Classical Music 254 Items

Björk presents a strings version of her highly-acclaimed eighth studio studio album Vulnicura, officially titled Vulnicura Strings. The original version of Vulnicura layered the boom and crack of electronic beats with an intense vocal melody and incredible string arrangements by Björk which have been performed live with a fifteen chair orchestra. The new version is musically wholly comprised of strings, with new violin solos by Una Sveinbjarnardóttir and strings recorded by a Viola Organista. Björk used the only Viola Organista in the world to perform some of the arrangements; an instrument which was designed originally by Leonardo Da Vinci but not built until after his lifetime. The instrument uses a friction belt to vibrate individual strings (similar to a violin), with the strings selected by pressing keys on the keyboard (similar to an organ). The instrument was recorded in Krakow, Poland by it's constructor Slawomir Zubrzycki and here is where the album reached completion.

CD Release: Limited edition of 100.

Since the age of six, multi-instrumentalist Aya Suzuki has been developing a musical universe informed by classical training and emboldened by a prodigious, almost innate feel for sound.

Her precocious leanings into percussive instrumentation led her to study at the pioneering Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo under the mentorship of world-renowned marimba player Keiko Abe, after which she left her native Japan to pursue a Master’s in percussion at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

Winged Seeds, her debut album recorded during a summer residency at Stuk in Leuven, presents the work of a musician whose ingenuity is in full flight. Clay pots, vibraphone, aluphone, bowls, and, of all things, rice, are her tools for conjuring arresting atmospheres through intricate fantasias and serene abstractions.

Aya’s mastery of percussive techniques goes hand in hand with her gift for poetic improvisation, as sound and silence have an equal and deliberate weight that charge each moment, suspending time and place into a magical stasis.

The surprising spoken word intermezzo “To The Earth” anchors these floating tones to the temporal spaces of our humanity, instilling a sense of humility which, despite her acumen, Aya deploys in all her artistry.

Winged Seeds is an unspoiled ode to the elements, honoring the earth we dwell in through the music that lifts us every higher.

"Couldn't find any acoustic covers of these two masterpieces by Gigi Masin from 1989, so decided to give it a go with one of my biggest local musical idols, Olli Aarni who I am proud to call my friend. I consider the original tracks quite holy, so it took me years of courage to ask Olli to record these with me. Never had any goal to release these in any professional way, we just had an idea, for fun, to salute the golden era of YouTube when people made these poorly recorded acoustic YouTube covers. Thanks Pete & Janne for making the record happen and thank you Gigi Masin for the incredible music!"

From Mozart to Vivaldi, from Debussy to Chopin, via Bach and Beethoven and many others, discover the finest recordings by the greatest classical composers in thirteen volumes.Indeed the Classical Collection is back with a new volume dedicated to Johannes Strauss II!Starring Herbert Von Karajan with the Philharmonia Orchestra Of London and Fritz Reiner with the Chicago Symphony OrchestraSIDE A

New age for the suburban city, spun from a poor planting in the suburbs or from an apartment room along the national highway. "Suiyu" is the first album by Hajime Orikawa, a musician living in Chiba. From side A, which is composed of home recordings and environmental sounds in a room at home, and contains a lo-fi yet theological resonance, to the title track "Suiyu" which exceeds 15 minutes and where various instruments such as autoharp, electronic piano, Moog synthesizer, organ, and tenor saxophone beautifully blend with a free-spirited singing voice like a wild rabbit running through the fields, the melancholy of the suburban city floats gently. The cassette version includes a DL code for “Ikkojiteki,” a collection of outtracks, along with a DL code for "Suiyu".

“What a shadow in the instrument, and what a murmur, of the forests from whence issued its wood.” Rainer Maria Rilke

While reading the “Midnight Skin” script for the first time, Carla Pallone (Vacarme, Mansfield.TYA) in Nantes met Fanny in Athens. And the Eucalyptus trees. And it was at this same moment that she saw through her window, an Eucalyptus tree. Fact and fiction are already mixing, and Carla Pallone welcomes this sign with a smile. Then comes the meeting with filmmaker Manolis Mavris, and his work: first “Brutalia”, then “Midnight Skin”. The writing is chiseled and precise. Each frame is a painting. At the center of the film: Fanny's solitude which excludes her from humankind. This solitude requires a place for expression. Carla Pallone thus imagines an “organic” music, linked to the way that wood, strings and other materials live and resonate. A poetic and strange sound universe, close to Fanny, to her physical and psychological states. She has found the perfect junction between acoustic and electronic, highlighting a modern violin, out of the times. The result is a soundtrack similar to Fanny, inhabited, dark and moving. Human.

Somewhere between Mickaël Nyman and Mica Levi, Carla Pallone knows how to write atmospheres, create landscapes and draw lines of fiction. Her classical training and her taste for ancient music have nourished her path as a composer, to open the spectrum of her music to the widest possible audience. With a strong appreciation for the strings, she explores a sensitive sound universe, which unfolds between organic and analog materials. Acute sense of melody, neoclassicism, minimalism... repetitive pieces of music rub shoulders with ritornellos with great joy. And if the violin is king, synthesizers also find their proper place as disturbing basses or melodic sweeps. There is great sensivity in her sound research, at the crossroads of musical paths, from the most classical to the most experimental, improvised or meditative.

Jules Archive is a project founded by Marco Marzuoli and Marco Mazzei in 2016.

By employing various technologies, instruments, and approaches, the duo strives to craft a mysterious and fantastical persona named Jules. Through this persona, they aim to immerse listeners in a dreamlike atmosphere, transcending reality and dwelling in imaginary spatiotemporal dimensions.

Platonic Tales is the second chapter of Jules' journeys, more anthropocentric than the first album Adventures & Explorations (Volume 1), but equally exotic and dreamlike. The musical intention of this record was to rework a set of five (plus one) melodic tape loops, already structured in "song form”, through detailed arrangements. The treatment followed an experimental-pop-oriented production approach.

Recorded entirely at home by the artists, the music on the album features analog cassettes containing loops dating back to around 2016. The remaining arrangements were composed during the 2020 pandemic lockdown.

Several international guests collaborated on the album:

Lino Capra Vaccina, the legendary Italian percussionist/minimalist composer, and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma engaged in a musical dialogue on An Ontological Novel.

Andrew Weathers contributed his voice to the tracks A Superior Truth and Exodus.

Christina Vantzou participated in Exodus and concluded the album with a string composition arranged and conducted by Minna Choi, performed by Magik*Magik Orchestra.

Recorded between Città Sant' Angelo (Pescara - Italy, 2016-2020), Francavilla (Chieti - Italy, 2020), and Firenze (2019-2020).

Explore the sonic landscapes of Trobollowitsch's latest vinyl release, where trumpet strains intertwine with resonant energies, able to fold, deform, and compress time and space so deftly that one has the impression of hearing echoes of distant worlds and times - 'everything everywhere all at once.'

Through the course of time, DSR Lines (David Edren) never loses his intimate and profound connection to the universe of modular synths. These recordings made during 2014 in a residence at the Cem/Worm studio in Rotterdam, represent a further magical compendium of his Organic Electronic Music. In particular, here he draws from his expressive arsenal the cosmic and galactic potential of the Arp 2500, which happily floating throughout. A rigorous magician of vaporous, oscillating patterns, sidereal frequencies, nebulous dust; an explorer of inter-zonal paths, he unveils new dreamlike dimensions en route to unfold planets. Between Kraut-Kosmische accelerations and a personal approach of gentle minimalism, he always forges rare atmospheres of rhythmic pulsation, full of enveloping, spherical and spiralling sounds, luminous and radiant in their hypnotic aura, or magnificently ecstatic and ascending. Originally released by Ultra Eczema.

Luka Aron is a German musician and composer of electroacoustic and minimalist music based between Stockholm and Berlin. 'XV Xxvii III XXI IX: Variations & Coda' is his debut vinyl release. Apart from his solo work, he is also a member of the trio Minua (signed to Nils Frahm's Leiter label) and the dream gaze band Roomer. His work was previously described as "thick, impasto layers of slow-moving sound that completely command your attention" in The Guardian.
'XV Xxvii III XXI IX: Variations & Coda' is a four-part suite for an acoustic ensemble (bass clarinet, contrabass, euphonium, foghorn organ, harpsichord, serpent, shō, and trumpet) and analog as well digital synthesis. The result is an album of spiralling compositions which navigate labyrinthine structures of multiple closely related overtones and layers of heavy distortion based on Aron's research and observations of the physiology of hearing through minute listening tests. On the album, the composer collaborates with a number of notable musicians: Mattias Hållsten and Santos Silva (both members of the late CC Hennix' Kamigaku ensemble), just intonation contrabassist Vilhelm Bromander, or Amina Hocine, among others. The release was mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering.