A professional musician from the age of 12, Simon Phillips' drumming sound and style is instantly recognizable. He's toured and recorded with just about every major rock and pop act imaginable; from Mick Jagger, The Who and Toto to Judas Priest, Mike Oldfield, and Joe Satriani. Protocol 3 is real-deal jazz rock. No avant-garde trappings, smooth jazz noodling or proggy pretensions (well, maybe a little bit of the latter) here.

Protocol II arrives fourteen years after drummer Simon Phillips' last leader date—the hard bop and post-bop based Vantage Point (Jazzline Records, 2000). And it comes approximately a quarter century after the original Protocol (Music for Nations, 1988)—a true solo date that had Phillips covering all the instruments, filling in the space around his calling-card drumming.

Protocol is the début album/EP from drummer/percussionist Simon Phillips. It was released in 1988 on the Music for Nations label, a company which had, at one time, bands such as Metallica and Slayer. Of the release, Phillips calls it "a record of experimental observations" and goes on to say "It was a good feeling to have finally released my first solo CD, and although not what I had originally planned, it was a start to my solo career.

Otolithen is a duo formed in 1993 by Päd Conca of Switzerland and Dirk Bruinsma of The Netherlands. Conca plays electric bass, a homemade string instrument, effects and foot-activated percussion, while Bruinsma sings and plays electric guitars, soprano saxophone and foot-triggered percussion. Conca and Bruinsma use prepared instruments and a wide range of effects. Their compositions exhibit rhythmic complexity, and range from delicate melodies to noisy sonic assaults. Otolithen released an album in Germany on their amf label in 1995. Their second release, S.O.D., was released by Cuneiform in 1997.

This new work by Spanish composer Alberto Posadas, composed from 2003 to 2007, is not a collection of string quartets, but rather a cycle of five quartets, meant to be performed as a whole with only brief pauses punctuating the parts, 52 minutes in all. It is performed here with energy and precision by the Quatuor Diotima, and recorded in January 2009 for Kairos.

Dedicated to Antonio Salieri, the Three Sonatas for Piano and Violin, Op. 12 were published in 1798, and part of an extremely prolific period in which Beethoven wrote and published feverishly. It was a matter of establishing himself as a prolific composer of genius, and he somehow managed to maintain the quality of everything he wrote to great standards. It may seem as if the three new sonatas were modeled after Mozart’s mature works in the genre, but they already show distinct original traits. The partnership between the two instruments is appropriately balanced: the violin is no longer relegated to an obbligato role, and the dialogue between instruments integrates active melodic and contrapuntal exchanges. Unlike many of their 18th-century antecedents, a certain degree of technical virtuosity is essential in these works.

This collection of solo-piano treatments of famous Cole Porter show tunes (by three different pianists, Adam Birnbaum, Jed Distler, and Simon Mulligan) presents standout Cole Porter interpretations that range from the wistful and pensive to the liltingly bouncy.

Outside Germany, the name Weimar tends to evoke mixed feelings and pictures of German history of the last hundred years. Within Germany, Weimar means a town in the state of Thuringia arguably saturated with the “Deutsche Kultur” of the “Weimarer Klassik”, the legendary Bauhaus, and finally the life and work of Franz Liszt and his son in law Richard Wagner. In Weimar Richard Wagner began composing the first part of his RING-cycle, “Das Rheingold”. In 2008 the Nationaltheater Weimar started a new production of this unique tetralogy. The conductor is Carl St.Clair, a former student of Leonard Bernstein. With Michael Schulz’ fine and highly intelligent staging this new “Ring” production becomes an outstanding document of contemporary opera theatre.

Bruce Barth - Live at Smalls (2011) {SmallsLIVE ‎SL-0019}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 376 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 157 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2011 SmallsLIVE ‎| SL-0019
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

Bruce Barth came into the jazz scene in the mid-'80s and has assembled an impressive discography, both as a leader and sideman. These 2010 performances at Smalls with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Rudy Royston find him in top form, focusing primarily on his infectious post-bop compositions, though he frequently surprises the listener with his shape-shifting melodies.

Recorded with musicians together live in The Eskal studio to 24 track 2 inch tape, mixed to stereo ¼ inch tape then mastered from tape to vinyl, the album is a fully analogue approach for Tiersen. “Limiting our ability to digitally manipulate, overdub or make changes after deciding a creative path gave an energy and beautiful tension to the recording process which I’d found was being lost with the limitless possibilities of digital recording. Not translating sounds into 1 and 0 keeps music in the real world.” The result is a vital album that fizzes with the excitement and energy found at a live concert, but packed into a studio album. Featuring collaborations with John Grant, Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals, Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))), and Blonde Redhead, the album was recorded with touring collaborators Emilie Tiersen, Ólavur Jákupsson and Jens L Thomsen at The Eskal, the new analogue studio complex Tiersen recently built on his home island of Ushant in Brittany.