SOYUZ - II - VINYL LP

SOYUZ (????) stole our hearts back in 2022 when we released their album Force Of The Wind to critical acclaim. Here we proudly present the predecessor to that LP, the band's sophomore long player from 2019 that was previously only available digitally. It captures a pivotal evolving period in the band's career, the recordings giving a snapshot of what would become their sound on Force Of The Wind, yet with echoes of avant-psychedelic-pop footprints from yester years. Produced at a time when band leader Alex Chumak had moved from Minsk to Kyiv, torn between the need to try something new and the homesickness it brought about. Travelling back to Minsk almost weekly, Alex joined fellow band members Mikita and Stanislav to lay down II at Studio 42. The album captures these transient feelings, contextualised through the broad scope of influences the band were nourished by. From MPB to Ethio-Jazz and the Italian library soundtracks, the album shines with touches of joy from across the globe.

On September 2, 1998, 229 passengers and crew members lost their lives in the Swissair Flight 111 plane crash into the Atlantic ocean near Nova Scotia. Composer Matt Frey, who identified with the Swissair tragedy due to his own brush with a plane malfunction, explores human relationship to air travel while also commemorating the lives lost in the chamber opera ONE-ELEVEN HEAVY. Using recollections from reporters on the scene, interviews with family members including words from the pilot's wife when she arrived on the scene, and even the original Air Traffic Control recordings from the crash, Frey depicts the story in four parts. Beginning with the ATC recordings, the voices of soprano Jenny Ribeiro and tenor Karim Sulayman rise to the surface, painting the image of the scene as the radio recordings describe it starting to happen. Filled with a sense of anxiety and coming undone, the text tells the story in reverse chronology. The opera builds to the point of no return where plane alarms can be heard and voices and instruments meet for a tumultuous climax. The album concludes with a chilling epilogue featuring ocean sounds and ATC recordings as those on the opposite end started coming to the realization that Swissair 111 had gone down. InchThe Swissair passengers never got to tell their story. For them I wrote ONE-ELEVEN HEAVY.Inch Frey's album achieves that and more, presenting an intellectual, emotional, and powerful opera that both commemorates the lives lost and adds to the rich catalog of the contemporary chamber opera.

Quodlibet - Masses & Motets [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/01/2009