Orchestra of the Swan - Earthcycle - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The fact that Genoël von Lilienstern's childhood falls in the 1980s is proven by his portrait album in many ways On the one hand, it is synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 that shape the aesthetics and sound of his works; on the other hand, the radio, as the supplier for countless mixtapes at the time, is the focus, sometimes directly, sometimes more hiddenly. Booklet author Julian Kämper refers to their special quality when he describes von Lilienstern's recourse to pop cultural artifacts and practices of the Eighties InchThanks to the new studio facilities of that decade, a distinctive sound was newly defined and perfected, a sound which, von Lilienstern maintains, has 'never mouldered away' and has remained all-pervasive to the present day through ceaseless daily bombardment on radio and television, in department stores and on the internet.Inch In InchVoz ComercialInch, for example, the Berlin composer uses transcriptions of radio commercials from Mexico and Peru; in InchBig PictureInch, in turn, a one-hour recording of worldwide Internet radio stations serves as the source material. In both works, the vocals of Johanna Vargas respectively Soetkin Elbers, take on a central role and, in their interplay with the Ensemble Garage, evoke an image that oscillates between excessive consumer society and acoustic reflection. In the two other pieces on the portrait album - InchCoutureInch and InchTopInch - synthesizers dominate von Lilienstern uses them as sound generators of a bygone era. In the case of Couture, they mix with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, so that the individual musical sources are sometimes no longer discernible.

Mathias / Lso / Eco / Npco / Atherton - Orchestral Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/09/2007

Erasure's Andy Bell continues where Ten Crowns left off with this Limited Edition 4 CD box. It includes the original album plus brand new tracks, including his cover version of the Olivia Newton John classic InchXanaduInch and new collaborations with Sophie Ellis Bextor and Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley. Also included are a disc of new remixes, a disc of extended mixes and a disc of live recordings. The set is packaged in a gold foil blocked box, with a 50 page booklet of exclusive photos and brand new sleeve notes.