I\'m A Badass Caption: I can haz links, style or anything that is valid markup :)

CD/DVD Releases: New Titles Out From Musea In September

Posted on Monday, September 05 @ 15:00:00 UTC by nightowl

Musea Records has five new titles available (either Musea releases or distributions), starting with Ignatius - Lights From The Deep: Ignatius was born 10 years ago as a project, idea, wish, need. Today is a fact. All these years thinking about how to show to the audience their influences, made them more creative and mature. Now, after a long and a hard way, their compositions are ready to be recorded and performed. The first studio album Lights From The Deep is available now in the stores.

Their music is under the influence of the 70's classic Symphonic/Progressive Rock. The aim is to reproduce the feelling of this period but with a personal "touch": Landscapes with atmospherical synths, agressive and powerfull, sweet harmonies and guitar lines flyng over the music, they build the Lights From The Deep album.

Ignatius are: Ricardo Boya: bass, keyboards and vocals; Toni Castarlenas: guitars; and Marcelo Ortiz: drums. Their Influences: Bach, Zappa, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Rush, Yes, The Haunted, Keith Jarret, Thelonious Monk, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, Stravinsky...

Kalmos - Now You Know: From the very first sounds, Kalmos (French artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, lyricist, player) explores with grace and awareness the cosmos as well as human emotions and history. This work does not need any words, it’s only through sounds, chords, and harmonious and new rhythms that Kalmos goes through an infinity of musical fields (Electro, Pop, New Age, Psychedelic…) with a deep mark of his personality.



Ernest Lane - 72 Miles From Memphis: Not necessarily falling into the progressive music genre, but Musea also issues blues titles, this among them, about which they say: Ernest Lane was born exactly 72 miles away from Memphis, in Clarkesdale, Mississippi. And he is one of the last, original blues veterans, a singer and pianist, who has already played for icons like Ike Turner, Canned Heat and The Monkeys. [The Monkees? -ed.] Lane is now presenting his new work and demonstrates his incomparably grooving, powerful blues piano style, with a naturalness and emotion that one can only have come from growing up in the southern States. And those who have heard his sonorous voice know that this man lives the blues!

Little Tragedies - Obsessed: A Russian band with a variable number of musicians, Little Tragedies was born from the will of composer and musician Gennady Ilyin to experiment new musical expression forms. More particularly, his art could be described as an hybrid mixture of Seventies-like Progressive rock, fusion jazz-rock and contemporary classical musics. The whole thing played through vintage keyboards reminding of the seventies, but especially with an obvious Slavonic personality. Released in 2005 by the Musea label, Return was the third and certainly the best work of Little Tragedies [to date]. Like the previous albums, the latter was inspired by poems of Nicolai Gumilev and sung in Russian. The eleven titles have a style close to that of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, with an impressive musical virtuosity and a strong originality. Here is a fantastic concept-album of powerful neo-classical rock, rich in diversity and intensity, filled with feverish and enthusiast instrumental sequences. This absolutely needs to be discovered!

Only a few weeks were needed, after the ambitious conceptual double-CD New Faust (2006), for the new opus The Sixth Sense to be published. It shows an incredible progression, with a much more varied inspiration. Apart from Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the classical composers, one could think of Pink Floyd, Genesis or Focus, with the characteristic sound of the Russian bands. The music is a brilliant mix of rock, classical music and jazz, with heavy-metal traces in some guitar riffs. Keyboards parts are very keen on Seventies sounds. If the vocals are in Russian, the music is mostly instrumental, played with brio and carefully produced. An excellent album!

Set on a tremendous pace, without losing its natural qualities, Little Tragedies published its fourth album in only three years. Chinese Songs - Part One (2007), which offers seven tracks composed by the brillant Gennady Ilyin, illustrated by Chinese poems written during the Middle-Ages (Translated in Russian). And that's the same for the six tracks of Chinese Songs - Part Two (2007). The Paris Symphony was composed in the mid-Nineties and recorded in 1997, but never officially released until now. Gennady Ilyin, certainly one of the best keyboardists in Progressive rock today, has composed it after a visit in the City of Light, for a trio formula including drums, bass and keyboards. Analog keyboards and compositions are in a Seventies spirit, filled with a specific slavic atmosphere, neo-classic sequences and organ parts reminding Rachmaninov or Prokofiev. What else to say, apart from "Splendid" ?... [And now in 2011 there's this new release Obsessed, According to the band's website, the artwork was done by the British artist and illustrator Duncan Storr. (Immediately prior, the band released the online-only release Magic Shop. -ed.]

Brian Malone - The Mechanical Voices: Brian Malone's debut album, The Mechanical Voices (Musea Parallèle, 2008), is a lush soundscape of experimental music where there are no boundaries, written, produced, and engineered by the irish artist himself. Although ambient in feel overall, this album features a mixed bag of musical adventure. There is a diverse range of instruments used on the album, all played by Brian Malone and accompanied by sampled voices, with various sounds such as music boxes, bells, operatic voices and atmospheric pads. There are differerent musical blood types running through the veins of this album. While there is strong evidence of a strong rock guitar background, the album itself is an ecclectic mix which fluctuates from being sinister and foreboding to more gentle and whimsical with a sprinkling of world. The artist lists Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Sigur Ros and Puccini among his influences, and has evidently drawn inspiration from some of his heros for this album and has combined the use of repetition and the layering of textures reminiscent of minimalists like Philip Glass and Michael Nyman.

And lastly, to round off this round up: Stevegane Porject - When The Time Is A Present: Stevegane Project reflects the musical vision of one French multi-instrumentist, who has worked closely with Ritchie Blackmore's touring crew. Don't expect Deep Purple's Progressive hard-rock, powerful riffs ala Rainbow or medieval ambiences here, though... When The Time Is A Present (Musea, 2011) is an excellent instrumental album, led by an electric guitar lyrical to the bone. It's impossible not to think of Mike Oldfield or David Gilmour, one might say Jean-Pascal Boffo or Minimum Vital... But don't be mistaken: those four long tracks (Plus one 3 minutes-piece) appear to be original and catchy at the same time. Even programmed, the drums know how to be discreet and quirky at the same time, cleverly supporting this beautiful and quiet music. Here's a real invitation to go on a journey!

[Source: Musea (and Little Tragedies website)]

Posted in Album Release News