With Melody Gardot's new album, Currency of Man, we're definitely dealing with an expert in sound recording (ANALOGUE!) and premastering.
Qobuz is offering the album in 24-bit/44.1 kHz, created from analogue sessions directed by French sound engineer Maxime LeGuil.
Melody and Maxime worked with sound recorded on analogue microphones tube amps for the guitars, etc. The idea was to recapture the audio practices of yesteryear; to prioritise the warmth of the voice, the slight background sounds that accompany vinyl recordings...the listening experience really comes to life with the 24-bit/44.1 kHz digital edition, exactly as Gardot and her engineer intended.
We loaded the album in FLAC 24-bit/44.1 kHz onto an Astell&Kern AK120 player, connected to a Denon 7100 headset - a combination that we're particularly fond of.
Don't Misunderstand kicks things off, and goodness - the sound quality is fantastic, the voice having a real presence; it's warm, raw, analogue-esque. You can even hear the movement of Gardot's lips, and all of this is supported by great orchestration - it's quite minimalist, but it builds up nicely. You're immediately drawn into this musical universe, with it's old school realism.
It Gonna Come puts the emphasis squarely on the vocals (Gardot and the backing singers) with nice stereo placement, accompanied by a raw sonic texture - always with the warmth and closeness of Gardot's voice, right at the centre of the texture. Bad News, with its blues sheen, gives an even clearer idea of just how sophisticated this vintage recording really is. The instruments are particularly well laid out.
She Don't Know pushes on the stereo in the acoustic instruments, and Palmas Da Rua continues along this line - albeit with a slightly heavy bass, though in this case, it works.
No Man's Prize has the best reproduction of Gardot's voice on the whole album: she's right there, singing to us, her vocals carried along by the piano. Truly superb.
Preacher Man switches gears with its bluesy backing vocals, giving one the sense of truly being there, in the studio - or at least, that you're listening to an analogue recording with the guitars right at the fore. It just misses a little saturation to make you believe you're really at a street party or in a church.
If I Ever Recall Your Face is definitely one of the most technically accomplished tracks, and once again the experimental analogue recording technique pays off. It's still surprising; it's not often that we come across recordings of this nature.
By this point you've probably guessed that we're a long way from your average slick production and instead have a much more artistic approach to recording, which attempts to give the listener an analogue experience which perfectly fits with the music itself. The digital conversion - in this case, 24-bit/44.1 kHz - successfully keeps the technical identity and the unique audio texture. The artistic decision to record as they have done has most definitely been worth it, as the album exudes warmth in both the vocals and the instrumentation.
Check out our video interview with Melody Gardot here!
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Original article by PATRICK-PIERRE GARCIA Translation by RACHEL HARPOLE
