SACD

Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) [MFSL 2020] [SACD / Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab – UDSACD 2118]

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Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) [MFSL 2020]

Title: Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) [MFSL 2020]
Genre: Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the second studio album by the American rock band Iron Butterfly, originally released in 1968. It is most known for the title track which occupies the whole of Side B. It was the biggest selling album for the year 1969 in the United States, although Billboard does not give any exact sales figures. For a number of years it was the biggest selling item in Atlantic Records’ catalogue. It was voted number 783 in Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums.
With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title “In the Garden of Eden” or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which to some listeners sounds like eternity. But that’s the essence of its appeal – it’s the epitome of heavy psychedelic excess, encapsulating the most indulgent tendencies of the era. Iron Butterfly never matched the warped excesses of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” either on their debut album of the same name or the rest of their catalog, yet they occasionally made some enjoyable fuzz guitar-driven psychedelia that works as a period piece. The five tracks that share space with their magnum opus on In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida qualify as good artifacts, and the entire record still stands as the group’s definitive album, especially since this is the only place the full-length title track is available.

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SACD

Inger Marie Gundersen – The Best Of (2015) [SACD / Aurora – STUCD10702SA]

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Inger Marie Gundersen - The Best Of (2015)

Title: Inger Marie Gundersen – The Best Of (2015)
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Inger Marie Gundersen is a Jazz vocalist from Arendal, Norway. She waited many years before venturing into a solo career, but more than twenty years as an active vocalist have provided her with ample experience in the music field. For twenty years she has been active as vocalist in several bands, ranging from a youthful rock band to a six year period as lead singer of a jazz big band. She has also fronted her own jazz quintet ”My Favorite Strings”, as well as collaborating with several excellent jazz musicians, among them Tom Lund, one of Norway’s finest Latin jazz-guitarists, founder of the renowned group ”Trio de Janeiro”. She have released five solo albums. “Best of The Best Of Inger Marie Gundersen” is her first compilation released by Hong Kong label Aurora Music with some co-operation with Stockfisch Records.

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SACD

Inger Marie Gundersen – Make This Moment (2004) [Reissue 2005] [SACD / Master Music – MKSA 66402]

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Inger Marie Gundersen - Make This Moment (2004) [Reissue 2005]

Title: Inger Marie Gundersen – Make This Moment (2004) [Reissue 2005]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Inger Marie waited for many years before she ventured upon a solo career, but she has ample experience from many years’ activities in the music field. For twenty years she has been active as vocalist in several bands, ranging from a youthful rock band to a six year period as lead singer of a jazz big band. She has also fronted her own jazz quintet ”My Favorite Strings”, as well as collaborating with several excellent jazz musicians, among them Tom Lund, one of Norway’s finest Latin jazz-guitarists, founder of the renowned group ”Trio de Janeiro”. ”Make This Moment” was released in Norway in October 2004. The album received rave reviews and instant recognition by jazz aficionados. After some months, Inger Marie’s voice started touching hearts and impressing music lovers in places far from Norway. Now the album has been released in most of Asia, as well as in Europe, and has touched the hearts and souls of thousands of listeners.

Anyone hearing the debut album of IMG, “Make This Moment”, will realise that this is an artist belonging to the elite of this style, and that she is totally involved with a kind of music that she really loves. After years singing in rock bands and big bands, trying out different styles of music, Inger Marie has found a home in jazz. The love and maturity with which she delivers sublime interpretations of both new songs and well-known standards, makes this a debut album of rare quality. Producer Lars Martin Myhre says that never did he get a bigger surprise than when Inger Marie Gundersen made her debut in a recording studio. She was displaying a voice so controlled, so beautiful and so personal at her first recording date that the seasoned producer was left sitting there with his mouth open, admiring the awareness and the warm and direct communication in her voice.In a music world where different shades of jazz-pop and more or less succsessful artists have entered the mainstream, this mature first timer enters with an unprecedented maturity and command of the style.

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SACD

Inger Marie Gundersen – For You (2011) [SACD / Master Music – MKSA 69901-2]

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Inger Marie Gundersen - For You (2011)

Title: Inger Marie Gundersen – For You (2011)
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

In May 2011, in Lars Nilsson’s Nilento Studio outside Gothenburg, Inger Marie Gundersen and her five Scandinavian musicians met with producer Rasmus Solem and created “For You.” This time, Ulf Wakenius and Inger Marie join forces once again. This time with a Scandinavian dream team featuring another Swede, Lars Jansson, on piano, and two Danes, bassist Jesper Bodilsen and drummer Morten Lund – as well as the wonderful trumpeting of Norwegian Per Willy Aaserud on several tracks. This album includes a version of the perhaps most successful song ever from a Norwegian pop group, AHA’s “Take on Me”.
Inger Marie first worked with the Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius on BY MYSELF from 2006. The collaboration was inspiring for both of them and led to many concerts all over the world. Inger Marie’s next release, MY HEART WOULD HAVE A REASON, was produced by another great Swedish guitarist, Georg Wadenius. But on her new album, FOR YOU, Ulf and Inger Marie join forces once again. This time with a Scandinavian dream team featuring another Swede, Lars Jansson, on piano, and two Danes, bassist Jesper Bodilsen and drummer Morten Lund – as well as the wonderful trumpeting of Norwegian Per Willy Aaserud on several tracks. Inger Marie and her band of outstanding musicians make this album an aesthetic delight… Inger Marie doesn’t seek flashy musicality, she seeks depth, and she finds it in this quintet of musicians, who despite their virtuosic qualities never play a superfluous note. Their splendid musicianship allows room for reflection. This is the sound of the mountains of Arendal.

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SACD

Inger Marie Gundersen – By Myself (2006) [Reissue 2007] [SACD / Master Music – MKSA 69604-2]

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Inger Marie Gundersen - By Myself (2006) [Reissue 2007]

Title: Inger Marie Gundersen – By Myself (2006) [Reissue 2007]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Norwegian vocalist Inger Marie Gundersen’s second solo album BY MYSELF is a worthy follow- up to her successful debut release MAKE THIS MOMENT. 45-year old Inger Marie waited many years before venturing into a solo career, but more than twenty years as an active vocalist have provided her with ample experience in the music field.

Inger Marie has built a solid relationship based on mutual respect with several musi- cians from the surprisingly high quality pool of players in and around her home town, and has hand-picked the musicians for her band. They provide the exquisite backing on her recordings, as well as on stage. On piano you hear Oscar Jansen, a very popular musician, and a prolific painter in addition to his musical activities. “Oscar is an ingenious musician with a unique way of phrasing and creating the right mood with his playing.” Ole Kelly Kvamme is an active freelance bass player. He also works as a music teacher. “Ole’s depth and warm sound on his old acoustic double-bass is no less than brilliant.” Geir Aage Johnsen is a very original drum- mer with his own unique style. “Geir is my favorite drummer ever… He always comes up with lots of ideas for arrangements.“ The saxophone player Oivind G. Stoemer works as a music teacher and freelance musician. He is also Inger Marie’s son. “I really like his sound and his lyrical style.” On her second album, BY MYSELF, Inger Marie chose to work with the renowned Danish producer Søren Sigumfeldt. They recorded the album at Nilento Studio, Gothenburg, Sweden. Inger Marie’s hand- picked group of local Norwegian musi- cians are joined by Swedish guitar vir- tuoso Ulf Wakenius, known from Oscar Peterson’s trio. Other guest performers include Norwegian trumpeter Gunnar Halle, Danish electric guitarist Niclas Knudsen, and Norwegian vocalist Rasmus Solem. BY MYSELF is easy to listen to, but hard to forget. The music is smooth, but far from saccharine or superficial. The honesty in Inger Marie’s husky voice is unmistakable. You believe her. The words mean some- thing – she can’t sing a song without mean- ing it. Whether it’s a jazz standard or a pop tune, she delivers the lyrics as if she had experienced and written every word. She doesn’t waste time pressing her voice or using a heavy vibrato, she lets the music speak for itself with a dusty, velvety feel… and a voice that won’t let go of you. This is the sound of a mature woman telling her stories with no regrets.

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SACD

Inger Marie Gundersen – Feels Like Home (2018) [SACD / Master Music – MKSA 690182]

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Inger Marie Gundersen - Feels Like Home (2018)

Title: Inger Marie Gundersen – Feels Like Home (2018)
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Inger Marie Gundersen’s fifth solo album, “Feels Like Home”, sees reflective and relaxed versions of songs by iconic musicians such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, ABBA, Otis Redding, and Randy Newman.

Inger Marie Gundersen has released her 5th recording, entitled “Feels Like Home.” She made her bandleading and recording debut relatively late in life in 2004 with “Make This Moment,” which immediately rose to the top of the more jazz-oriented vocal charts. This was especially true in Asia, where the albums sold by the thousands in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia. “By Myself” followed in 2006, “My Heart Would Have a Reason” in 2009, “For You” in 2011, and over the years, Inger Marie has also been “discovered” in Europe and the United States, where many of her songs are popular on streaming services’ playlists. Inger Marie has her own voice – dark, warm, heartfelt, and engaging – and she has always had a great sense for choosing exactly the right material, oftentimes well-known pop or rock songs, which she transforms into her own in her unique, hot, jazzy universe. In this universe, Inger Marie has always surrounded herself with the very best musicians, so the sound never gets oversimplified or lacks in depth. There’s time for reflection on “Feels Like Home,” and at a relaxed tempo we are pulled into Inger Marie’s wonderful world of versions of famous songs such as the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit, “Long as I Can See the Light,” Abba’s “When All Is Said and Done,” Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay,” and many more, after which listeners are treated to the beautiful Swedish song “Med ögon känsliga för grönt” (With Eyes Sensitive to Green) by Barbor Hörberg and Nils Hansén. Inger Marie’s personal and loving interpretations form images that, together with the musical arrangements, create alluring landscape paintings in the minds of the listener. Life isn’t always easy, but it feels good as long as you can see the light. Inger Marie Gundersen was born in the small town of Arendal, on the southern coast of Norway, on February 13th, 1957. She grew up as an only child with her parents, close to nature and in a peaceful environment. Her fascination and joy for music began in early childhood, with her father playing guitar and singing, filling their home with songs nearly every day. When she was young, Inger Marie studied at the University of Agder, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Health and Social Work. Ultimately, she always knew she really was a singer, and was on a musician’s path. Inger Marie waited for many years before she ventured out upon a solo career. She had ample experience though, from years of activities in the musical industry.

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SACD

Indigo Girls – Become You (2002) [SACD / Epic – ES 86401]

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Indigo Girls - Become You (2002)

Title: Indigo Girls – Become You (2002)
Genre: Folk
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. Become You is their eighth studio album, released in 2002. Indigo Girls’ eighth studio album, released 15 years after their first, finds the duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers in a sense starting over. Using their regular backup band of keyboardist Carol Isaacs, bassist Claire Kenny, and drummer Brady Blade, but only a couple of guest musicians — in contrast to albums that featured lots more players, many of them well known — and returning to producer Peter Collins, who worked with them on their second, fourth, and fifth albums, they have stripped down their approach to something approaching the folk-rock style with which they began. The restrained instrumentation and arrangements focus attention on the songs themselves, and Ray and Saliers, as usual writing separately and alternating tracks, have similar things to say. Eleven of the 12 songs are addressed by an “I” to a “you” (the exception, “She’s Saving Me,” might as well be), and for the most part they deal in romantic complications, with the “I” looking back on a past romance or detailing the difficulties that may lead to a breakup. In the opening track and first single, Ray’s “Moment of Forgiveness,” for example, the narrator notes that two years have gone by since her lover left and asks, hopelessly, “When are you gonna come home?” Ray is characteristically more raw in her singing and in her expression; she also provides the album’s musical contrasts, whether it’s the “Games People Play”-style Southern soul of “Moment of Forgiveness” or the Mexican tone of “Nuevas Senoritas.” Saliers is more abstract, titling one of her laments “Deconstruction” and, in “She’s Saving Me,” even offers a more positive statement. But it is Ray’s title track, in which a daughter of the South confronts the region’s reprehensible mythology — not a song of romance — that is the album’s most wrenching and powerful statement.

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SACD

Indigo Girls – All That We Let In (2004) [SACD / Epic – EH 92859]

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Indigo Girls - All That We Let In (2004)

Title: Indigo Girls – All That We Let In (2004)
Genre: Folk
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Nearly 20 years on, and Indigo Girls are still spinning their dualistic tales of love, anger, and life. Over the years, the formula has had its bouts with rigidity — for a while there, it even threatened to reach obsolescence (think of the phoned-in late-’90s effort Shaming of the Sun). But Emily Saliers and Amy Ray did a wise thing with 2002’s Become You, returning to the threads of personal experience that had made their folk-rock tapestry so strong in the first place (and reducing their sound). All That We Let In continues Indigo Girls’ throwback arc, opting for just their longtime band with a few well-placed guests. (For example, pedal steel player Mark Van Allen and cellist David Henry make Saliers’ darkly searching “Come On Home” a particularly velvety moment.) All That We Let In has some fun before getting to the serious stuff, opening with a pair of strong tracks taking different routes to a rootsy hook. Carol Isaacs’ organ shines on the warm and inviting “Fill It Up Again,” which despite musing about getting dumped does so with the promise of refueling and hitting the open road. And despite it being the same old trick, darn it if it isn’t comforting to once again hear the intertwined yearn of Saliers and Ray’s harmonies. Ray’s “Heartache for Everyone” opts for a skipping ska off-beat, in its own way suggesting the 1986 Housemartins jingle “Happy Hour.” “Perfect World” is a well-crafted Indigo Girls single, broadcasting its message of universal hope with earthy lyrical allusions and tasteful touches of accordion and recorder. There are still demons in their world, which they take on with typical pluck. “Dairy Queen” deals again with relational drama, while “Tether” is live-wire raw with its Crazy Horse distortion and desperate foment. “Do we tether the hawk, do we tether the dove?” Ray and guest vocalist Joan Osborne wonder. A neighbor spits out his chaw. “We need a few less words dear,” he says. “We need a few more guns.” Like the best Indigo Girls work, All That We Let In continually dwells on the dynamic of internal, emotional tumult and outward-looking, world-wondering fervor. Its strongest example of this comes in the album’s twilight. As Saliers’ inner Joni Mitchell resurfaces for the heartening but bittersweet prodigal friendship number “Something Real,” Ray’s trademark activist fire smolders mournfully in “Cordova”‘s darkness. It’s the album’s truest stretch, and proves Indigo Girls haven’t lost a step even as they look back to their musical roots.

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SACD

Incubus – A Crow Left Of The Murder (2004) [SACD / Epic – EH 92863]

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Incubus - A Crow Left Of The Murder (2004)

Title: Incubus – A Crow Left Of The Murder (2004)
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

A Crow Left of the Murder… is the fifth studio album by the American rock band Incubus. The music of album incorporates elements of art rock, alternative metal, jazz, pop and progressive rock. Kicking in like a compellingly acrimonious version of Rush (“Megalomaniac”) before meandering through what can rather uncomfortably be termed noodly, time-signature lottery jazz-metal terrain A Crow Left of Murder probably identifies Incubus as the average Pearl Jam fan’s second-choice for chin-stroking mosh action. Brendon O’Brien (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) produces and singer Brandon Boyd possibly fancies himself as a bit of a Vedder-esque sage, even blustering “My secret arsenal is an infinite ageless ink well” on the otherwise acceptable metal squawk of “Pistola”.
At the beginning of their career, Incubus was rightly lumped in with the legions of post-Korn alt metal/rap-rock bands swarming America in the latter days of the 20th century. But by their third album, 1999’s Make Yourself, they had separated from the pack, as indicated by the presence of producer Scott Litt, best-known for his work with R.E.M.. It signaled that the band was serious, and they began expanding their rap-metal template on that album and its follow-up, 2001’s Morning View, completing their transition from juvenelia to maturity with 2003’s Crow Left of the Murder. Switching from Litt to producer Brendan O’Brien, a man who has been with Pearl Jam longer than any of their drummers, Incubus has opted for a clean, crisp yet heavy sound which allows them to aggressively switch from crunching metallic riffs to jazzy prog interludes. It’s an expansive musical vision charged with some righteous anger; although vocalist Brandon Boyd doesn’t write explicit protests, there sure are enough allusions to social turbulence to make this the first politically aware alt metal album in many a year. This maturation is even more evident in the music, how the band actually swings on “Zee Deveel,” or how guitarist Michael Einzinger’s jazz-influenced solos seem both carefully constructed and casually tossed off, or how Boyd’s voice shifts from song to song (or during a song, as on the opening “Megalomaniac,” which sounds like a bizarre blend of Mr. Mister’s Richard Page and John Lydon). All this maturation does mean that Incubus may shed some older fans, since the naked ambitions on this record are far removed from the earnest, angst-ridden earlier records, but so be it – A Crow Left of the Murder… is far more interesting than any of their other records, or their peers’. At times, they may stretch themselves a little too far here, but the ambition is admirable and the achievements are tangible – a real breakthrough for the band.

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