Title: English Baroque Soloists – Handel: Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks (2021)
Genre: Classical
Format: DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC
Title: E Nomine – Die Prophezeiung (2003)
Genre: Electronic, Modern Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
E Nomine (from the Latin In Nomine, “In The Name Of”) is a German musical project, formed in 1999, by producers Christian Weller and Friedrich “Fritz” Graner. Their music, which they call monumental dance, is an unusual combination of trance, techno, and vocals which closely resemble Gregorian singing and chanting. Other vocals are performed by German voice actors such as long-time collaborators Christian Brückner and Rolf Schult. The primary languages in the songs are German and Latin.
Title: Enoch Light – Persuasive Percussion (2011)
Genre: Pop, Instrumental
Format: SACD ISO
Enoch Light was a classical violinist, bandleader, and recording engineer. He is credited with being one of the first musicians to go to extreme lengths to create high-quality recordings that took full advantage of the technical capabilities of home audio equipment of the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly stereo effects that bounced the sounds between the right and left channels (often described as “ping-pong”). He arranged his musicians in ways to produce the kinds of recorded sounds he wished to achieve, the first to do so. The first of the albums produced on his record label, Command Records, Persuasive Percussion, became the first huge hit based solely on retail sales. His songs received little or no airplay on the radio, because AM radio, the standard of the day, was monaural.
“What sets … Persuasive Percussion (1959)… apart from the plethora of other easy listening combos was Light’s innovative use of technology. Most notably, experiments in extreme stereo mixing that took advantage of what was then considered an audiophile-only novelty. He also became one of the pioneers to document audio on 35 millimeter film rather than magnetic-based audio tape. Not only did this allow for a broader range of frequencies to be captured, it greatly increased the stability of the playback. Undoubtedly, that is one reason the fidelity of his analog masters sound better and more animated than those made nearly a half-century later. This title, Persuasive Percussion (1959), was the first in the series and is often cited with helping usher in the ultra-cool space-age pop genre.” – Lindsay Planer, allmusic.com
Title: Emi Fujita – Kokoro no Shokutaku ~Okaeri Itoshiki Utatachi~ (2008)
Genre: J-Pop
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Emi Fujita is a big star in Asia with several of her albums, especially the Camomile series, reaching #1. This is a collection of old songs, many her mother & father loved. Kokoro (in the title) means ‘heart’ or ‘feelings’ or ‘the heart of things’. Her voice was always warm, soft, reassuring, just listening to her songs, you seem to be able to forget all the pain.
![Elvis Presley - King Creole (1958) [Audio Fidelity 2013]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2025/11/20/q3uL0US.jpg "Elvis Presley - King Creole (1958) [Audio Fidelity 2013]")
Title: Elvis Presley – King Creole (1958) [Audio Fidelity 2013]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
King Creole was the last movie that Elvis Presley made before he entered the army in the spring of 1958 — it was also his last film in black-and-white, as well as his final effort directed by a serious old-time filmmaker (Michael Curtiz); and, apart from a few isolated, quirky efforts like Flaming Star, Change of Habit, and Charro, this was the last of his serious movies, in which Presley was trying hard, pushing himself as an actor and, really, all through the score, as a musician. This is reflected in the soundtrack, which is one of the stronger film-related releases of his career. The original 11 songs included a hot title track by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that was a dazzling showcase for Scotty Moore’s and Tiny Timbrell’s guitars as well as Elvis’ intense, exciting lead vocal. Leiber and Stoller’s “Trouble” and Claude Demetrius’ “Hard Headed Woman” have Moore’s and Timbrell’s electric guitars competing successfully with a five-man brass and reed section. Even “Dixieland Rock,” if not up to the level of those other two numbers, features good playing and a strong performance by Presley, and “Young Dreams” is a decent midtempo number. The slow ballads are where the soundtrack falls flat, “As Long As I Have You” coming up to standard but “Lover Doll” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” failing to excite or maintain interest; “Crawfish” can only have been included to bring the album up to the minimum acceptable length for an LP.
![Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach - Painted From Memory (1998) [MFSL 2017]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2025/11/20/YIQRasV.jpg "Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach - Painted From Memory (1998) [MFSL 2017]")
Title: Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach – Painted From Memory (1998) [MFSL 2017]
Genre: Jazz, Easy Listening
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Painted from Memory is a collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach. The collaboration commenced with “God Give Me Strength”, a commission for the 1996 film “Grace of My Heart”. Apparently pleased with the result, the pair expanded the project to this full album, the first for Costello after an absence of two years, and for Bacharach after an absence of 21 years. Lyrics and music are co-credited to both Bacharach and Costello. “I Still Have That Other Girl” won a Grammy Award in 1998 for “Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals” for Bacharach and Costello.
Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach first collaborated on “God Give Me Strength,” a sweeping ballad that functioned as the centerpiece in Allison Anders’ Grace of My Heart. It was a stunning song in the tradition of Bacharach’s classic ’60s work and it was successful enough that the composers decided to collaborate on a full album, Painted from Memory. Wisely, they chose to work within the stylistic parameters of Bacharach’s ’60s material, but Painted from Memory never sounds like a stylistic exercise. Instead, it’s a return to form for both artists. Bacharach hasn’t written such graceful, powerful melodies since his glory days, and Costello hasn’t crafted such a fully realized album since King of America. It’s a testament to both that even if the album is clearly in Bacharach’s territory, it feels like a genuine collaboration. Often, the music not only evokes the spirit of Dionne Warwick, it’s reminiscent of Elvis’ torching ballads for Trust. Costello keeps Bacharach from his schmaltzier tendencies, and Bacharach keeps Costello from overwriting. With its lush arrangements, sighing brass and strings, gentle pianos, and backing vocals, it’s clearly a classicist album, yet it sounds utterly timeless. Its melodies are immediate, its emotions subtle, its impact lasting – and, with that timeless sound, Painted from Memory illustrates that craft cannot only be its own reward, it can be genuinely moving.
Title: Emma Kirkby, Daniel Taylor, Theatre Of Early Music – Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Bach: Stabat Mater (2009)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC
With a disc entitled Stabat Mater and featuring Pergolesi among the composers, it would be natural to expect his setting of this heartfelt meditation on the grief of the Virgin Mary to be included in the programme. Well, it isn’t – and it is! Only a few years after Pergolesi in 1736 had composed his Stabat Mater, JS Bach made an adaptation of it using a contemporary German version of the biblical Psalm 51. To suit the requirements of the new text Bach made certain alterations to Pergolesi’s vocal parts, but retained the scheme of solo arias and duets between a soprano and an alto voice. He also added a new, independent viola part to the score and rewrote the basso continuo, giving the work a new harmonic vitality.
Young Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor combines a deliciously creamy voice with a keen dramatic sense, and his reputation in this small but nevertheless star-oriented field has been steadily growing. This beautifully recorded release from Sweden’s BIS label seems certain to add to that reputation. Veteran British early music soprano Emma Kirkby gets top billing, but she appears only in the final work on the album, Bach’s Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083, a transcription and fairly detailed revision of Giovanni Batista Pergolesi’s somber Stabat Mater. This work might be worth the purchase price by itself; it’s less often heard than Bach’s more faithful Vivaldi transcriptions, and the process of remaking the Stabat Mater into a German cantata is interesting before one even gets to the marvelous interplay between Kirkby’s now sharp-edged voice and Taylor’s supple instrument. Pergolesi himself is represented by the Salve Regina, which offers several fine examples of Taylor’s flair for catching hearers’ attention with his text readings. Sample his way of entering with a striking vibrato-free tone in texts of supplication, and then broadening out into a warmer sound as the prayer gains strength. The opening Stabat Mater, RV 621, of Vivaldi, preceded by a short instrumental sonata, is a marvelous example of the dark but lush colors associated with this text in the Baroque, and Taylor’s performances, not overwhelmingly powerful but operatic in their beauty, hang in the mind. Taylor’s period-instrument Theatre of Early Music backs him quietly, with perfect sensitivity. A compelling program, in top-notch renderings. Booklet notes are in English, French, and German.
Title: Emily Beynon, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy – F.J. Berg: Flute Mystery (2009)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC
Only the full symphony orchestra can impose the true emotional dynamics of the arctic nature. FLUTE MYSTERY is a collection of five orchestral works by Norwegian composer Fred Jonny Berg. In this distinctive and dynamic surround sound recording, the Philharmonia Orchestra with Emily & Catherine Beynon as soloists on flute & harp are conducted by the legendary Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Berg’s music is often described as melodious, accessible and dramatic, yet with a highly original quality. Berg himself tries to explain: It is really as simple as it is complicated – I breathe in what life has to offer, and breathe out what I have to offer life. I have given up trying to grasp what actually happens in the process from impression to expression. In his music Fred Jonny Berg reveals himself as a person who has experienced that life consists of light and dark, but unlike the majority of us he approaches both with a similar undaunted decisiveness; it adds an extra quality to his music: the conviction of an eyewitness. Vladimir Ashkenazy: “I am very fond of Scandinavian mentality, the way people express themselves and their spiritual world. It has always been a very special treat for me to conduct and play Scandinavian music and it is a particular pleasure to introduce to the world a very talented Norwegian composer Fred Jonny Berg whose music in its own way is a genuine reflection of his world”.
![Emil Viklicky Trio - Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2025/11/19/l8hfPbW.jpg "Emil Viklicky Trio - Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]")
Title: Emil Viklicky Trio – Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is considered to rank with Antonin Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana as one of the most important Czech composers. Janácek was inspired by Moravian and Slavic folk music, which he incorporated in a modern, highly original synthesis. His work attained its mature form first in the 1904 opera Jenufa (often called the ‘Moravian national opera’), and later with the symphonic poem Sinfonietta, and other chamber works and operas. A century later, Chech pianist Emil Viklicky, like Janácek, has taken the music of his native Moravia and melded it into a larger mainstream, in this case American-style jazz. In fact, Emil has written jazz arrangements of several Janácek compositions, three of which are heard in this collection: the two previously mentioned and a third, ‘In the Mists.’ The other tracks are a combination of traditional Moravian folksong (re-worked into a jazz context) and Emil’s own compositions.
Emil Vicklický is the acknowledged “Patriarch of Czech Jazz Piano.” Known for combining the melodism and tonalities of Moravian folk music with modern jazz harmonies and classical orchestration in a distinctly individual style, Vicklický grew up in the former Czechoslovakia, where his father was a university art professor. He graduated in 1971 from Palacky University with a degree in mathematics. He composes straight-ahead jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works, often utilizing a combination of classical and jazz performers. As a pianist, Viklicky has performed in numerous international ensembles alongside musicians from the U.S. and other European countries, including the Lou Blackburn International Quartet, the Benny Bailey Quintet, and multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson. He has also worked with fellow Czech, saxophonist Jaroslav Jakubovic, and often accompanied Czech jazz singer Eva Olmerová, during the last years of her career. As a composer, Viklicky has attracted attention abroad primarily for having created a synthesis of the expressive elements of modern jazz with the melodicism and tonalities of Moravian folk song that is distinctly individual in contemporary jazz. Besides this, however, he also composes “straight-ahead” modern jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works that utilize certain elements of the New Music, and at times his music requires a combination of classical and jazz performers. He also composes incidental and film music and has produced scores for several full-length feature films and television series. Throughout the 1990s he devoted an increasing amount of time to the composition of contemporary classical music for a great variety of instrumental combinations ranging from small chamber ensembles and electronic instruments to symphony orchestras and choruses.
Title: Emil Viklicky Trio – Kafka On The Shore (2016)
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO
Emil Viklicky, the Czech jazz pianist who gave birth to Kafka, has created a wonderful modern jazz album inspired by Haruki Murakami’s novels! Featuring an original piece by Haruki Murakami, ‘The City of Prague, Its Pale Darkness’, inspired by Prague! Kafka on the Shore – Tribute to Haruki Murakami – EMIL VIKLICKY TRIO 1. Afterdark 《 E. Viklicky 》 2. Dolphine Dance 《 H. Hancock 》 3. Eleanor Rigby 《 Lennon, McCartney 》 Eleanor Rigby 4. Peacocks 《 J. Rowles 》 Peacocks 5. Solitude 《 D. Ellington 》 Solitude 6. Windmills Of Your Mind 《 M. Legrand 》 Windmills Of Your Mind 7. 1Q84 《 E. Viklicky 》 ( 5 : 52 ) 8. Double Moon 《 E. Viklicky 》 9. The Boy Named Crow 《 E. Viklicky 》 10. Kafka On The Shore 《 E. Viklicky 》 Kafka on the Shore 11. Entering Stone 《 E. Viklicky 》 The Stone at the Entrance 12. Miss Saeki Theme 《 E. Viklicky 》 Miss Saeki’s Theme 13. Windows 《 C. Corea 》 Windows (P) (C) 2016 Venus Records, Inc. Manufactured by Venus Records, Inc., Tokyo, Japan.