Leon Russell – On a Distant Shore (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon Russell – On a Distant Shore (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:44 minutes | 553 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Palmetto+

Recorded prior to his November 2016 death, On a Distant Shore isn’t a strict return to the chintzy, homemade digital productions Leon Russell specialized in prior to his 2010 Elton John-assisted comeback The Union, but it’s a far cry from the warmth of the 2014 solo affair Life Journey. With producer Mark Lambert, Russell favors a clean, crisp sound for On a Distant Shore, one that is in the same ballpark as the endless albums he released in the 2000s. Coming after the burnished The Union and Life Journey, the brightness of On a Distant Shore is a bit jarring, but it enhances the low-key California swing of “This Masquerade” — a song happily in the vein of latter-day Steely Dan — and can work well on a barrelhouse blues, too. When more elements are added into the production, like the backing band and synthesized orchestra on “Just Leaves and Grass,” On a Distant Shore starts to wobble because it’s clear it was done on the cheap. Consequently, the album doesn’t feel as suitable a career capper as Life Journey, but as a coda it’s not bad: it has a few worthy cuts and in its ungainly construction, it holds true to the weirdness of most of Russell’s discography.

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Leon Russell – Life Journey (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Leon Russell – Life Journey (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:16 minutes | 936 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Blue Note Records

Legendary American singer and pianist Leon Russell has entertained the world for five decades, getting his start as an in-demand Wrecking Crew session player and playing on hundreds of hit records before he began releasing his own albums in 1967. His latest studio album, titled “Life Journey”, features newly-written, original songs and Russell’s turns on classics that resonate with the two-time GRAMMY winner as important to his musical trajectory. The album is produced by Tommy LiPuma and executive produced by Elton John, with whom Russell most recently collaborated for 2010’s critically acclaimed album, The Union.

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Leon Russell – Leon Russell And The Shelter People (1971/2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Leon Russell – Leon Russell And The Shelter People (1971/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 42:46 minutes | 902 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capitol Records

Leon Russell and The Shelter People is the 1971 gem by multi-instrumentalist and music icon Leon Russell. The album is comprised of eight Russell originals, two Dylan covers and Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness.” It is a full display of Russell’s gifts as an instrumentalist and his abilities to produce timeless Rock & Roll classics. Russell’s soulful talents shine through on the tracks “Of Thee I Sing,” “Home Sweet Oklahoma” and “She Smiles Like a River.” Leon Russell and The Shelter People finds Russell at his prime and is an important document in his illustrious career.

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Leon Russell – Carney (1972/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Leon Russell – Carney (1972/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 37:29 minutes | 1,55 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capitol Records

Leon Russell’s third album marked a change in direction. His first two releases were a sort of high-spirited revue, with numerous players and gospel-influenced backup singers. Where his self-titled debut and its follow-up (And The Shelter People) wedded blues, R&B, rock & roll, country and other genres, „Carney“ is a pared-down setting of equally well-endowed songs that make their mark in a much quieter manner. Russell’s first two albums had been veritable celebrations, but „Carney“ sounds more introspective. Some of Russell’s most loved songs made their first appearance here, including the often-covered ‘Tight Rope’ and ‘This Masquerade.’ Russell stayed introspective on his subsequent release „Will O’ The Wisp“, but „Carney“ remains one of his very finest efforts. The gorgeous songs and subtle arrangements make for a wonderfully sustained album experience.

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Leon Røsten Odyssey – Dystode (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Leon Røsten Odyssey – Dystode (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:40 minutes | 851 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Øra Fonogram

My name is Leon Røsten and I’m a Norwegian jazz pianist, guitarist, songwriter and composer. My main work is leading, performing and composing for my bands Leon Røsten Odyssey, Sonic Cycles, Swallows Nest and Røsten as well as collaboration in other projects such as Mari Eriksen/Leon Røsten, Jera and Vejslev/Røsten. My main goal is to express and share the music from within and hopefully touch the listener whilst creating an interesting experience.

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Leon McCawley – Haydn : Sonatas & Variations (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon McCawley – Haydn : Sonatas & Variations (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:18:54 minutes | 596 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings

A truly invigorating new release from SOMM this month, brings us Leon McCawley in a recording of four Haydn Piano Sonatas together with the set of Variations in F minor (Sonata – Un piccolo divertimento). Siva Oke first heard Leon play Haydn during a recital for the Chopin Society and was immediately struck by the many wonderful qualities he brought to his playing which captured classical purity and pristine articulation coupled with warmth, plasticity and wit. Widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s foremost pianists, McCawley has forged a highly successful career since winning First Prize in the 1993 International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna and Second Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, building on his earlier success as Winner of the Piano Section of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1990. Since then, his impressive discography which includes the much-lauded complete cycle of Mozart Sonatas for Avie has established him as a pianist of great integrity and variety, bringing freshness and vitality to classical, romantic and 20th century repertoire. The more than 50 piano sonatas of Haydn were the first by any composer, for it was he who first applied the word ‘Sonata’ to a solo piano piece. Haydn’s influence on Mozart, Beethoven, and all the other great composers who followed him, was hugely significant, yet it is only in quite recent times that the importance and originality of his piano sonatas have gradually come to be recognised. The Sonatas on this disc have long been part of Leon McCawley’s recital repertoire. They reflect the range of Haydn’s genius in the genre he himself invented, and McCawley’s performances are full of the insight and virtuosity which have made him one of the major international artists currently before the public.

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Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:08 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings

The fourth volume in Leon McCawley’s much-praised series of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Keyboard Sonatas. Six Sonatas spanning the years 1766-80 are featured: the earliest the miniature First Sonata in G major, the latest the E-flat major Sonata No. 51, while Robert Matthew-Walker’s fascinating booklet note charts how deftly Haydn balanced the expectations of others and his own creative ambition. “Intended more to entertain than engage the intellect”, the fleet, divertimento-like First Sonata seems to anticipate the pedagogical leanings of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos more than a century and half later.

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Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:20 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings

“SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the third volume in Leon McCawley’s much praised series of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Sonatas.

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Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Leon McCawley – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:17:02 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SOMM Recordings

McCawley’s admired first volume, pairing Haydn’s Sonatas and Variations (SOMMCD 0162), received a coveted Diapason d’Or for playing of “great intelligibility and sensitivity”. Sonata No.60 from Volume I has been selected by Diapason to appear on its next CD, Les indispensables de Diapason, featuring six Haydn sonatas played on different keyboards.

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Leon Haywood – Intimate (Expanded) (1976/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Leon Haywood – Intimate (Expanded) (1976/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 47:06 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Funk, Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Born in Houston, he listened to the blues as a child and started playing piano at the age of three. In his teens, he performed with a local group and worked as an accompanist to blues musician, Guitar Slim. In the early 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he worked with saxophonist Big Jay McNeely. McNeely arranged for him to record his first single, “Without a Love”, an instrumental on the small Swingin’ record label. After that, he joined Sam Cooke’s band as keyboardist until the singer’s death. Haywood next recorded two singles for Fantasy Records, and subsequently moved to Imperial Records, where he recorded the single “She’s with Her Other Love”, which made the R&B charts in 1965. He was also part of two session bands organized by Los Angeles disc jockey Magnificent Montague which issued the instrumental hits “Hole in the Wall” (R&B #5/Pop #50, 1965) under the name of The Packers, and “Precious Memories” (R&B number 31, 1967) as the Romeos.

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Leon Gurvitch – Noah Land (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon Gurvitch – Noah Land (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:18 minutes | 405 MB | Genre: Soundtrack, Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MovieScore Media

The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (OST) for the movie Noah Land (2019). The film music was written by Leon Gurvitch. Noah Land is a 2019 drama film written and directed by Cenk Ertürk. The film stars Ali Atay, Haluk Bilginer, Hande Dogandemir, Arin Kusaksizoglu, Mehmet Özgür.

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Leon “Foster” Thomas – Metamorphosis (2016/2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon “Foster” Thomas – Metamorphosis (2016/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:59 minutes | 810 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ropeadope

Being one of the newest percussion instruments on the planet, (circa 1939) the steel pan is actually on a similar timeline with the development of modern jazz. Taking into consideration strong African influences and a hybridization process, they appear to be a natural combination. Pan Master Leon Foster Thomas has taken the instrument most associated with his homeland of Trinidad, right into the heart of jazz composition and performance with Metamorphosis, in a bold rhythmic and melodic encounter.

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Leon Bridges – Good Thing (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Leon Bridges – Good Thing (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 34:50 minutes | 404 MB | Genre: Soul, R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

On his brilliant 2015 debut album, Coming Home, Texas singer/songwriter Leon Bridges invited comparisons to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding with his authentic take on soul. Good Thing, his 2018 follow-up, finds Bridges leaving the ’50 and ’60s, instead embracing ’70s icons like The Stylistics (“Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand”) and Chic (“You Don’t Know”). More surprises come in “If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be)” and “Bad Bad News,” contemporary jams that show he can swag it out with the likes of Usher and Pharrell too. Bridges’ warm tenor is sturdy and smoky as mesquite wood as he combines deep emotions and nimble wordplay on “Beyond,” “Forgive You,” and “Georgia to Texas”—a moving story of his family’s history.

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Leon Bridges – Gold-Diggers Sound (Deluxe) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon Bridges – Gold-Diggers Sound (Deluxe) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:30 minutes | 400 MB | Genre: Soul, R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

The Texas singer delivers a smooth, risk-averse R&B album whose nostalgic trappings aim for timelessness.

​Gold-Diggers Sound, the title of Leon Bridges’ new album, is also a tribute to the place it was recorded, a newly swanky hotel/bar/studio in East Hollywood called Gold-Diggers. It’s good branding for Bridges, who has always presented himself and his music as timeless, which is to say, of a better time, somewhere back in the sepia-toned 20th century. The sense of place suggested by a studio on Santa Monica Boulevard would seem to harken back to that time, and it sets the tone for Bridges’ Hollywood record, which is what this album seeks to be.

What does that mean, beyond the title? Vocal stylings that occasionally sound like those of Frank Ocean; lilting, drawn-out vowels; and an understated delivery that can bely the power of Bridges’ show-stopping voice. Mastering from Daddy Kev, co-founder of the Low End Theory and a Los Angeles musician’s musician par excellence. And features from the talented multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin and pianist Robert Glasper, both of whom helped out on To Pimp a Butterfly, that maximalist portrait of the city.

Gold-Diggers Sound is far from maximalist. In the tradition of Bridges’ work, it’s a smooth, risk-averse R&B record, pleasant to the ear and lacking in any songs that would shake up one’s impression of the Texan soul singer. But it’s an album made with extraordinary care, and while it sometimes flirts with tedium, Bridges’ voice and producers Ricky Reed and Nate Mercereau’s subtle instrumental choices keep many of its songs out of the valley of the bland.

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Leon Bridges – Gold-Diggers Sound (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Leon Bridges – Gold-Diggers Sound (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 36:46 minutes | 372 MB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

‘Gold-Diggers Sound’ celebrates Leon Bridges’ immersive experience of creating music in the same East Hollywood room where he lived, worked, and drank over the course of two years. The soulful collaboration between Leon as an artist and the space itself was so encompassing that he chose to name the album after the soon-to-be legendary complex.

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