Stormzy – Heavy Is the Head (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:03 minutes | 595 MB | Genre: Grime, Hip-Hop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records UK
Following the release of ‘Gang Signs and Prayer’ (2017), his award-winning, platinum-selling debut album, Stormzy may no longer be stepping between the street and the sermon, but he’s still walking between two worlds: that of the celebrity and of the everyman. His desire to stay grounded is evident; as his career continues to soar, he seems more and more determined to help others reach new heights of their own. Features the singles ‘Crown’, ‘Vossi Bop’ and ‘Wiley Flow’.
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Stephen Hough, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton – Rachmaninov: Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra (2004)
PS3 Rip | 2x SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 144:42 minutes | Scans included (PDF) | 6,39 GB
or FLAC Stereo 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Scans included (PDF) | 2,72 GB
The combination of Dallas and Litton offers a conductor who adores Sergei Rachmaninov (he has recorded all the symphonies) and understands the works from a pianist’s perspective, an orchestra with a glorious and old-fashioned string sound of the kind with which the composer would be familiar, a hall to record in which is one of the best in the world, and let’s not forget Stephen Hough who has already won two Gramophone ‘Record of the Year’ accolades for his concerto recordings. As the results here triumphantly show, all our hopes have been fulfilled, and more.
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Stefano Bollani Trio – Black And Tan Fantasy (2002) [Japan 2018]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 45:51 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 1.84 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 569 MB
Stefano Bollani began studying the piano at the age of six and started his professional career at the age of fifteen. After graduating from the Conservatory Luigi Cherubini in Florence in 1993 he began appearing in many of the world’s most important concert venues. Currently he has published 43 albums alone (29 studio) and has collaborated extensively with other artists. Japanese label Venus Records released four albums by the “Stefano Bollani Trio” formed with Ares Tavolazzi on contrabass and Walter Paoli on drums. First of them – Black and Tan Fantasy was released in 2002.
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Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2014]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:52 minutes | Scans included | 1,39 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 700 MB
Countdown to Ecstasy wasn’t half the hit that Can’t Buy a Thrill was, and Steely Dan responded by trimming the lengthy instrumental jams that were scattered across Countdown and concentrating on concise songs for Pretzel Logic. While the shorter songs usually indicate a tendency toward pop conventions, that’s not the case with Pretzel Logic. Instead of relying on easy hooks, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen assembled their most complex and cynical set of songs to date. Dense with harmonics, countermelodies, and bop phrasing, Pretzel Logic is vibrant with unpredictable musical juxtapositions and snide, but very funny, wordplay. Listen to how the album’s hit single, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” opens with a syncopated piano line that evolves into a graceful pop melody, or how the title track winds from a blues to a jazzy chorus — Becker and Fagen’s craft has become seamless while remaining idiosyncratic and thrillingly accessible. Since the songs are now paramount, it makes sense that Pretzel Logic is less of a band-oriented album than Countdown to Ecstasy, yet it is the richest album in their catalog, one where the backhanded Dylan tribute “Barrytown” can sit comfortably next to the gorgeous “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.” Steely Dan made more accomplished albums than Pretzel Logic, but they never made a better one.
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Stealers Wheel – Stealers Wheel (1972/2016)
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH) ~ 1.39 GB | FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88.2 kHz ~ 630 MB | 34:37 min | Artwork
Label: A&M Records / Intervention Records | Tracks: 10 | Rls.date: 1972/2016
Genre: Classic Rock, Folk Rock, Oldies
Stealers Wheel is the debut 1972 album by the Scottish folk rock band Stealers Wheel. It never charted in the UK, as did neither of the first two singles, “Late Again”, or “You Put Something Better Inside Me”. “Stuck in the Middle with You” reached the Top 10 in the UK, US and Canada.
The cover painting was by John Patrick Byrne. The words “Stealers Wheel” are embedded eight times in the design, in addition to the large lettering in the bottom left-hand corner.
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Stanley Turrentine – Up At Minton’s, Volume 1 (1961) [APO Remaster 2011]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 44:54 minutes | Scans included | 1,8 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 851 MB
Stanley Turrentine was just beginning to turn heads in jazz circles in the early ’60s when he made an appearance at Minton’s with guitarist Grant Green, pianist Horace Parlan, bassist George Tucker, and drummer Al Harewood. The group mixes hard bop with funk and soul jazz; Turrentine’s tone, sound, and pacing are good, although he wasn’t yet the master at ballads he would be later in his career. Standards and a couple of blues make up the repertoire, giving listeners a definitive look at the soulful Mr. T. near the beginning of his productive musical life.
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Stan Kenton – Supreme Jazz (2006)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 48:09 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 2,91 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 958 MB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound | Membran Music # 223270
Stanley Newcomb Kenton was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra garnering many successes across several music genres. Though Kenton was to have several pop hits from the early 1940s into the 1960s, much like earlier band leader Paul Whiteman, he categorized his music as forward looking, or “progressive jazz”. He was also on the cutting edge of jazz education in creating the Stan Kenton Band Clinics starting in the late 1950s.
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Szabolcs Szilagyi & Laszlo Borbely – Bach, Complete Flute Sonatas, Volume I (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:18 minutes | 2,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hunnia Records
Bach’s flute sonatas are particularly sensitive, penetrating and soul-stirring music. If I had to use a single word to describe the four sonatas on this disc, surprisingly, I would have to use something far from idyllic. But why should Bach be so idyllic? His perfect structures (far beyond the ‘idyllic’ sound we imagine) remind us of the tragedy of our finitude and imperfection. And perfection never ‘anaesthetises’. With Bach, even the simplest-seeming music (or movement) explores the darkest spheres (along with the lightest, of course) that the human psyche can scarcely imagine. Just listen to the soaring, inducible phrases of the slow movement of the Sonata in C Major, over and over again. Like the stems of a plant spreading towards the light, tirelessly bursting forward, upwards, towards the surface, towards the light. If you listen to it once with deep attention, you will never forget the opening movement of the Sonata in E Minor, with its almost brutal phrasing, and then the fiery even movements that rush in as a counterpoint. But also the shifting moods of the A Major Sonata in the two outer movements, or the ‘heartbeats missing’ in the slow movement. In these Bach prophetically foreshadows the rebellious structures of modernity. And we haven’t even mentioned the second movement in the Sonata in E flat Major, which evokes the Passions…
So these pieces really do speak to us! They contain content that cannot be expressed in words, and beyond that, they ask the ultimate questions of our humanity, and they do it for us. Bach’s language hides for us the evidence of a time before the turmoil of Babel.
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Sunburned Hand of the Man – Workingman’s Dump (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:15:55 minutes | 679 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Manhand Digital
After 24 years of releaes on our band’s label we’ve reached 200. This is a megamix highlight reel of selected Sunburned tracks throughout the Manhand catalog and we’ve included 2 previously unreleased tracks from our recent studio sessions. Please enjoy.
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Stewart Copeland & Ricky Kej – Police Beyond Borders (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:38 minutes | 682 MB | Genre: Pop, New Wave, World
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BMG Rights Management
The creative duo of two-time Grammy-winning album Divine Tides— Stewart Copeland and Grammy-winning Indian musician/composer Ricky Kej—release their latest world music collaboration, Police Beyond Borders. Furthering their mission to feature leading talent from around the world, the album, recorded in Bangalore, is a reinterpretation of the seminal 80s band’s classic songs with diverse interpretations and artist representation from South Africa, India, Japan, China, Canada, the U.K., and more.
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Stephen Steinbrink – Disappearing Coin (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 44:18 minutes | 521 MB | Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Western Vinyl
In 2019, Stephen Steinbrink discovered a short YouTube video of a street magician who approaches a highschooler walking home in Barstow, California. “Here, let me show you my idea,” he says, as he places a quarter on the kid’s hand. The magician performs some relaxed flourishes, and the coin vanishes. In silence, the kid stares at his hand at the nothing where there once, indisputably, was something, until his wonder finds a single word: “Cool.” The title of Disappearing Coin, the new album from Oakland songwriter Stephen Steinbrink, comes from this short clip. “When I look at it now,” he says, “I relate to the kid, who’s obviously uneasy in his body, and going through the experience of being a teenager in the early 2000s growing up in a bleak desert town like I did. I also relate to the coin, an inanimate disc of possibility. And I relate to the magician, an absurd facilitator of sending what is tactile and concrete into the wispy conceptual realm.” “I’ve watched it probably a hundred times,” he says. “It cracked me up but also blew my mind open the feeling of wonder I experienced watching this video became a guide as I navigated new ways of staying in the realm of what’s both real and magical.”
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Sjaella and Spielvereinigung Sued – So Nah Und Doch So Fern (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:30 minutes | 603 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuga Libera
The name says it all, because two ensembles could hardly be further apart. On one side there is a Big Band, sixteen musicians whose core skills do not necessarily include playing softly, and on the other there are six female singers, whose greatest strength lies in their control of the finest nuances. There are, however, unifying elements — the search for new shores, for sounds and structures that have never been heard before, and the joy of experimenting. These elements form the common thread that runs through Jan Schreiner’s compositions.
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Speedy Ortiz – Rabbit Rabbit (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:26 minutes | 1000 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Wax Nine Records
Sadie Dupuis muss auf dem vierten Album ihrer Band Speedy Ortiz (dem ersten seit fünf Jahren, nachdem sie eine Pause eingelegt hat, um ihre Soloplatte Haunted Painting als Sad13 zu veröffentlichen) einige Dämonen exorzieren. “Stole my split necklace half to see where I’d help you go/ The other piece, it doesn’t fit where I hoped,” singt sie über den Verrat des besten Freundes in “Plus One”, das mit einer brennenden Gitarre und einem funk-coolen Drum-Break aufwartet. “Scabs” – dominiert von einer schrägen Gitarre, die sich ihren Weg bahnt – enthält die Zeile “Who do you wanna prove you’re a big dog to?/ You turn the screw, but you’re using the wrong size tool.” (Dupuis hat allerdings das richtige; der Song spießt das Objekt ihrer Verärgerung regelrecht auf.) Und in “You S02” geht es um einen ungenannten Musikhelden von Dupuis, dessen Arbeit sie liebte – nur um ihn zu treffen und “zahnradschleifende Hässlichkeit” zu entdecken, wie sie sagte. Es ist kein geringer Anspruch zu sagen, dass dein Gefolgsmann/ eine Stimme in deinem Kopf ist, die du übertönst, wenn deine Arbeit nicht richtig sitzt/ sich in LA verliebt/ wo die Autos dir die rechte Spur abschneiden”, singt der vielschichtige Gesang süß, während bittere Gitarren im Stil von Veruca Salt brennen. Der Song ist auch eine Anspielung auf eine düstere Serie über einen Serienmörder: “In der zweiten Staffel der Fernsehserie You zieht die Hauptfigur von New York nach LA in der Hoffnung auf einen Neuanfang, bleibt aber (Spoiler) ein mordender Psychopath”, so Dupuis. “Ein Stadtwechsel macht dich nicht zum Helden, wenn du andere immer noch schlecht behandelst.” Aber Speedy Ortiz ist in der Lage, ihren schrägen Gitarrenrock zu verändern. “Ranch vs. Ranch” beginnt wie Doom Metal, um dann wie Garbage zu schleichen und zu schlittern. “Brace Three” erinnert an eine Grunge-Ballade aus den 90ern, dunkel und knorrig, mit einem hauchdünnen Breakdown, der sich zu einem Sturm aufbaut. “Cry Cry Cry” fühlt sich entblößt an, indem es die Schichten von Co-Produzentin Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties) für eine Minute ausblendet, selbst wenn die bedrohliche Gitarre sich anschleicht. Und “Ghostwriter” lässt die Muskeln spielen, die Gitarren gleiten fröhlich hin und her, während Dupuis mit den Schultern zuckt: “Wie wird man erwachsen? In letzter Zeit mache ich nicht wirklich viel Druck”. Die Songs sagen etwas anderes.
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Stan Getz – Supreme Jazz (2006)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 59:23 mins | Scans included | 3,39 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,07 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound | Label: Membran Music Ltd.
One of the all-time great tenor saxophonists, Stan Getz was known as “The Sound” because he had one of the most beautiful tones ever heard. Getz, whose main early influence was Lester Young, grew to be a major influence himself and to his credit he never stopped evolving.
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Sonny Stitt – Remastered Hits Vol. 5 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 51:44 minutes | 578 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © jjjedizionimusicali
Stitt’s parents were both music teachers, so he grew up in a musical environment. Stitt spent his childhood in Saginaw (Michigan) and had piano lessons from the age of seven, but later switched to the clarinet. At fifteen, he played alto saxophone after hearing Charlie Parker on a recording by bandleader Jay McShann.
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