Browsing Tag

composer

Marcus Moon marries the present with the past in his neo-classic score ‘Wedding Waltz’

Posted on 2 February 2021

Canadian Neo-classic artist and composer, Marcus Moon, released their highly-anticipated debut album, ‘Letters from the Moon’, as 2020 drew to a close. His “classical music for modern times” is an all too welcome distraction from the same modernity it reflects.

The refined decadence in the lead single ‘Wedding Waltz’ is the aural equivalent to slipping into a Jane Austen novel; it’s grandiose without becoming theatrical. Instead, through his command of vivid melodies, Marcus Moon is able to paint a neo-classic portrait which evokes emotion instead of forcing emotion upon you; allowing the timeless tones to resonate as much in your own world as they would in an imagined archaic fantasy (we all have those, right?).

Marcus Moon’s debut album is now available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Spielbone has released their neo-classic electronica aid to rumination ‘Les mérites du doute’

Posted on 2 February 2021

German-Ivorian composer, Spielbone, made their debut in 2018 with their minimalist neo-classic twist on ambient electronica, in 2020, he released his pacifyingly immersive album ‘Infinitesimal’ any fans of Nils Frahm or similar contemporaries are going to want to pay attention.

In a time when sanctity of any form is scarce, meditative soundscapes such as Les mérites du doute are worth their weight in aural gold. As Chamber strings draw across the keys, the ruminative soundscape pulls you in deeper into the sanguine essence. Spielbone’s ability to set synapses alight and make heartstrings feel taut will undoubtedly see him going far in 2021 and beyond.

You can hear the album for yourselves by heading over to Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Dario Pagano has released his sacramentally captivating score ‘Roma Invicta’

Posted on 4 December 2020

Composer of classical, operatic and liturgical music, Dario Pagano, has released his cinematically ensnaring latest score ‘Roma Invicta (Battle)’, an evocatively tensile aural narrative of conflict, resilience and hope. It’s the perfect abstraction from your own emotion, something I’m sure many people presently need and will undoubtedly appreciate.

With a mix of antecedent sounds ranging from Gregorian chants to liturgical choral elements combined with the sheer intensity of the production, also deftly handled by Dario Pagano, the score instils a potent sense of hope as you’re served a sonorous reminder that the world is so much bigger and more sacrosanct than we view it to be on a daily basis.

Roma Invicta is available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

 

The Spice Cabinet serve a finesse-fuelled feast through their latest single “Bittersweet”

Posted on 18 November 2020

With a cinematic Jazz ensemble quiescently quivering beneath a poetically enticing spoken-word monologue, The Spice Cabinet’s latest release, “Bittersweet”, is captivating from the intro.  

From there on out, the Neo-Classic soundscape demonstrates its efficaciousness in arresting your rhythmic pulses with the subtle yet striking fluctuations in zeal and style, leaving you eager, but assured, you’re in masterfully safe aural hands.

With the nuance exhibited in Bittersweet, it comes as no surprise that Beijing’s 11-piece award-winning Jazz fusion collective have amassed plenty of acclaim. Frontman, arranger, pianist and trombonist Terry Hsieh is able to bring modernism to a genre consistently perceived as archaic. Perhaps more pertinently, he is able to make a plaything of your psyche through his ingenuity.

Bittersweet is available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ukrainian composer Sergey Rybytskyy brings us a classical single for the modern times with ‘Waltz a-Moll’

Posted on 31 October 2020

Taken off the new album ‘New Vista‘, Sergey Rybytskyy is back with the new single called ‘Waltz a–Moll‘.

Sergey Rybytskyy is a name to know in the composer world. Known a wizard from another time with a huge abundance of talent, the Ukrainian creative sets a whirlwind of amazing music for our souls to be inspired by. This is refined and glorious, with many layers of wonderful music. Creating an emotional experience is the aim here and this goal is achieved effortlessly.

In addition to this music being in TV and Film, Sergey’s work is slowly starting to get heard all over world via internet radio stations. Beethoven’s and Bach’s compositions and influences are heard throughout, as he continues to build his catalog of unique work and incredibly created music.

Ukraine Sergey Rybytskyy is quite marvelous on ‘Waltz a–Moll‘. This acclaimed composer shows his new single via a wonderland of special soundscapes, these are splendidly put together to make us relaxed. This is real music to change your perspective.

Click here for the Spotify link.

Head through to the Facebook page.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Sonophonix drive us ‘Crazy In Love’ with their latest single

Posted on 5 October 2020
https://vimeo.com/461511090

Commencing with a beautiful, arpeggiated piano motif before being joined by the deep, sonorous swell of cello, ‘Crazy In Love’ is a beautiful, haunting piece, an instrumental duet of resonant, musical artistry and elegance that showcases the talents of two incredible musicians.

Pianist Deborah Robb and cellist Xue Yang Liu met while students at the Mannes School of Music at the New School in New York City.  While attending Mannes they performed chamber music together and were members of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE) under the direction of composer Lowell Liebermann.  Their Sonophonix duo merges their composing, arranging and improvisation skills, and ‘Crazy In Love’ is a perfect example of their art, allowing each performer the personal space to breathe whilst intertwining their individual contributions into something altogether greater, a delicate, mellow, composition of refinement and elegance that transcends the classical genre and becomes something altogether of its own.

Crazy In Love can be heard from the Sonophonix website.

Review by Alex Holmes

Neo-Classic Roots Entwine with Modernistic Tones in The Ideal Setback’s Latest Release “Ambedo”

Posted on 24 September 2020
https://www.soundcloud.com/theidealsetback

Ambedo is just one of the celestially graceful compositions which feature on The Ideal Setback’s latest album Nodus Tollens which is due for release on September 25th. It’s safe to say that ambience has never been quite so evocative.

As neo-classic roots entwine with modernistic transcendental tones under the deft composition of Todd Chappell, you’ll be able to feel every fluctuation in momentum and passion. The intricately light soundscape was inspired by and titled after the melancholic trances we enter when vivid sensory details capture us and allow us to drift into a dimension besides the anxiety-riddled hellscape we call 2020. For your own sanity, hit play.

You can check out Ambedo for yourselves by heading over to SoundCloud now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ukranian Composer and Pianist Olexandr Ignatov explores the human psyche with their 2020 album “Messages”

Posted on 10 September 2020

Ukrainian composer, producer and pianist Olexandr Ignatov has countless accolades to their name. After the release of their Neo-Classic album “Messages”, they can also be proud to have their name behind one of the most stunning albums of 2020.

Each composition invites you to explore a different emotion, Patience, Empathy, Temperance, Loyalty, Trust, the track which hit the evocative spot the hardest for us was undoubtedly “Struggle”.

The precision in timing between the notes is almost otherworldly in the way it sets trepidation, torment and a spiralling sense of despair. Yet, it can’t be said that the piece was without any sense of beauty and resilience. It’s the perfect reminder that if you’re struggling, you’re still fighting and not all hope is lost. And with that revelation, I might have a little cry.

Struggle is available to stream via Spotify with the rest of their ground-breaking album.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Utterly, beautifully, helplessly smitten – Imagesong’s “Lost In You”

Posted on 29 August 2020

When you feature such luminaries as Jazz chanteuse Alexis Cole (possibly the greatest singer ever to hold a top-secret military security clearance), the Grammy-nominated pianist Mike Eckroth (John Scofield’s New Quartet), and saxophonist Marc Phaneuf (Quincy Jones, LA Philharmonic, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop…) to showcase your songwriting talents, you’d better hope that your craft is up to the same standard as your performers.

Thankfully, for songwriter and poet Connie Marotta AKA Imagesong, it is. In spades. ‘Lost In You’, from the ‘Imagesong Presents’ portfolio, is everything you could hope for; late-night laid-back New York Jazz Club cool, Eckroth’s beautifully sparse keys perfectly complimenting Cole’s sultry, smoky vocal timbre and Phaneuf’s subtly understated baritone sax fills. ‘Lost In You’ is stunning, seductive, the aural equivalent of twenty-year-old scotch on the rocks and a slowly burning Chesterfield. Gorgeous.

Imagesong’s single Lost in You is available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Alex Holmes

Ryuho Okawa – An epic, swelling, storm of a soundscape in “The Thunder”

Posted on 21 August 2020

Ryuho Okawa’s ‘The Thunder” is an epic, rolling, soundscape – 8’15” of soaring composition in three parts, a gorgeous, haunting female vocal cutting in over the orchestral melodrama. It sounds, and I mean this in the most complimentary way possible, like the end credit music to a Michael Bay movie or, even more, a Hideo Kojima game, Metal Gear Solid or Death Stranding cut scenes rolling as the strings swell and the tympani crash. It’s that expansive and evocative.

It is a beautiful, well-crafted piece; a slow build of melancholy orchestration, deep long-drawn out ‘cello notes underlying pizzicato violin, and then three minutes in there’s a drop, the calm before the musical storm. That stunning vocal cuts in before a huge peal of orchestral thunder, a lift, and the drums rise to a militaristic tattoo, all snare rolls and marching beat, then the resolve at 5’30”, crescendo to key shift and then peace, the slow play out, the fierceness of the storm abating, tranquillity returning as the volume fades.

‘The Thunder’ is stunning; an absolute tempest of a track. You can hear it here, but be warned – you may need to take a moment after to catch your breath.

Review by Alex Holmes.