Maja Ratkje - River Mouth Echoes - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Maja Ratkje and Jaap Blonk first performed and recorded together in 2001. From the beginning the collaboration was very natural and creative a never ending stream of ideas kept pouring out. Both of them use the whole gamut of vocal sounds, offering the listener a unique and ever surprising experience.

Rescued from ambient composer Tor Lundvall's old DAT tapes, A Strangeness In Motion Early Pop Recordings 1989-1999 are some of the artist's earliest completed synth pop works which have remained unreleased until now. While the collection has the recognizable ambient bones and sensibilities he's refined throughout his career, many of the tracks call back to the synth-driven pop of mid-late'80s Wire, Nine Circles, and New Order's Movement, with the common thread being the sparse density and mood created by compression, depression, and the impulse to twist convention, not rip it up and repurpose it.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, with his Messe a quatre choeurs, delivers a unique work that reflects a rare encounter between French tradition and the splendor of Roman Baroque. Inspired by the grand polychoral works of Gabrieli and Benevoli whom he listened to attentively during his stay in Italy he unfolds a choral dialogue of exceptional breadth. Four vocal and instrumental ensembles face each other, respond, and intertwine in a play of echoes and timbres that transcends the liturgical space. Jean-Baptiste Nicolas brings an exalted momentum to this masterpiece of sacred music, combining stylistic precision with interpretative finesse.