• Music

    Novoselie, Questa Musica – Requiem

    March 18, 2024 - By 

    A sublime, baroque look at the requiem on Fancy Music.  From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Requiem (from Latin requies – “rest”) is a high genre of concert sacred music, a kind of mourning oratorio. Even the above phrase is little understood by the general public, not to mention the names and meaning of the Latin psalms of the canonical Requiem. As for people who are knowledgeable, for example by virtue of belonging to the Catholic Church of the Latin rite, even for them, I am sure, these texts are devoid of the burning apocalyptic meaning with which they were filled…

  • Music

    Divertissement Сhamber Orchestra, Sergey Kuryokhin – Re:SEASONS

    January 7, 2024 - By 

    Sergey Kuryokhin was as fine a composer as he was an improvisor.  The Divertissement Orchestra, led by violinist Ilya Ioff, reinterprets one of Kuryokhin’s finest compositions from his album The Sparrow Oratorium.  Well-played, indeed. Alisa Ten: vocals [1, 2, 4] Vera Chekanova: vocals [2, 3, 4] Lidia Kovalenko: violin [1], viola [2, 3] Mikhail Blekher: honky-tonk [1], celeste [2], piano [3, 4], harpsichord [4] Vladimir Volkov: double bass [4] Ivan Chernobaev: percussion Ilya Ioff: violin [1, 3, 4], drums programming [3]

  • Music

    Ian Vine – Five Strings

    October 11, 2023 - By 

    Ian Vine, a composer out of the United Kingdom, provides us with a conceptual piece of classical music.  From his Bandcamp site: “Recently I have written a series of pieces that are concerned in one way or another with the presentation of unique, and yet similar, events or objects. In this work I examine closely a chord played by four guitars and bass guitar. There is no repetition in the piece, except gesturally.. five strings is presented in its original 36-minute version and also as five shorter pieces, five strings I-V. In January 2021 I asked our mother, my brother…

  • Music

    Svitlana Nianio – Transilvania Smile, 1994

    September 10, 2023 - By 

    Though the recording quality is not audiophile quality, this collection of theater music by Ukrainian singer and artist Svitlana Nianio documents the soundtrack to a theater project she was involved in at the time called Transilvania Smile.  From her label Muscut Records’ Bandcamp site: “Svitlana Okhrimenko (artist name: Svitlana Nianio) is a Ukrainian artist, musician, and signer. She is one of the most prominent representatives of the independent music scene of Kyiv in the late 1980s — early 90s. She has repeatedly recorded and performed in collaboration with other musicians and bands, such as Oleksandr Yurchenko, Sugar White Death (Cukor…

  • Music

    Girma Yifrashewa – My Strong Will

    September 2, 2023 - By 

    Girma Yifrashewa is a graduate of the Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa, and continued his studies at the Sofia State Conservatory of Music in Bulgaria.  This new work of his combines Ethiopian instrumentation with classical music, and it blends together quite well.

  • Music

    Evgeny Masloboev – Clay. Thirteen Contemplations on Matter

    August 29, 2023 - By 

    Clay is the topic of the latest Fancy Records release by composer Evgeny Masloboev.  The topic, as described by the artist, is a fascinating one, tied in with some incredible contemporary classical music.  From the Fancy Records Bandcamp site: “Clay is a living mystic. This is the ever-dancing childhood of humanity. In the mythology of many peoples of the planet Earth, clay is presented as a medium for the emergence of life and as a material for the creation of the first homo. The Old Testament Adam of the Semitic tribes, Enkidu of the Sumerian peoples, Gayomart in the Zoroastrian…

  • Music

    Arturo Stalteri – Flowers 2

    May 29, 2023 - By 

    Italian progressive rock legend Arturo Stalteri presents a brand new album filled with interpretations of works by Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Sigur Rós and, surprisingly, King Crimson’s In The Court of the Crimson King done in sublime fashion.

  • Music

    William Ryan Fritch – Heavy EP

    March 27, 2023 - By 

    One of the great composers I have had the pleasure of reviewing is William Ryan Fritch.  This EP is his latest, and these notes come from his latest EP via his Bandcamp site: “‘Heavy’, from composer William Ryan Fritch is a bombastic and ever-moving work that draws equally from the forward-thinking arrangements of modern chamber music as it does the snarling, imposing presence of Garage Rock. The whirring barrage of sounds and textures that percolate through it’s six songs are both wildly varying and effortlessly assimilated.”