Mathias Weber – Beethoven und der Flügel der Zukunft (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:13:25 minutes | 549 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ambitus
Beethovens weltberühmte Klaviersonaten wie Waldstein, Appassionata und die zweisätzige F-Dur-Sonate op. 54 werden von Mathias Weber am modernen Paulello Flügel Opus 102 geboten. Der Pianist verbindet eine große Spanne der Dynamik und Expression mit reicher Farbgebung, brillanten Läufen, Akzentuierungen und trefflichem Rubato. In die Waldsteinsonate ist zudem das traumversunkene Andante favori eingewoben, während die Appassionta mit echtem Feuer à la Beethoven in ihren rollenden Läufen und Klangkaskaden glänzt. Das Klavier ist hier kein „Schwachstarktastenkasten“, wie es Beethoven genannt hat, sondern ein nahezu orchestrales Instrument. Eine bis ins Detail überzeugende Darbietung dieser Schlachtrösser der Klavierliteratur. Wohl hätten der große Konzertflügel und die Darbietung voller Kraft und Elan dem Meister selbst gefallen.
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Mathias Lévy, Jean-Philippe Viret, Sebastien Giniaux with guests Vincent Peirani, Vincent Segal – Unis Vers (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:41 minutes | 793 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
“From the unanimity acquired by the trio in terms of its sonority, with everyone even breathing together as one, to its elegant counterpoint, via an intricate blending of timbres, Mathias Lévy allows us to hear a group that has indeed found its perfect balance. He confirms, above all, that he is altogether worthy of drawing his bow across the strings of this iconic instrument bearing the imprint of a great artist and of bringing it with him into the 21st century.” – Vincent Bessières
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Mathias Landæus Trio – Opening (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 56:15 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © M.a. Recordings
One of the burgeoning Swedish jazz musicians, pianist and composer Mathias Landæus plays intelligent, hard hitting jazz with a dose of humor. Landaeus was born in Sweden in 1969, and was initially influenced by Bill Evans, Swedish folk music, Weather Report, and the occasional jazz musicians he saw traveling through the area.
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Chloë Hanslip, Simon Crawford-Phillips, Callino Quartet – Schumann, Reinecke, Debussy, Berg & Corigliano: Works Featuring Clarinet (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 57:50 minutes | 516 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
Danish clarinettist Mathias Kjøller, himself a laureate in the Carl Nielsen Competition and former principal of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, has collaborated with several highly acclaimed musicians for this recording of chamber music works. The album is a testament to the sound worlds created for the clarinet by Schumann, Reinecke, Debussy, Berg and Corigliano.
The connection between composers is foremost an emotional, and very melancholic one, ranging from the highly expressive Three Romances by Schumann to Alban Berg’s Adagio, with Corigliano’s Soliloquy serving as a sorrowful coda having been written in memoriam of the composer’s father.
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Mathias Eick – When We Leave (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:47 minutes | 673 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick’s expressive playing, which according to the New York Times radiates a “pristine yet penetrating tone”, is remarkably well complemented in the company of his gifted supporting players and fellow travelers. Violinist Hakon Aase, one of the outstanding improvisers of his generation, shadows the leader with lines that reflect a profound background in folk as well as jazz.
Drummers Helge Andeas Norbakken and Torstein Lofthus mirror their exchanges, as they interact with purring precision. Near the centre of the action, pianist Andras Ulvo and bass guitarist Audun Erlien ferry ideas between frontline and rhythm section and make statements of their own. On several tracks, the delicate swell of Stian Carstensen’s pedal steel guitar adds a dimension of mystery.
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Mathias Eick – The Door (2008)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:11 minutes | 906 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Mathias Eick’s resumé includes work with musicians of many styles, from Chick Corea and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra to Norwegian psychedelic rock band Motorpsycho. A primary project in the last ten years has been the jazz/progressive rock ten-piece band Jaga Jazzist: Eick’s multi-instrumentalism has been an important part of that group’s sound and on The Door he is also heard on vibraphone and guitar as well as trumpet, as he puts it, whatever needs to be played. Eick has appeared on two ECM recordings with Norwegian-American guitarist Jacob Young, Evening Falls and Sideways, and on Finnish harpist/pianist/composer Iro Haarla’s Northbound. In 2007 he became a frontline soloist of Manu Katché’s band, appearing on the best-selling Playground…
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Mathias Eick – Skala (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:41 minutes | 746 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick’s new album extends the concept and the panoramic sweep of his ECM debut “The Door” (recorded 2007). “It’s wider and bigger in all directions,” Eick says. “Skala” calls upon the services of more musicians – including, at times, two drummers – and there is more detail in the arrangements. What hasn’t changed is the emphasis on the lyrical soloist at the centre of the production. Eick’s elegant trumpet now has a larger space in which to sing.
“Skala” pools new and older compositions, all written by Mathias, and inspired, he says, by music from classical to pop. The title tune is one that the trumpeter says has been following him “for many years”, its network of inspirations including Sting’s 1993 song “Shape of My Heart”. “Edinburgh” was written in the Scottish city, but draws inspiration from Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and the plaintive cry of Jan Garbarek’s sax. Eick describes “June” as “a light and peaceful song, a reminiscence of summer days”. The piece incorporates the harp of classical player Sidsel Walstad, currently of the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra.
“Oslo”, the album’s most propulsive tune, is a “song of the city. It’s a groove-directed piece.” It also “brings the idea of the two drummers into play. It sets them loose.” The piece also includes significant contributions from keyboardist Morten Qvenild, best known for his work with singer Susanna Wallumrød. “Joni” is, of course, for Joni Mitchell, whose work Eick has long admired. “Biermann” is named after the Oslo house that Eick rents, a place once owned by German merchant J. F. Biermann, back in the 19th century. “The Day After” references the 1970s, and is influenced by sources as diverse as the Jarrett/Garbarek ‘Belonging’ collaboration and the pounding rock piano of Elton John. “Epilogue” develops “from the simple idea of softness meeting raw energy”, as Mathias’s tender trumpet soliloquy gives way to typhoon-strength drumming from Torstein Lofthus.
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Mathias Eick – Ravensburg (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:13 minutes | 798 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
One of the pleasures of Mathias Eick s Midwest album was hearing his vaulting trumpet supported by violin, an instrumental combination further developed on Ravensburg. The new violinist in Eicks ensemble is Hakon Aase, one of the up-and-coming players of the new Norwegian scene, whom attentive ECM listeners will already know from his work with Thomas Stronens group. The core Eick road band is further shored up by the addition of Helge Andreas Norbakken, who interacts excitingly with fellow drummer Torstein Lofthus. Eick is in great form as a writer on this showing, deploying driving rhythm at the bottom end of his music and soaring melody at the top in this series of pieces which add up to a kind of collective family portrait. Ravensburg was recorded at Oslos Rainbow Studio in June 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher, and is issued on the eve of European tour.
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Mathias Bressan – L’imprévu (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 34:11 minutes | 374 MB | Genre: Chanson, French Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Factice
L’imprévu est le second album de Mathias Bressan, cinq ans après le singulier Entre terre et mer. L’auteur-compositeur-interprète réputé pour chanter derrière sa batterie a concocté une série de chansons qui rendent justice au titre de l’album, dans la mesure où ce bruxellois est un adepte forcené d’un éclectisme proche de la folie douce – entre le rock et l’électro son cœur balance, pour le plus grand plaisir de l’auditeur. Outre ces grands écarts stylistiques, Bressan revendique également une propension à la « belgitude », attitude qui consiste à mettre un peu de mélancolie dans la joie, ou de la joie dans la mélancolie, selon les points de vue. Cette tendance très marquée chez lui est particulièrement palpable dans les paroles de ses chansons, en particulier dans Rue du silence ou Des oiseaux sur la ville. Mathias Bressan est un poète proche du surréalisme, voire du fantastique parfois, et rien que pour ça il fait désormais partie des acteurs indispensables de la scène musicale francophone. / The unexpected is the second album of Mathias Bressan, five years after the singular, Between land and sea. The singer-songwriter known for singing behind the drums has put together a series of songs that do justice to the album title, to the extent that brussels is a follower frenzied eclectic, close to the sweet madness – between rock and electro, his heart balance, to the delight of the listener. In addition to these major stylistic differences, Bressan also asserts a propensity to the ” belgitude “, an attitude which is to put a little bit of melancholy in the joy, or the joy in the melancholy, depending on your point of view. This trend is very marked in him is particularly palpable in the lyrics of his songs, especially in Rue du silence, or The birds on the city. Mathias Bressan is a poet close to the surrealism, or even fantastic sometimes, and for that alone he is now one of the key players in the francophone music scene.
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Matchbox Twenty – The Matchbox Twenty Collection (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 04:57:39 minutes | 4,60 GB | Genre: Alternative Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Recording Corporation
Upon the release of their debut album, “Yourself or Someone Like You”, in fall 1996, Matchbox Twenty was pigeonholed as one of the legions of post-grunge guitar bands that roamed the American pop scene in the middle of that decade. At no time did the record top the charts, but it was always around, a staple of modern rock, adult alternative, and Top 40 radio alike. Matchbox Twenty was omnipresent because they managed to blend the structure and sentiment of ’70s arena rock with ’90s hard rock, thereby winning a large audience by seeming simultaneously classicist and modern. They were a little more classicist than modern, but that’s the reason why they became America’s most popular rock band of the late ’90s – even if nobody quite realized they had achieved that status. “The Matchbox Twenty Collection” is the full band’s discography released as digital box set in 2013.
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Matana Roberts & Pat Thomas – The Truth (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:03 minutes | 333 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © OTOroku
Raw blues to ragged free jazz clatter, ‘The Truth’ is a fire-spirited document of pianist Pat Thomas playing in duo with saxophonist Matana Roberts for the first time .
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Matana Roberts – COIN COIN Chapter Four: Memphis (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:46 minutes | 955 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Constellation
Matana Roberts returns with the fourth chapter of her extraordinary Coin Coin series – a project that has deservedly garnered the highest praise and widespread critical acclaim for it’s fierce aesthetic originality and unflinching narrative power. The first three Coin Coin albums, issued from 2011-2015, charted diverse pathways of modern/avant composition – Roberts calls it “panoramic sound quilting” – and ranged sequentially from large band to sextet to solo, unified by Roberts’ archival and often deeply personal research into legacies of the American slave trade and ancestries of American identity/experience. Roberts also emphasizes non-male subjects and thematises these other-gendered stories with a range of vocal and verbal techniques: singspeak, submerged glossolalic recitation, guttural cathartic howl, operatic voice, gentle lullaby, group chant, and the recuperation of various American folk traditionals and spirituals, whether surfacing in fragmentary fashion or as unabridged set-pieces. The root of this vocality comes from her dedication to the legacy of her main chosen instrument, the alto saxophone. On Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, Roberts convened a new band, with New Yorkers Hannah Marcus (guitars, fiddle, accordion) and percussionist Ryan Sawyer (Thurston Moore, Nate Wooley, Cass McCombs) joined by Montréal bassist Nicolas Caloia (Ratchet Orchestra) and Montréal-Cairo composer/improviser Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Dwarfs Of East Agouza) on guitar and oud, along with prolific trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White as special guests. Memphis unspools as a continuous work of 21st century liberation music, oscillating between meditative incantatory explorations, raucous melodic themes, and unbridled free-improv suites, quoting archly and ecstatically from various folk traditions along the way. Led by Roberts’ conduction and unique graphic score practice, her consummate saxophone and clarinet playing, and punctuated by her singing and speaking various texts generated from her own historical research and diaristic writings, Coin Coin Chapter Four is a glorious and spellbinding new installment in this projected twelve-part Gesamtkunstwerk. Says Roberts: “As an arts adventurer dealing w/ the medium of sound and it’s many contradictions I am most interested in endurance, perseverance, migration, liberation, libation, improvisation and the many layers of cognitive dissonance therein as it relates to my birth country’s history. I speak memory, I sing an American survival through horn, song, sadness, a sometimes gladness. I stand on the backs of many people, from so many different walks of life and difference, that never had a chance to express themselves as expressively as I have been given the privilege. In these sonic renderings, I celebrate the me, I celebrate the we, in all that it is now, and all that is yet to come or will be… Thanks for listening.”
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Matan Porat – LUX (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:31 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mirare
With Lux, the brilliant pianist and composer Matan Porat offers a visionary programme inspired by the theme of light. Twelve pieces chosen among a repertoire spanning twelve centuries accompany the course of a day, from dawn to nightfall. each piece corresponds to a time of day, with its own particular light.
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Mat Maneri, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten & Kalle Moberg – Wordless Voices (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:36 minutes | 474 MB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © KAMO Records
Recorded on the cusp of our voyage into isolation, Wordless Voices sings songs from the collective unwinding at the heart of improvised music. The 4 tracks traverse, intertwine and disentangle myriad territories of microtonality, pulse, melody, and noise and present an incorruptible expression of group improvisation and, just as significant, a remembrance of collective listening shared by audience and performer.
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Mat Maneri Quartet – Dust (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 56:43 minutes | 1018 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside
Imagine sitting in an ordinary room. The afternoon sun is shining through the blinds alighting on a languid scene, a couple of chairs, an empty table, and the shadows moving almost imperceptibly down the wall. Nothing seems to be stirring. But even in this peaceful stasis, there is unflagging activity as thousands of dust motes float on their lonely paths, ostensibly of their own whim.
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