New Album Releases Project 2020-8-8

Jumping right in, once more into the fray.

Mulatu Astatke & Black Jesus Experience’s To Know Without Knowing is a bonafide banger. It has just about everything I could want an album. The music is challenging, and the integration/melding of styles and genres just blew me away.

Recently I have been on a world music kick, specifically that of West Africa, North Africa and Touareg. To give you all a taste of what I mean Sahel Sounds has come out with Various Artists compilation entitled: Sahel Sounds Label Sampler 2

Steve Howe, yes, that Steve Howe (pun intended) dropped an album entitled Love Is, and it was so unexpected. His unmistakable sound brought me back to the magical time when Prog was in its heyday. Note the keys on this recording.

It’s been over 20 years since Deep Purple regaled us with anything new that personally moved MY needle. This new album of theirs Whoosh!, is different. I can’t put my finger on it, but for me this makes the band seem even more fresh and contemporary.

The Persian cellist Kian Soltani and Daniel Barenboim have made great music together. I have been following Soltani’s career and was enthralled with his Dvorak/Tchaikowsky Piano Trio recording on Erato with Lahav Shani and Renaud Capuçon, especially the Dvorak Piano Trio No. 3, so much so that when the Soltani/Barenboim Staatskapelle Dvorak Cello Concerto made its way to me I just had to listen and I did over and over again.

And some notable mentions:

Baptiste Herbin – Vista Chinesa
Glass Museum – Reykjavik
Spiraless – Spiraless
NOVA – The Nova Collections Vols. 1 & 2 (BossaNova)

On to the Re-Issues, Re-Masters and Miscellany

Ella Fitzgerald’s 2-CD set of piano duets lulled me into a sense of security. I wanted nothing more but to listen all the way through and then listen again so I could be taken by surprise. Comfortable as a pair of slippers hearing Ella sing puts me squarely in my happy place.

Blue Oyster Cult’s 45^th Anniversary of their Live in takes me back to the 80’s when the band would tour smaller venues as Soft White Underbelly. I was fortunate enough to see/hear them at L’Amour East on Queens Boulevard in NYC. This one for fans of BOC. No questions asked.

New Releases

Atsuko Koga & GeorgiyLomakov – Flute & Cello Rarities

Baptiste Herbin – Vista Chinesa

Charles Tolliver – Connect

Deep Purple – Whoosh!

Glass Museum – Reykjavik

Ian Bostridge, Antonio Pappano, VildeFrang, Nicolas Altstaedt – Beethoven: Songs & Folksongs

Immanuel Wilkins – Omega

Jan Vogler – Long – Three Continents & Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 2

Kian Soltani – Dvorak_Cello Concerto

Mary Chapin Carpenter – The Dirt and the Stars

MulatuAstatke& Black Jesus Experience – To Know Without Knowing