Highasakite

Highasakite started out opening for other musical projects like Your Headlights Are On, PELbO and Sacred Harp. Their debut album, All That Floats Will Rain, was released in Norway in February, 2012 on record label Riot Factory, and produced by Juhani Silvola and Thomas Dahl. The album reached #16 on the Norwegian Albums Chart.

Silent Treatment was released in February 2014 and reached #1 on the Norwegian Albums Chart. It was named the second best album of the year by Norwegian music critics in a list published by Dagsavisen. The group toured extensively this year, mostly in Norway.

Highasakite inhabits their own rare musical landscape, a place of long dark shadows, sudden flashes of glittering light, brooding silences and unexpected explosions of fierce percussion. Ingrid Håvik’s surrealistic lyrics and ardent vocals float out of another time and place, drawing you down into the breathless maelstrom created by her band mates.

Silent Treatment (2014)

Tracklist

1. Lover, Where Do You Live?

2. Since Last Wednesday

3. Leaving No Traces

4. Hiroshima

5. My Only Crime

6 I, the Hand Grenade

7 Darth Vader

7. Iran

8. The Man on the Ferry

9. Science & Blood Tests

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Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man

Out of Season is a studio album by Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons and former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (under the pseudonym Rustin Man). It was released on 28 October 2002 in the United Kingdom and on 7 October 2003 in the United States. Out of Season is largely a folk album with jazz leanings, with Gibbons and Webb drawing more directly on the influences of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Nick Drake, at which Portishead's work in trip-hop only hinted. Out of Season also features contributions from Gibbon's fellow Portishead bandmate Adrian Utley and Webb's former bandmate Lee Harris. The first track of the album, "Mysteries", appears on the original soundtrack of the French movie Les Poupées Russes (The Russian Dolls) and in Wim Wenders Palermo Shooting from 2008. The album achieved a silver certification from the BPI.

Out of Season (2002)

Tracklist

1. Mysteries

2. Tom the Model

3. Show

4. Romance

5. Sand River

6. Spider Monkey

7. Resolve

8. Drake

9. Funny Time of Year

10. Rustin Man

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Claude Bolling

Claude Bolling (born 10 April 1930), is a renowned French jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and occasional actor.

He was born in Cannes, studied at the Nice Conservatory, then in Paris. A child prodigy, by age 14 he was playing jazz piano professionally, with Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, and Kenny Clarke. Bolling's books on jazz technique show that he did not delve far beyond bebop into much avant garde jazz. He was a major part of the traditional jazz revival in the late 1960s, and he became friends with Oscar Peterson.

He has written music for over one hundred films, mostly French, starting with the score for a 1957 documentary about the Cannes Film Festival, and including the films Borsalino (1970), and California Suite (1978).

Bolling is also noted for a series of "crossover" collaborations with classical musicians. His Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio with Jean-Pierre Rampal, a mix of Baroque elegance with modern swing, has been a top seller for many years, and was followed up by other works in the same vein. It was particularly popular in the United States, at the top of the hit parade for two years after its release and on the Billboard top 40 for 530 weeks, roughly ten years.

Following his work with Rampal, Bolling went on to work with many other musicians, from different genres, including guitarist Alexandre Lagoya, violinist Pinchas Zukerman, trumpeter Maurice André, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He has also worked with, and performed tributes to many others, including Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Stéphane Grappelli, Django Reinhardt, and Oscar Peterson.

Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio (1984)

Tracklist

  1. Baroque in Rhythm

2. Concertante

3. Galop

4. Ballade

5. Romantique

6. Cello Fan

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葬尸湖 (Zuriaake)

Chinese Black Metal Band, hailing from JiNan, Shandong, China in 1998. They first appeared in a 2006 Promo, with the song “Woods Words”. The members of the band are Bloodfire (also in Varuna, Hellward, Yn Gizarm, Midwinter), Bloodsea, and Deadsphere ( also in Varuna, Hellward).

In 2005 they released a split album with Yn Gizarm, entitled “Autumn Of Sad Ode/Siming Of Loulan”. And in 2007 “Afterimage Of Autumn” was released, with a special edition containing a music video, T-shirt, and poster of the band, as well as a bonus disc of remastered old material entitled “Winter Mirage”. The special edition was limited to 66 copies.

Constantly trying to well-mix black metal along with Chinese traditional musical instruments and elements. Zuriaake’s music themes are mainly inspired by mighty nature, as well as inner dismal emotion with regards to autumn.

孤雁 (Gu Yan) [EP] (2015)

Tracklist

01. 孤雁 (Gu Yan)

02. 天庭 (Heaven)

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Thy Light

Thy Light is a brazilian depressive black metal band that formed back in 2005 and released their first demo, the rather awkwardly named Suici.De.pression, two years later. It became quite popular in the depressive black metal scene, and after listening to it, I can see why.

The album begins with the title track, which is a beautiful and wondrous piano piece. It sounds rather joyous, which stands in stark contrast with the black metal that is to follow.

Not only is the piano superb, but so is the black metal. Since this was all recorded by one guy, I’m pretty sure he used a drum machine, but the drum machine is pretty well-programmed. They keep to a moderate-to-slow pace and their structures are simple. One thing I really like about them is how prominent the snare is. This helps make the drums sound so real. I also like the double-bass they play on occasion. It doesn’t sound mechanical like it does in so many other bands. The double-bass here gives the music much more impact.

The guitars sound quite morose, but unlike most other bands of their type, they have a great deal of melody to them. They also like to toy around with the reverb to create a more wondrous sound, such as on “I am the bitter taste of gall”. Unlike most other depressive black metal bands, they don’t try to imitate Burzum. Instead, they create a sound that is all their own. Another thing that makes Thy Light stand out from the crowd is that they include something that is rarely seen in depressive black metal: solos. These solos pierce the heavens with their powerful cries, and they fill me with a sense of awe every time I listen to them, especially the ones on “In My Last Mourning…” and the closer “…And I Finally Reach My End”. Every time I hear those solos, my heart melts.

Another remarkable aspect about Thy Light’s music is the vocal performance. The man’s rasps and howls exude so much pain and suffering, a level that wouldn’t be matched until Tim Yatras’s performance on Austere’s To Lay Like Old Ashes. There are even times when he performs distorted, low-pitched spoken-word passages similar to Leviathan.

This demo’s filled with so much anguish and agony, the piano and keyboard sections are just plain beautiful, and the guitars are fucking amazing, especially when they do those powerful and awesome solos. It’s no wonder this demo got so popular within the depressive black metal scene.

Suici.De.pression (2007)

Tracklist

1. Suici.De.Pression (Introduction to My End)

2. In My Last Mourning...

3. A Crawling Worm in a World of Lies

4. I Am the Bitter Taste of Gall

5. ...and I Finally Reach My End

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No Morrow Shall Dawn (2013)

Tracklist

1. Suici.De.spair

2. Wanderer of Solitude

3. No Morrow Shall Dawn

4. Corredor Seco

5. The Bridge

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沼澤 - China's bestest post-rock

沼澤 (Zhaoze) is a band from China. Their music is touching, imaginative, and unique, features in the integration of Guqin, one of the most traditional Chinese instrument, and the modern post-rock, ambient, etc., to provide a dark and beautiful poetic world.

Fantastic, impressive and passionate live performance is also a trademark from Zhaoze.
The name of “Zhaoze”, that means Swamp in the Chinese, is an analogy of human’s nearby nature until the home of the spirit --- our innermost secret. Both of them are similar in some ways: fixed yet mobile; ruined yet vital. This could be another explanation to Zhaoze’s music.

1911 (2011)

1911 is Zhaoze's second Guqin based, post-rock album released in 2011. The whole album consist of one song only, in which is adapted from the presentation and arrangement of traditional symphony. 

The song itself has four parts and they added up to an hour or so in length. It is untitled and chaptered, a reflection of a poetic approach blended with the settings of Chinese novels. 

CangLangXing, Zhaoze's first Guqin based album, is an in-depth rearrangement of Chinese ancient Guqin music style combined with the modern post-rock . With 1911, they took a huge leap and challenge ---- to break through and into the terrain of Western Classical music. 

Guqin is the major instrument in Zhaoze, binding the band with it's signature bleak and desolated atmosphere. And together with a strong three-piece rock band, skillfully crafted the piece with the structure of symphony, created a long enduring poem in 1911. 

The combination of East meet West in 1911 has elevated modern post-rock into a whole new level. 

As an instrumental album, 1911 stirs not only emotions but expands the capacity & open our unlimited imagination.

Tracklist

1. 1911第一回 1st mov. — 15:38

2. 1911第二回 2nd mov. — 13:13

3. 1911第三回 3rd mov. — 08:28

4. 1911第四回 4th mov. — 23:19

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Shuddering with Nightwish

Endless Forms Most Beautiful is the band's first album with new singer Floor Jansen, as well as the first to feature Troy Donockley, who played uillean pipes and various other instruments on Dark Passion Play and Imaginaerum, as a permanent member.

It is also their first album without drummer Jukka Nevalainen, who had to take a temporary break from the band due to suffering of strong insomnia, leading him to step away from both the album and its subsequent tour. All the drum parts on the album were consequently played by Kai Hahto from Wintersun and Swallow the Sun. Due to this, the album features only five Nightwish members, despite being their first album released with the band being a sextet.


Concept


The album was primarily inspired by the work of naturalist Charles Darwin. According to Nightwish's main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen, the album found its main inspiration from a famous quote from Darwin's 1859 highly influential book On the Origin of Species. This quote included the words "endless forms most beautiful", used by Darwin to describe the evolution from one common ancestor to all living organisms, that were subsequently chosen as the title of the album.

Tuomas said he would like fans to listen to the album from beginning to the end, like they do when they watch a movie, instead of listening to songs on a random basis. He also said there is a "very loose" concept in the album: "It's all about beauty of life, the beauty of existence, nature, science".
Comparing it with Imaginaerum, he said: "The previous album was a tribute to the power of imagination. Endless Forms Most Beautiful would be an equal tribute to science and the power of reason".

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015)

1. Shudder Before the Beautiful

2. Weak Fantasy

3. Élan

4. Yours Is an Empty Hope

5. Our Decades in the Sun

6. My Walden

7. Endless Forms Most Beautiful

8. Edema Ruh

9. Alpenglow

10. The Eyes of Sharbat Gula

11. The Greatest Show on Earth

I. Four Point Six

II. Life

III. The Toolmaker

IV. The Understanding

V. Sea-Worn Driftwood

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