Hugh Coltman – Who’s Happy? (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 52:13 minutes | 554 MB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Okeh
After a beautiful homage to Nat King Cole, the most French of the British singers flew out to New Orleans in order to record new compositions with his fellow travelers, a local brass band and the virtuoso guitarist Freddy Koella, co-director of Who’s Happy ?. Dancing percussion, brass instruments filled with soul, guitars blending blues and jazz, nothing is missing from his groovy fiesta that is sometimes punctuated nostalgic and laidback overtones and in which Hugh Coltman managed to slip in his personal touch. There resides the strength of a disc which respects tradition that he tackles with a contemporary eye. It is worth noting the participation of Melissa Laveaux on Hand Me Downs.
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Hugh Coltman – Shadows – Songs of Nat King Cole & Live at Jazz à Vienne (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:35:14 minutes | 1010 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Okeh
Deluxe reissue of “Shadows: Songs of Nat King Cole” album. This release expanded with 1 bonus track & additionally contains “Live at Jazz à Vienne” as second disc.
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Huey “Piano” Smith & His Clowns – Having a Good Time (1965/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 26:38 minutes | 283 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul, Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Life Series
No collection of leftovers here, Huey “Piano” Smith’s album debut featured the hits “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,” “High Blood Pressure,” and “Don’t You Just Know It” along with Crescent City favorites like “Little Liza Jane,” “Don’t You Know Yockomo,” “Just A Lonely Clown,” and Bobby Marchan’s “Little Chickee Wah Wah.” As a budget priced collection, this one’s hard to turn down. An essential building block for any New Orleans collection.
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Huey Lewis And The News – Sports (1983/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 37:41 minutes | 1,50 GB | Genre: Rock, Pop, Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capitol Records (CAP)
After two mildly successful, vaguely new-wave albums, Bay Area bar band Huey Lewis and the News (several of whose members had backed Elvis Costello on MY AIM IS TRUE) hooked up with mega-selling producer Mike Chapman and released 1983’s SPORTS. The album dominated both AM and FM radio throughout 1984, aligning it with THRILLER, PURPLE RAIN, SHE’S SO UNUSUAL, and Madonna’s early singles as definitive pop music of its era. SPORTS is genial frat-boy rock at its finest. Singles ‘The Heart of Rock and Roll,’ ‘Heart and Soul,’ ‘I Want a New Drug,’ and ‘If This is It’ comprise half of the album, and these songs have stood up to repeated listens. Hearing SPORTS today, the album still sounds surprisingly fresh, all the more remarkable when one considers how poorly other hits of the day have fared.
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Huey Lewis And The News – Small World (1988/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 45:04 minutes | 1,93 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capitol Records
Small World was another platinum hit for Huey Lewis & the News, but the album was noticeably weaker than their previous three records. Lewis tries to position himself as a socially conscious rocker — no less than three tracks have the word “world” in their title — writing songs about the perilous state of the environment and urging everybody to live together peacefully, since “there ain’t no livin’ in a perfect world.” Such sanctimonious and simple lyrical platitudes would be acceptable if the band had written a set of catchy pop to support them. Instead, the group decided to stretch out, exploring rootsy American music like the zydeco of “Bobo Tempo” and the bluesy “Old Antone’s.” None of the musical diversions work as well as the bouncy Top Ten hit “Perfect World.” However, “Perfect World” is the only song that ranks with the group’s best material — as “Give Me the Keys (And I’ll Drive You Crazy)” proves, the News fail to come up with hooks that rival their earlier hits. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Read moreHuey Lewis And The News – Huey Lewis & The News (1980/2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]
Huey Lewis And The News – Huey Lewis & The News (1980/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 31:21 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capitol Records
On their eponymous debut, Huey Lewis and the News essentially act as a pub rock band, turning out hard-driving covers and originals in a workmanlike fashion. While that usually makes for great club gigs, it only occasionally makes for great records, and the debut suffers from an uneven selection of material and a somewhat stiff production, mainly because the group can’t quite reproduce its sound in the studio. Even with such flaws, the album shows signs of promise, particularly in the charging “Some of My Lies Are True (Sooner or Later).”
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Huey Lewis And The News – Fore! (1986/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 37:33 minutes | 1,55 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EMI – EMI Records (USA)
Sports was one of the rare mainstream pop/rock albums where everything worked — the songs were catchy, the sound was inviting, and it all sounded perfect on the radio. It would have been tough for Huey Lewis and the News to match its quality with the follow-up, Fore!, and it comes as little surprise that Fore! suffers from an overdose of the very things that made Sports nearly irresistible. Where the songs on Sports were so straightforward that they seemed inevitable, much of Fore! sounds labored, particularly when the News try to write a middle-class anthem. It’s one thing to celebrate “The Heart of Rock & Roll,” but it’s quite another to proclaim it’s “Hip to Be Square,” especially if you’re supported by a chorus of football players. And “Hip to Be Square,” as well as “Stuck With You,” where a married yuppie couple can’t divorce because it would simply be too much hassle, makes Lewis’ complacent tendencies all too clear. That wouldn’t be a big problem if the songs were as catchy as “If This Is It” or “Heart and Soul,” but they aren’t, and the sound of the record is so sterile that the News no longer sound like a working band. Fore! is a reasonably enjoyable facsimile of the pleasures of Sports, yet it lacks the gleeful sense of fun that made that record, as well as portions of Picture This, so enjoyable. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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Huerta – Junipero (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:02 minutes | 1018 MB | Genre: Electronic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Voyage Recordings
Huerta’s debut album for Voyage is a righteous journey along the coast of California; a psychosomatic blend of melodic rhythm, natural sounds and ambient textures.
Recorded throughout 2019, Huerta combines a blissful wash of west coast inspired ambient with the more affable, rhythmic house cuts he has been previously known for. Drawing on the surrounding landscapes of his upbringing, Huerta’s ode to the Juniper tree is an immersive and introspective experience; a long player capable of taking you to an elevated state of mind.
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Huelgas Ensemble & Paul Van Nevel – The Music Prints of Christophe Plantin (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:24 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
The French printer-publisher Christophe Plantin (1520-1589), who has lived in Antwerp more or less all of his adult life, is not just anyone. He is credited with some two thousand publications, an absolutely astounding number in this era in which everything was done by hand, including the press done page after page, and yet he’s managed to publish a new book approximately every week during his 34-year career, with more than a thousand copies for each—up to eight thousand copies for his Hebraic Bible. His workshop included sixteen hand presses, served by thirty-two printers, twenty typographers, three proofreaders and many servants of all kinds: a true company. Hisopus magnum is a Bible in five languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaean and Syriac. He is also credited with works in the fields of medicine, botany, cartography, anatomy, mathematics, religion of course… And yes, also music! Because he published several major partitions, gathering contemporary sacred works from Jacobus De Kerle, Palestrina, Philippus De Monte, as well as several chansonniers gathering pieces from Andries Pervenage, Claude Le Jeune and colleagues. It is in this incredible stock that the beautiful Ensemble Huelgas drew, alternating between profane and sacred, choral and soloist, a sort of condensed musical Renaissance oscillating between ferocious Catholics (Antwerp was then under Spanish domination, and Philip II was very touchy about religion) and rebellious Protestants.
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Huelgas Ensemble & Paul Van Nevel – La Oreja de Zurbarán (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:54 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cypres
The Huelgas Ensemble was founded by director Paul Van Nevel in 1971. It has specialized in choral music, frequently with instrumental support, from the thirteenth century on to the early Baroque. Their recordings of the High Renaissance have been especially prized. They have also been pioneers in the performance of the difficult Ars Subtilior repertory of the late medieval era.
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Huelgas Ensemble – The Mirror of Claudio Monteverdi (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:11 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Monteverdi was a pioneer of the musical style we now call Baroque, but the Mass on this record is in classic Renaissance style and the music might have been written in the 1500s rather than the 1600s. In between the five parts of Monteverdi’s Mass, four madrigals have been placed by composers of an earlier generation, who shifted borders at their time and sound chromatic, sometimes enharmonic, or are dramatically charged. They were written before Monteverdi’s Mass, but in a more progressive style. Thus, the album gives a surprising insight into the styles of this period and provides an impressive new view onto Monteverdi’s monumental “Messa in illo tempore”.
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Huelgas Ensemble – The Magic of Polyphony (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:39:16 minutes | 2,60 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
The Belgian Huelgas Ensemble under the direction of its founder Paul Van Nevel has been setting standards with its recordings of vocal music. Their new album “The Magic of Polyphony” is a 3 album set celebrating the magical vocal polyphony that flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance featuring many unknown pieces by anonymous and unjustly forgotten composers, but also those by the great masters of polyphony – among others, Orlandus Lassus, Nicolas Gombert, Cipriano de Rore, Pierre de Manchicourt and Pierre de la Rue. The recordings were made during the concerts given by Paul Van Nevel and his ensemble at their own Festival de Pentecôte 2019 in a small village called Talant in France. The highlights of the six concerts are featured on this album.
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Huelgas Ensemble – The Ear of Christopher Columbus (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:24 minutes | 977 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Without the help of blaring drums or castanets, culture-filled aesthete Paul van Nevel gives the opportunity to hear the music that Christopher Columbus heard during his travels and adventurous life. This has resulted in a rigorous selection of (many unknown) a capella works, by Italian and Spanish composers from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Beginning with childhood memories of Christopher Columbus (a carnival song evoking an erotic joke about chimney sweeps), the album ends with pieces by Agricola most likely heard by the navigator at the end of his final voyage in 1506. This virtual musical journey begins in 15th century Venice and reaches the court of Ferdinand and Isabella in Madrid, Seville, Cordoba and Valladolid. This offers an exciting programme benefitting from the exceptional quality of singers of the Huelgas Ensemble, specialised in medieval and Renaissance polyphony and founded in 1971 by Paul van Nevel. – François Hudry
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Huelgas Ensemble – Simone de Bonefont: Missa pro Mortuis (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:19 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cypres
Each new album of the Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul van Nevel is expected as a rare and precious delicacy thanks to extremely neat performances, in an almost perfect choral intonation. The discovery of a repertoire often unpublished is also the source of a happiness as intellectual as moving. Paul van Nevel continues to surprise us with this mass of the dead in five parts, composed by Simone De Bonefont, quite delectable.
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Huelgas Ensemble – Mirabile Mysterium – A European Christmas Tale (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:11 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Seit über 40 Jahren gehört das Huelgas Ensemble zu den weltweit besten Vokalensembles und befasst sich besonders mit der Mehrstimmigkeit des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Die originellen und musikwissenschaftlich fundierten Programmideen des Leiters Paul van Nevel sowie die herausragende Musikalität begeistern Publikum und Presse gleichermaßen: “Mit lupenreiner Intonation, funkelnder Musizierfreude und strahlend transparentem acapella-Klang” (Crescendo 06/2014).
Nun widmet sich das Alte-Musik Ensemble der bekanntesten Bibelgeschichte. In vier Abschnitten beschreibt “Mirabile Mysterium” die Weihnachtsgeschichte um die Geburt Jesu mit Kompositionen aus dem Mittelalter bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Neben Weihnachtsmotetten der Renaissance von Lassus, Sweelinck, Manchicourt und Gallus, welche die Ankuft der drei Weisen aus dem Morgenland beschreiben, umfasst das Programm auch unbekannte englische Carols und volkstümliche spanische Gesänge des Mittelalters. Ein französisches Weihnachtslied aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, ein romantisches Lied von Peter Cornelius über einen Weihnachts-Choral von Johann Sebastian Bach sowie eine Motette aus dem 14. Jahrhundert runden die musikalische Reise durch Weihnachtsmusik aus fünf Jahrhunderten ab.
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