Maurice Steger - Tea for Two - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

London and Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries shared an artistic vitality that set them apart from the rest of the world. With Parisian society regularly gripped by periods of Anglomania, a constant process of cultural exchange resulted in operetta hits, wartime classics and popular songs both bawdy and elegant. Capturing the spirit of a period ranging from the fashionable d'Oyly Carte to 1920s American Jazz, the Frivol'Ensemble takes us back in time to rediscover the delights of this golden age of musical theatricality. Made up of soloists from the acclaimed Orchestre des Frivolites Parisiennes, the Frivol'Ensemble specializes in French vocal and instrumental repertoire from the 19th and 20th centuries, seeking out unknown composers and lesser known repertoire and creating a vibrantly theatrical experience by highlighting the strong personalities of it's performers. Sharing their passion for this repertoire and the pleasure they have in playing it are the primary characteristics of this ensemble's identity.

Recorded at Salem, Massachusetts' GodCity studio with producer Kurt Ballou, and mastered by Nick Townsend (Dr. Dre, Betty Davis) the record is the highly anticipated follow-up to Escuela Grind's celebrated 2022 full-length debut, 'Memory Theater', a recording hailed as Inchan opus of extremityInch by The New York Times. Escuela Grind's journey through the punishing sonic landscape of Grindcore has been anything but status quo. Their mantra of promoting inclusivity and acceptance within extreme music communities stands as a pillar of progression in an often gate-kept and closed-minded subculture. Vocalist Katerina Economou spreads the band's spirit and core beliefs on every stage they touch - amplifying the voices of the underrepresented and connecting people on a level deeper than the music. Dreams on Algorithms is a sonic testament to the band's ideologies - a bludgeoning display of progressive extreme metal that steps outside of genre boundaries.

What a beautiful task to translate the scent and character of tea into music - into sound, rhythm and harmony - but what a great challenge! Because the big question is, how does tea sound? Well-known in the West is the so-called coffee house music, a music in the background to all the clatter of dishes and the conversations of the visitors, which has the purpose to beautify the stay in the cafe but also to avoid a possible silence. Quite different is the tea music on this album! It is music to listen, that tries to transcend the fragrance and character of the tea into sound. When composing this music, I let myself be inspired from the feeling that the enjoyment of the tea triggers in me, but also from the poetic words with which Menglin Chou describes the different teas. Menglin Chou, a sociologist and tea master, came to Switzerland many years ago. She had the idea that I could try to set in music the character of some especially valuable teas. The project took shape, and I began to translate into music the mood that these selected teas arouse in me, as well as the inspiration from the texts in which Menglin uses to describe the character of teas poetically. Stylistically, the resulting sounds are difficult to classify, yet they are very familiar to people from Asia and the West, as if they wanted to build a bridge between cultures. The result was a combination of musical cultures, in the service of capturing the special character of these wonderful teas and making them sound. And so we hope that the enjoyment of a cup of tea by listening to this music will be an additional enrichment. (Fabian Müller)