Classical Music 316 Items

For his twelfth studio album, Pianissimo, Matthias Vogt ([re:jazz], Motorcitysoul) makes a clear political statement in symbiosis with his well-placed notes and the stylishly experimental and pronouncedly eclectic electro-jazz sound. Pianissimo does not only mean playing very softly but also playing very intensively. It is definitely not an album to skip through. Matthias Vogt combines great music with current socio-political attitudes and issues for this new album. He conducted interviews on topics like “climate change” with people from his circle of friends and acquaintances - creatives, artists, activists and musicians who tick similarly to himself and with whose voices he could give expression and form to his own thoughts. With this material, he created this hybrid piece of music and socio-political reflexion. His companions are Demian Kappenstein (ätna & Massa) on drums & guitarist Daniel Stelter (Sing mein Song, TV-Total Heavytones). Vinyl incl. the outer packaging will be produced on a completely recycled basis by INFRACom! which starts its 30 years celebration with this release.

“Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works” is the new album by Max Richter. The album is based on the Woolf Works compositions, originally created for the London Royal Ballet production of choreographer Wayne McGregor. This was production was inspired by the work and life of Virginia Woolf.

Max Richter (1966) is a German-born British composer who has been an influential voice in post-minimalist composition and in the meeting of contemporary classical and alternative popular musical styles since the early 2000s. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the Royal Academy of Music and studied with Luciano Berio in Italy.

Richter is well known for his prolific output: composing and recording his own music; writing for stage, opera, ballet and screen; producing and collaborating on the records of others; and collaborating with performance, installation and media artists. He has recorded seven solo albums and his music is widely used in cinema.

The Discomfort Of Evening is the incredible and original soundtrack by prolific Belgian composer Michiel de Malsche to 2020 International Booker Prize winner The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Visceral and virtuosic, Rijneveld's novel follows Jas, a girl growing up in a devout Christian family that runs a Dutch dairy farm, whose brother dies in an accident after she wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. Lost in grief, her family falls apart as she becomes consumed by increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Michiel de Malsche has captured the atmosphere and spirit of Rijneveld's book perfectly, moving through moments of confrontation and introspection, sinking into spirals of despair, stasis and subtle hope and change. Brooding ambient basslines, driven by droning murmurs, are offset with melismatic electro-acoustic pieces that embody the novel's haunting and dissonant world, whilst also incorporating manipulated field recordings such as animal sounds and a church service, allowing for a full manifestation of Jas’s world in a completely new way.

De Malsche achieves this by rallying an unusual combination of acoustic instruments (16 in total) played by top-of-their-field musicians, creating a truly unique sound world and tonal palette, including an Ondes Martenot, a 7-stringed Chinese instrument called a guqin, a marimba, a string 6-tet, a toy piano and a bass flute.

De Malsche always confronts all emotional levels of his source material head-on, making his soundtrack into much more than just a fever dream. It is a precise description of, and accompaniment to, a devastatingly impactful book.

Michiel De Malsche is a Belgian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He studied classical composition at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Ghent. His music has been performed all over the world and he has composed and produced dozens of soundtracks for contemporary dance, theatre, movies and documentaries.
Besides his work as a contemporary classical composer, he is active as a studio musician and producer in the world of electronic music.

Limited Edition.
Still shrink wrapped but opened.
Cover with a beginning seam split at the upper edge.
Records are slightly warped but still enjoyable.

"The stakes are high; if I mess up the last bar, the whole recording is ruined." As Dutch pianist Nicolas van Poucke acknowledges, there is an electricity in the room whenever the lathe is on. Direct-to-disc recording generates tension and release unlike other methods, not least in the final moments of a 20-minute solo piano recital. Described as "the young freethinker" of his generation, van Poucke relished the challenge. Having spent day one setting up to record works by Frédéric Chopin, van Poucke changed tack on day two to perform two Beethoven piano sonatas - Sonata No. 12 Opus 26 in A flat major, and Sonata No. 23 Opus 57 in f minor, also known as the "Appassionata".

Flawless vinyl.

Clear vinyl seems unlayed. Hole in back cover. With stickers.

Red / Black Marbled & Clear / Black Marbled vinyl. Limited edition.

With insert

Cologne - based composer and multi - instrumentalist Ozan Tekin’s second studio album “Anarya” will be released via Gülbaba Records on May 27 th . Tekin winds his musical journey back from Cologne to Adana with a long layover in Istanbul in “Anarya”. A triangle of migration drawn by musical notation and performance. The album is composed of 14 tracks and each one of them is a sound story that echoes Tekin’s distinct memories from these three cities. “Anarya” is the end product of a process in which Tekin and his upright piano co - tuned each other. It is an artistic representation of the idiosyncratic phenomenon called stimmung in German; a spectrum of tones, moods and atmospheres expressed in personal and instrumental terms. Tekin concludes the piano conversations from his previously released EPs in 2021 (“Anarya I” and “Anarya Ii”). The remarkably catchy melodies and immersive melancholic arpeggios fl ow throughout. The transposed narrative of “Anarya” sprung up from its roots when Tekin came across with a 66 - years old worn out piano in Cologne. Mesmerized by its unique sound, he felt the urge to make recordings with this piano before it fell apart. Aft er spending months learning its mechanics, Tekin recorded his second album with the old upright piano he repaired and brought back to life. The uneasy changes in time signatures and ambient ornamentations with gloomy synths of 80’s, lush strings and room tones set up the atmospheric stage of “Anarya I” in the first five tracks. Following six tracks of the album attempts to revisit Tekin’s emotional and episodic memories in Istanbul. His unaffected absorption into piano music in the first two parts of “Anar ya” are followed by his coyishly joyful tracks later in the album: an idle “ode”, a lost “lament” and a colorful “jam”. These three tracks blend the neoclassical, jazz and ambient sounds of Cologne and Istanbul with sentiments of childhood and rascality in Adana. The piano conversations of Tekin throughout “Anarya” are accompanied by his analogue synthesizers, vocals, bass guitar, Hanitra Wagner’s violin and Berke Can Özcan’s drums , percussions and vibraphone, and Emre Malikler’s mix and mastering. The sou nds of collaboration go deeper and louder as the album’s tracks move forward and Tekin’s memories go backwards simultaneously. Anarya gitmek (“to go back”) is a vernacular saying from Tekin’s hometown Adana and Tekin makes a figurative attempt to migrate b ackwards via the compositions that came into being in his most recent home, Cologne. Having been born out of an upright piano, Tekin’s compositions have instrumental origins, however, due to his constantly mutating sense of belonging, his melodies can’t be pinpointed to any specific heimat . Tekin’s continuously transforming music is an invitation to his listeners to explore and experience his music in their own terms. Tekin’s personal memories that shape “Anarya” is open to new forms of sonic exploration and rearrangement. This openness lies in Tekin’s determined faith in not to be entrenched in any single genre. The immersive intimacy radiating from the collaborative piano conversations in “Anarya” is an invitation signature to his music’s current and fut ure followers. Text by Mehmet Ekinci