Wakeup Calls
Cosmo Sheldrake
London based Cosmo Sheldrake’s music reminds me of the legendary Incredible String Band, and that’s certainly a compliment. I have been waiting for musicians to turn to natural sounds to change the way music is perceived – not just as something man-made but as a feat once taught us by the environment – singing birds, rushing rivers, whistling winds, whispering trees, the thundering sky… Each track is dedicated to a different bird, and we have ample occasion to hear them in the wild. Cosmo is just as radical in his approach to nature as his famous father, Rupert. Nine years in the making, Wakeup Calls has thirteen track and directs us to the wonderful sounds of nature as well as providing a testimony to the vanishing of the natural world. Cosmo Sheldrake lives in a musical cosmos of his own (sgs).
Tardigrade, September 2020
Cantus, Descant
Sarah Davachi
Sarah Davachi (born 1987 in Calgary, Canada) has released a new album, consisting of live works, realized between 2018 and 2919, for solo electronics, solo organ and organ and chamber orchestra. As a composer and performer of electroacoustic music, Sara Davachi’s work is concerned with the close intricacies of intimate aural space, utilizing extended durations and simple harmonic structures that emphasize subtle variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and temperament and intonation. The instrumentation she employs is varied. Next to those mentioned, voice, early Western strings and keyboards, and orchestral strings, brass, and woodwinds, with mutual idioms often layered in tonal counterpoint. Her sound manifests an experience that lessens apprehension of consonance and dissonance in likeness of the familiar and the distant.
Late Music, September 2020
Ella – The Lost Berlin Tapes
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996) needs no introduction. Luck hast it that the lost tapes of the great jazz singer’s concert in Berlin’s Sportpalast on March 25, 1962, recently turned up in the estate of Verve founder Norman Granz, who was also Ella’s manager. Hearing the audience’s enthusiastic reception of her gives me goosebumps, and it is a worthy testimonial to the love and admiration her singing and person garnered around the world. Seventeen standards show Ella at her best, her unique voice and modulation, her charisma, her swing – never to be forgotten. Many songs sound like they could have been the best theme song of any Bond movie ever, and the warmth and devotion of Ella’s public in Berlin testify to an unusual love story. This recording marks one of the sublime highlights in the singer’s career. (sgs)
Universal, October 2020
Dvergmál
Sigur Rós – with Steindór Andersen, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson & María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir
«Dvergmál» is the first track to be released from the new Sigur Rós album Odin’s Raven Magic. The Islandic rock band, founded in 1994 in Reykjavik, is here seen playing with an entire symphonic orchestra to produce a dense etheric sound. In the fourth season of the U.S. fantasy series Game of Thrones, Sigur Rós has a guest appearance as a musician at the wedding of King Joffrey Baratheon in the second episode of the original title, ‘The Lion and the Rose.’ There they play an excerpt of their modified version of the song The Rains of Castamere. Composed in the 14th or 15th century Odin’s Raven Music is an Icelandic poem in the tradition of the Edda. The poem recounts a great banquet held by the gods in Valhalla. While they were absorbed in their feasting ominous sings appeared that foretold the end of the worlds of gods and men. Sigur Rós are also producers of their own brand of CBD.
Limited & standard editions, October 2020 (sigurros.com)
Redemption Song (The Carnival of the Animals)
The Kanneh-Masons
This family orchestra were first discovered on Britain’s Got Talent, and they are truly special. On this album Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who gained greater notoriety for playing at Harry & Meagan’s wedding, collaborates with his six his siblings, all of which play either violin, cello or piano. They are between ten and twenty years old. Sheku, Kadiata, Isata, Braimah, Konya, Jeneba, Amitata and Mariatu were raised in Nottingham, England, by parents Stuart Mason, a business executive, and Dr. Kianatu Kanneh, a former university lecturer. Sehku and his family have been portrayed in a number of documentaries. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083d749 Young, Gifted and Classical made by BBC Four, will be shown again twice in November.
Decca, October 2020