Sven Helbig, Fauré Quartett, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, Kristjan Järvi.
Sven Helbig is a young German composer equally drawn to classical, pop and hip-hop modes, probably most famous for his orchestrations on Pet Shop Boys' Battleship Potemkin and The Most Incredible Thing. That populist spirit informs this debut release, with emotionally expansive pieces restricted to pop-song length.
The unnatural compression works in some cases like film music, bringing an evocative potency to the likes of “Gone” and “Eisenhüttenstadt. Elsewhere, ”Am Abend“ is a reflective piano piece akin to Einaudi, the weightless rising triplets of ”Autumn Song“ are like leaves borne on breeze, while the chugging strings and urgent double-time piano of ”Frost“ reflect the industrious rhythmic drive of minimalism. Album review: Sven Helbig, Pocket Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon). The Independent.
I am writing, playing, directing and arranging since many years now for very different musicians. Amongst them are some of the greatest and most influential artists of our time, like Pet Shop Boys, Rammstein, Rene Pape and the Fauré Quartett, to name a few.
Today I'm releasing music, that is purely me. It is music for my favourite instrument - the orchestra.
I am very happy and hope you can find something in this music.
It is written for you as much as for me...
Released: November 19, 2013
Label: Erased Tapes Records, ERATP055
Spaces is an ode to the joy of live performance. It expresses Frahm’s love for experimentation and answers the call from his fans for a record that truly reflects what they have witnessed during his concerts. Breaking the convention of a traditional live album, Spaces was recorded over the course of two years in different locations and on various mediums, including old portable reel-to-reel recorders and cassette tape decks.
‘What I love most about playing in front of people has something to do with a certain kind of energy exchange. The attention and appreciation of my audience feeds back into my playing. It really seems as if there is a true and equal give and take between performer and listener, making me aware of how much I depend on my audience. And since the audience is different every night, the music being played will differ too. Every space I performed in has its own magic and spirit.’ –
Nils Frahm
Nils Frahm is one of a handful of young composers contributing to the quietly burgeoning reputation of avant-garde label Erased Tapes. Creaking floorboards and static crackle accompanied muted piano on his widely praised 2011 record Felt. Audience coughs, ringtones and other blemishes provide texture on these live recordings of new tracks that Frahm later pieced together in the studio. He is a restless but utterly persuasive improviser, with roots both in electronic and classical music; dubby percussive cuts and sumptuously layered synths share space with minimalist piano compositions here. Even when battering his piano strings with a toilet brush, Frahm creates something mesmerising.
Nils Frahm: Spaces – review. The Guardian
BACH : THE SILENT CANTATA is an entirely new spiritual listening experience; hence his choice of the somewhat paradoxical title for the project.
With BACH : THE SILENT CANTATA, Özdemir pays his own very personal tribute to Bach. He has selected arias and chorales from 12 sacred cantatas that Bach wrote during his incredibly productive Leipzig years starting in 1723, and has rearranged them for bassoon, arch-lute, organ and baroque strings, performed by the internationally known baroque ensemble Musica Sequenza.
Kronos Quartet plays music by Bryce Dessner
BRYCE DESSNER: AHEYM
Bryce Dessner, the critically acclaimed guitarist from The National and Clogs who has collaborated with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, David Lang, Sufjan Stevens and many others, has released Aheym, his recorded debut as a composer. The album finds Dessner collaborating with Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet, who are currently celebrating their 40th anniversary season. Aheym features four original compositions by Dessner performed by Kronos as well as an appearance by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Dessner and the quartet first crossed paths when Kronos founder David Harrington approached Dessner about writing a piece for the quartet’s performance at the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in 2009. The ensuing piece, “Aheym” (meaning “homeward” in Yiddish), was informed by the stories of Dessner’s Jewish immigrant grandparents who settled near the park and, as the pair’s collaboration grew, became the album’s title track.
Realised: November 01, 2013
Label: PianissimoMusik
Baranova and Coskun met for the first time on the occasion of recordings with the legendary Giora Feidman. This coincidence led to the creation of a duo program in wich the audience literally can hear a spark jump over between piano and frame drums. Baranova and Coskun offer rhythm, groove and melodies and turn their audience into enthousiastic companions on an extraordinary musical journey (...)
... contains only original compositions for oriental percussion and piano.
Without forgetting the artistic identity that he forged through his experience and permanent search for sonorities, Dhafer Youssef carries on transcending genres. His quest leads him to clarinetist Hüsnü Şenlendirici and Kanun player, Aytaç Dogan. Dhafer Youssef’s voice accompanies Hüsnü Senlendirici‘s clarinet and Aytaç Dogan’s Kanun. Nils Petter Molvaer’s trumpet reinforces the atmospheric mood. Eivind Aarset’s guitar, Kristjan randalu’s Piano, Phil Donkin’s double bass and Chander Sardjoe ‘s drums create a jazzy atmosphere.
“Birds requiem” is the name of Dhafer Youssef’s new album, released on October 2013. This last opus is a very personal album that has been prepared at a turning point of the artist’s life, and at that moment, a return to the origins occurred-his but also the origins of music. The album, structured around the Birds Requiem suite.
Released: October 25, 2013
Label: ECM Records, ECM 2340
Maria Pia De Vito: voice, François Couturier: piano, Anja Lechner: violoncello, Michele Rabbia: percussion, electronics.
Il Pergolese pays tribute to 18th century composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 – 1736), and considers his relationship to the art music and the popular music of Naples, from a highly contemporary perspective. The text of the Stabat Mater – translated into Neapolitan by Maria Pia De Vito – and the opera arias, are transformed into songs and vivid narrative, open frames providing the key to reinterpreting Pergolesi. François Couturier's arrangements widen Pergolesi's structures, offering space for improvisational interaction. Maria Pia de Vito/Francois Couturier: Il Pergolese – review. The Guardian.
Chris Abrahams (piano)
Lloyd Swanton (bass)
Tony Buck (drums/percussion)
From the opening tones of Tony Buck’s monochord, it is immediately clear that this Necks album is something special. As it unfolds, ethereal arco harmonics, minimalist funk, mesmeric piano riffs, subliminal pulses, twittering electronics, even an arco bass choir are inducted into the process.
Released: September 06, 2013
Label: Rune Grammofon, RLP 3147W
Despite his many followers, nobody plays a trumpet quite like the plaintively expressive Norwegian Arve Henriksen, the man whose inspirations are flautists as much as they are ambient brass stars such as Nils Petter Molvaer. This new album contains 10 sublime reflections on religious sites and buildings. If it just represented diplomatic awe around holy places, it could have ended up as spiritually upmarket mood music, but Henriksen's real priorities are the untapped sonic possibilities of the trumpet, as well as ideology-free meditation. Arve Henriksen: Places of Worship – review. The Guardian
Places of Worship is the inevitable consequence of Punkt's expanding network and relentless experimentalism. If Henriksen's nascent vision was already well-formed on Sakuteiki, it's Punkt's laboratory-like nature that has ultimately led to where Henriksen is today. Henriksen's voice may dominate Cartography and, now, the equally superb Places of Worship, but a selfless desire to work with others to expound and expand now persistently defines and redefines that vision. More evolution than revolution, Places of Worship continues Henriksen, Bang and Honoré's sculpting of some of the most hauntingly beautiful, innately spiritual and extraordinarily captivating music coming from their distant, Northern European home. Arve Henriksen: Places of Worship. AllAboutJazz.com
This is Lund Quartet's debut album.
Lund Quartet are an instrumental band from Bristol, playing a mix of scandinavian jazz and melodic turntablism. The use of the turntable as a lead instrument gives Lund Quartet an especially distinctive sound, using samples recorded especially for the band by some of Bristol’s finest musicians.
Lund Quartet is Simon Adcock on piano and theremin, double bassist Rob Childs, drummer Sam Muscat, and Jake Wittlin on turntables. They are from Bristol and have been together five years. (Dec 17, 2011)
Artist: Emil Brandqvist Trio
Artist: Sjoströmska String Quartet
Composer: Emil Brandqvist
Gothenburg based Swedish-Finnish jazz piano trio.
Swedish drummer-composer Emil Brandqvist formed his trio with Finnish pianist Tuomas A. Turunen in Goteborg in 2005. Swedish bassist Max Thornberg has been part of the trio since 2012.
German ambient-connaisseur and soundpoet Marsen Jules (aka Martin Juhls) is well known for his releases on City Center Offices, Kompakt or his own label Oktaf Records. On stage he often combines his atmospheric soundscapes with live musicians. A steady formation is the Marsen Jules Trio, which features the twin brothers Anwar Alam and Jan-Philipp Alam on piano and violins accompanied by Jules´ restrained live-sampling, bowed percussions and singing wine glasses.
German ambient-connaisseur and soundpoet Marsen Jules form a Trio with twin brothers Anwar Alam and Jan-Philipp Alam on piano and violins for this release. Accompanied by Roger Döring from Dictaphone on two tracks "Presencé Acousmatic" is a deep live-music journey somewhere between the beauty of Harold Budd, the elegance of Eno and the darkness of Bohren & der Club of Gore.
Saltland a project led by Montreal-based cellist Rebecca Foon, best known as a founding member of contemporary chamber group Esmerine and a former member of Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Set Fire To Flames.
Released March 08, 2013
Label: Jazzland Recordings
"Victoria" soundtrack available now: Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Gaute Storaas and Arve Henriksen have composed the music for "Victoria", based on Knut Hamsun's novel.
Jan Bang: samples, programming;
Erik Honoré: samples, synthesizer, programming;
Arve Henriksen: trumpet, vocals, synthesizer;
Tigran Hamasyan: piano;
Robert Jürjendal: guitar;
Bratislava Symphony Orchestra;
Gaute Storaas: orchestrations;
Lars Brenli: assistant.
Released: February 25, 2013
Label: Mercury Classics
Olafur Arnalds' third album, For Now I Am Winter, is an exemplary suite of Icelandic music, blending American minimalist techniques with European sensibilities. Simple, cyclical piano figures are haunted by string arrangements in “Sudden Throw” and “Only the Winds”; staccato violin parts are interleaved like jigsaw puzzles in “Hands, Be Still” and “Reclaim”, with Nico Muhly's orchestrations anchored by discreet but propulsive drum programmes. Album review: Olafur Arnalds, For Now I Am Winter (Mercury Classics). The Independent.
Ideally, looking back on the scope of For Now I Am Winter, the crucial element this album is indeed direction. Direction in the sense that Arnalds' compositions feel almost belonging in two seperate, diverging categories. For whatever reason, the track-listing and flow of the album has ended up feeling as if it's zig-zagging back and forth between the man's intently somber instrumentals and his [perhaps] more extreme, but still overly emotional, testing use of synthesizers alongside. Oafur Arnalds - For Now I Am Winter. Music Review Database.
In seiner Musik bringen sich Klassik-Elemente wie Klavier und Streicher mit elektronischen Beats aus dem Laptop gegenseitig in Wallung. Das kann beim Hörer schnell zu Nebenwirkungen wie Hypnose, Gefühlsausbrüchen, Entspannung und Tagträumen führen. Auf seinem dritten Album hat der 26-Jährige nun erstmals auch eine Stimme im Einsatz. Gastsänger Arnór Dang klingt wie ein schüchterner Antony Hegarty und passt damit perfekt ins zurückhaltend-berührende Klangbild. CD-Tipp: Ólafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter.
In A Time Lapse is the representation of the bringing together all of life’s experience and emotions into a single moment of time. Recorded in a remote monastery near Verona and written over a period of 2 years it is as Epic and emotional as Divenire and as experimental and adventurous as Nightbook.
Ezio Bosso - Six Breaths, The London Cellos, Ezio Bosso: piano and conductor
Ludovico Einaudi - In a Time Lapse
Ulrich Drechsler - Streamer