does result in a debut that retains its potency, long after its production seems a little dated.

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2 min read

SACD

Curtis Mayfield – Super Fly (1972) [MFSL 2018] [SACD / Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab – UDSACD 2204]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 161 Views

Title: Curtis Mayfield – Super Fly (1972) [MFSL 2018]
Genre: Funk, Soul
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Super Fly is the third studio album by American soul musician Curtis Mayfield. It was released as the soundtrack for the Blaxploitation film of the same name. Widely considered a classic of 1970s soul and funk music, Super Fly was a nearly immediate hit. This album is one of the few soundtracks to out-gross the film it accompanied. In 2003, the album was ranked number 69 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The choice of Curtis Mayfield to score the blaxploitation film Super Fly was an inspired one. No other artist in popular music knew so well, and expressed through his music so naturally, the shades of gray inherent in contemporary inner-city life. His debut solo album, 1970’s Curtis, had shown in vivid colors that the ’60s optimist (author of the civil-rights anthems “Keep On Pushing” and “People Get Ready”) had added a layer of subtlety to his material; appearing on the same LP as the positive and issue-oriented “Move On Up” was an apocalyptic piece of brimstone funk titled “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go.” For Super Fly, Mayfield wisely avoids celebrating the wheeling-and-dealing themes present in the movie, or exploiting them, instead using each song to focus on a different aspect of what he saw as a plague on America’s streets. He also steers away from explicit moralizing; through his songs, Mayfield simply tells it like it is (for the characters in the film as in real life), with any lessons learned the result of his vibrant storytelling and knack of getting inside the heads of the characters. “Freddie’s Dead,” one of the album’s signature pieces, tells the story of one of the film’s main casualties, a good-hearted yet weak-willed man caught up in the life of a pusher, and devastatingly portrays the indifference of those who witness or hear about it. “Pusherman” masterfully uses the metaphor of drug dealer as businessman, with the drug game, by extension, just another way to make a living in a tough situation, while the title track equates hustling with gambling (“The game he plays he plays for keeps/hustlin’ times and ghetto streets/tryin’ ta get over”). Ironically, the sound of Super Fly positively overwhelmed its lyrical finesse. A melange of deep, dark grooves, trademarked wah-wah guitar, and stinging brass, Super Fly ignited an entire genre of music, the blaxploitation soundtrack, and influenced everyone from soul singers to television-music composers for decades to come. It stands alongside Saturday Night Fever and Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols as one of the most vivid touchstones of ’70s pop music.

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3 min read

SACD

Curtis Fuller – Blues-Ette (1959) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2012] [SACD / Columbia – COGY-1021]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 179 Views

Title: Curtis Fuller – Blues-Ette (1959) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2012]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Sessions in any genre of music are all too often described as “sublime,” but seldom has that description been better deserved than with this relaxed hard bop classic. One looks to other catchalls such as “effortless” and “loose,” but even those slight this amazing date by implying a lack of intensity — and intensity comes in all forms. For all intents and purposes, this is the first recorded meeting of what would become the famous Benny Golson/Art Farmer Jazztet (albeit without Farmer), a group most commonly associated with its 1960 Chess session, Meet the Jazztet. Curtis Fuller’s next date, The Curtis Fuller Jazztet, and his appearance on the Chess date, only compound this point. Like perhaps Jimmy Smith’s flagship, The Sermon, Blues-ette’s brilliance manifests itself not only within the individual solos but also in the way the group functions as a collective. One gets the impression that these tunes could have continued for hours in the studio without the slightest lack of interest on anyone’s part. This might be because many of the themes presented here are so basic and seemingly obvious that they don’t seem like anything to write home about upon first listen. A day or so later, when you’re walking down the street to the tempo of the title track, you may begin to think otherwise. These are some exceptionally catchy heads and many have since become standards. As far as individual performances are concerned, you’re not likely to find better solos by any of the members of this quintet than you will here, though they all have extensive and very high-quality catalogs themselves. Picking highlights is a moot point. Blues-ette is best experienced as an entire LP. It would have surely made a greater impact upon its initial release had it been on a more high-profile label, such as Columbia or Blue Note, but there’s no sense worrying about that now. Any serious jazz collection is incomplete without this record.

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2 min read

SACD

Cristina Branco – Ulisses (2004) [Reissue 2005] [SACD / Universal – 982 666 9]

adminSeptember 21, 2025 192 Views

Title: Cristina Branco – Ulisses (2004) [Reissue 2005]
Genre: Fado, Female Vocal
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

One of the great fado singers working today, Cristina Branco returns with Ulisses, a lush-sounding album that now more than ever separates her from fado convention. Rather than the typical guitar trio backing, Branco adds piano throughout to a guitar quartet that is, as always, led by Portuguese guitar player Custódio Castelo. Between Castelo’s pyrotechnics and the piano adding a richer harmonic element, the elegant music sounds more appropriate for classical music recital halls than the fado clubs. Branco’s voice smolders with nuance throughout, soaring but never overpowering the backing. A reference to the title, the material here sometimes comes from poems and tunes far beyond her homeland–Branco even offers English speakers a not-at-all-stiff version of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case Of You.” The electronic-oriented “Fundos” ends the album on an odd note but serves as an emphatic reminder that Cristina Branco is not content to sail exclusively in traditional Portuguese waters.

First-time listeners to this Portuguese chanteuse may become so instantly infatuated with her beautiful, expressive voice and the plucky native guitar of Custódio Castelo that they may not truly care about the fado music traditions the two are carrying on via this enchanting collection. One could simply enjoy the impressionistic English translations of these Portuguese songs, punctuated sweetly and appropriately by an English-language rendering of Joni Mitchell’s unabashedly romantic “A Case of You.” But for those who want to understand the essence of Branco’s artistry, it’s interesting to note that her mission is to take fado out of its traditional mode of suffering, melancholy, and impotence and breathe new life into the genre with more hopeful interpretations. Composer and guitarist Castelo helps her realize her vision by artfully combining classics and originals to fit the beautiful tonality of her voice. His melodies tap the memory of the fado but transcend the fatalistic and head boldly into more lighthearted territory. Beyond such definitions, it’s simply beautiful to listen to.

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2 min read