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Filles De Kilimanjaro

Miles Davis

Jazz - Released September 17, 1990 | Columbia - Legacy

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Since it's billed as "Directions in Music by Miles Davis," it should come as little surprise that Filles de Kilimanjaro is the beginning of a new phase for Miles, the place that he begins to dive headfirst into jazz-rock fusion. It also happens to be the swan song for his second classic quintet, arguably the finest collective of musicians he ever worked with, and what makes this album so fascinating is that it's possible to hear the breaking point -- though his quintet all followed him into fusion (three of his supporting players were on In a Silent Way), it's possible to hear them all break with the conventional notions of what constituted even adventurous jazz, turning into something new. According to Miles, the change in "direction" was as much inspired by a desire to return to something earthy and bluesy as it was to find new musical territory, and Filles de Kilimanjaro bears him out. Though the album sports inexplicable, rather ridiculous French song titles, this is music that is unpretentiously adventurous, grounded in driving, mildly funky rhythms and bluesy growls from Miles, graced with weird, colorful flourishes from the band. Where Miles in the Sky meandered a bit, this is considerably more focused, even on the three songs that run over ten minutes, yet it still feels transitional. Not tentative (which In the Sky was), but certainly the music that would spring full bloom on In a Silent Way was still in the gestation phase, and despite the rock-blues-n-funk touches here, the music doesn't fly and search the way that Nefertiti did. But that's not a bad thing -- this middle ground between the adventurous bop of the mid-'60s and the fusion of the late '60s is rewarding in its own right, since it's possible to hear great musicians find the foundation of a new form. For that alone, Filles de Kilimanjaro is necessary listening.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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Róisín Machine

Róisín Murphy

Electronic - Released October 2, 2020 | Skint Records

2020 may not be the best year to publish an LP intended for the dancefloor, but Róisín Murphy is not the type to throw in the towel. This new album from the ex-singer of trip-hop duo Moloko, whose 1998 hit Sing It Back (and the epic remix by Herbert) will never be forgotten, is an extravaganza of fabulous disco/house that isn’t the most innovative but showcases the genre at its very best. The Irishwoman’s vocals are effortless and the production by Richard Barratt, aka DJ Parrot, a Sheffield native like Murphy herself and a true legend affiliated with FON Records and Warp Records, is flawless. Between the sensual and vintage disco opener Simulation, the perfectly muted base in I Want Something More, the eager bass in Shellfish and the wild Jealousy to close, everything is perfectly calibrated, refined and orchestrated. More than just stylish, Róisín Machine is a bundle of pure energy and this album is up there among the best of disco tunes from all eras. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz
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Mademoiselle Duval: Les Génies ou les Caractères de l'Amour

Camille Delaforge

Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Poulenc: La voix humaine

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Alpha Classics

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Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine ("The Human Voice") is a one-woman opera, less than an hour long, about a woman on the phone with her boyfriend as they break up. Set to a text by Jean Cocteau, it puts the woman through strong mood swings. (Country music fans may wish to compare it to As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone, although there, the boyfriend is present to deliver the final blow.) Soprano Véronique Gens is best known for music from the 17th century up to Mozart, but it is easy to believe the claim in the publicity materials for this release that she had always wanted to record this work; its direct, conversational quality, interspersed with occasional freakouts, fits her manner beautifully. It might seem that those freakouts require a bit more intensity than Gens gives them here, but that is not really in the Cocteau spirit and certainly not in the Poulenc spirit. Gens receives sensitive support from the Orchestre National de Lille under Alexandre Bloch, who also ring down the curtain with a lithe performance of the joyous Sinfonietta. There are other strong performances of Poulenc's little opera, which ought to be much more frequently heard and would be ideal for university voice programs, but this one is instantly appealing and quite memorable, and it is no surprise that it made classical best-seller charts in early 2023. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Des roses & des orties

Francis Cabrel

French Music - Released March 31, 2008 | Columbia

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A popular singer/songwriter in France for the past three decades, Francis Cabrel is also a bit of a pastoral recluse, preferring to spend his days with his family in his hometown village of Astaffort, rather than in the media spotlight of Paris. Unsurprisingly, his studio output has become less than prolific in recent years, with intervals of four or five years between records. His artistry and popularity, however, have not suffered in the least, as evident in 2008's Des Roses et Des Orties. The new songs offer few surprises for either Cabrel fans or detractors, other than a keener emphasis on social issues. This is also reflective of a general trend in France, where events such as the 2007 election of Sarkozy, or the heated debate on immigration, brought politics back to the forefront, both in the media and in everyday life. Cabrel, a father of two who recently adopted a Vietnamese child, is particularly sensitive to the plight of immigrant children, as well as to the ever widening gap between the richer and poorer regions of the planet, the subject of "African Tour," "Mademoiselle L'aventure," and "Les Cardinaux en Costume," among others. Furthermore, Cabrel criticizes institutionalized religion in "La Chêne Liège" and artists and songwriters like himself ("Des Gens Formidables") for feigning sympathy for the poor but doing very little about it. Most of the songs set Cabrel's soft spoken voice against his acoustic guitar, reinforced by bluesy electric guitar pickings, or stately piano accompaniment. A few tracks add a discreet ethnic flavor for variety, such as the tasteful flamenco guitar in the opening "La Robe et L'échelle." The inclusion of three covers, by Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and J.J. Cale, translated and sung in French by Cabrel, seems less fortunate as these songs feel somewhat out of place in the more somber context of this record. A typically well-crafted Cabrel album, Des Roses et Des Orties reached the top of the French charts upon its release.© Mariano Prunes /TiVo
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Mademoiselle

Rodolphe Burger

French Music - Released March 3, 2023 | Dernière bande

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The Complete in a Silent Way Sessions

Miles Davis

Jazz - Released August 1, 1969 | Columbia - Legacy

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Between Us

Murray Head

Pop/Rock - Released January 1, 1979 | Editions Murray Head Music

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Zimmermann : Violin Concerto, Photoptosis, Die Soldaten Vocal Symphony

Hannu Lintu

Classical - Released February 8, 2019 | Ondine

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
Unlike usual opera sequences, the ones excerpted from Zimmerman’s Die Soldaten (‘The Soldiers’) which he named Vokal-Sinfonie (Vocal Symphony) were created before the opera as proof that the music was playable. Indeed, its final score posed quite the challenge for the singers, the orchestra, the theatres and for the audience: with sixteen singing roles, around ten spoken roles, an orchestra of about one hundred musicians, crazy percussion instruments, film projectors, tape recordings and extra-musical sound effects – it’s enough to make any opera house fear for their budget! Not to mention the fact that the audience was also subject to the strict dodecaphonic system and some of the opera scenes actually overlapped. Zimmermann initially wanted the piece to be performed on twelve different stages that surrounded the audience who would be sitting on swivelling chairs and would rotate themselves accordingly. However, the idea was rejected by the theatre where the first performance was to take place and the composer finally abandoned the idea and remodelled his work to render it – almost – performable. Here, you can listen to Vokal-Sinfonie from 1963 which has some noticeable similarities with Berg’s Wozzeck, particularly in the raw and deeply moving lyricism of the vocal material. The Sinfonie is followed by the 1968 Photoptosis for full orchestra, one of the composer’s last two works before he died two years later after having suffered from severe depression. The score is both dark and light at the same time and is a work of sheer orchestral genius. The album opens with the 1950 Violin Concerto, which despite its supposedly classic form (Sonata-Fantasia-Rondo) explores the world of modernism in an intense and beautifully dark lyricism. © SM/Qobuz
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Live Is Love

Thomas Dutronc

Jazz - Released September 7, 2018 | Blue Note Records

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Psychédélices

Alizée

French Music - Released December 3, 2007 | La Pocket Factory

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Belle Ile en mer

Laurent Voulzy

French Music - Released May 11, 1989 | SBME Strategic Marketing Group

Distinctions The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Poulenc: La Voix humaine, Fiançailles pour rire

Julie Cherrier-Hoffmann

Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | Aparté

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Francis Poulenc's late opera La voix humaine (1958) seems ideally suited to the age of cellular telephony, and indeed, it is showing signs of revival with several new productions. This 2023 recording by soprano Julie Cherrier-Hoffmann and the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia should contribute to the trend. La voix humaine is an operatic monodrama, but of a modern kind; the single character is a woman, simply named Elle (She), talking on the phone, being dumped by her boyfriend, and hinting at suicide. The text was written by Jean Cocteau in 1930, when dropped phone calls were no doubt common, but it works perfectly in a contemporary setting; the phone conversation is interrupted by panicky "Allô allô" interjections. Poulenc's musical language for dealing with this text is remarkable, and it is not like that in any of his other compositions. The singer is unaccompanied when she is directly addressing her hearer, while the passages in which she narrates events are accompanied by the orchestra. This creates an uncanny impression of an actual phone conversation. Poulenc's harmonic language here is quite modern in comparison to his other works, not quite atonal but shorn of the popular tinge present in so much of his work. Cherrier-Hoffmann's performance is appropriately stressed out, and she is shown in the graphics with her hands splayed across a window as if trapped. Conductor Frédéric Chaslin emphasizes the orchestra's big, operatic sound, and this works; the engineering makes no attempt to disguise the opera house acoustic. Chaslin also contributes orchestrations of smaller Poulenc voice-and-piano works; these frame the opera and return the listener to the usual Poulenc world. This is an unusually satisfying Poulenc release and a fine performance of a work whose reputation is on the way up.© James Manheim /TiVo

DIMASH KUDAYBERGEN I IGOR KRUTOY

Dimash Kudaybergen

Pop - Released December 17, 2021 | Warner Music Russia

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Mademoiselle

Julie Fuchs

Opera Extracts - Released February 15, 2019 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Choc de Classica
Recorded in July 2018 at “Studio” - a new high-tech venue in the outskirts of Paris - this album (which was built entirely on Julie Fuchs' own idea) is dedicated to orphaned women in 19th century opera, between 1815 and 1850, who were struggling to escape the miserable conditions which they found themselves in. Following her huge success in 2018 in Rossini's Count Ory at the Opéra-Comique de Paris, Julie Fuchs was keen to further explore this repertoire. Conducted by Enrique Mazzola (a real “opera maestro”) the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France is dazzling in these operatic excerpts by Donizetti and Rossini, as well as - and most importantly – those by Pacini, Raimondi, Fioravanti, Berlioz, Barbieri and Meyerbeer. This album presents another opportunity for listeners to be won over by Fuchs’ sumptuous voice. The young French lyrical soprano first made a name for herself at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, before joining the opera ensemble at the Zurich Opera House in 2013. Further successes followed in Salzburg, Vienna and Paris as well as at the Teatro Real in Madrid. This incredibly versatile repertoire jumps from Mozart to Barbara, Cole Porter, George Crumb and Björk. Julie Fuchs knows no musical boundaries, performing with equal ease in opera as she does in concert next to the young pianist Alphonse Cemin. On Mademoiselle she sings in Italian, French and Spanish, journeying through romantic Bel Canto with a wonderfully original touch and revealing all aspects of her agile, sensual voice. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Cocktail chez mademoiselle

Laurent Voulzy

Pop - Released December 15, 2023 | Columbia

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Chambre avec vue

Henri Salvador

French Music - Released October 15, 2000 | Parlophone (France)

Distinctions Victoire de la musique - The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Henri Salvador was born in 1917 in Cayenne, French Guiana. He studied music in Paris and played with Django Reinhardt on one occasion. He started playing guitar seriously in Paris in 1935. His stay in the interior of Brazil is evident in much of his music. His sound is a combination of Parisian cabaret, Brazilian bossa nova, and French Antillean influences. This particular album shows his range of influences very well. His unguent vocals infuse an ambience of sensuous silk and soft tropical breezes. He also displays his great sense of humor in his lyrics, for which he is renowned in France and his homeland. "Jardin d'Hiver" tells of all the images he would like to have inhabit his winter garden. It is a touching portrait and sung very soulfully. The instrumental accompaniment throughout the album is very much muted but exceptional in its evocation of the ambience that his voice creates. The duet with Françoise Hardy on "Le Fou de la Reine" is a fine example of the finesse of both artists. The album won the Victoire de la Musique award in France for the year 2000. A highly recommended introduction to this prolific artist. [This album was re-released under the title Room with a View in early 2002 on the Blue Note label, including a bonus track.]© Mark Romano /TiVo

Joie de vivre (Deluxe Edition)

Louane

French Music - Released October 23, 2020 | Universal Music Division Island Def Jam

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Mademoiselle K

Mademoiselle K

Pop - Released October 14, 2022 | Kravache

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Mademoiselle Zhivago

Lara Fabian

French Music - Released July 3, 2014 | 9 Productions