What was the last CD you bought (Name, and year issued)?


Like to see and get some recommendations for recent music on CDs.

My last CD bought: RY X (with Olafur Arnalds) - Blood Moon - 2022, Infecious label

Arriving soon: Antennah-Sparkle. 2022, 2020Editions label (Stefano Guzzetti label)

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Rough and Rowdy Ways, Bob Dylan 2020.

I rarely see anything worth buying nowadays.

One of my friends has Amazon Music and we check out the latest releases there via his iFi Zen streamer.

Of course, if Apple were to ever release a once and for all definitive set of Beatles remasters...

I guess I'm one of the few remaining who regularly purchase music on CD.  I probably have 10 new ones in the last month.  The very last one (Sunday, yesterday) is Dr John, Things Happen That Way.  Issued 2022.  Meaning it was just released.  

Antonio Vivaldi, "Concerti pour Hautbois, Basson et Cor, issdes"

L’Armonia e l’Inventione, Astree Auvidis E8537, issued 1995 but still in print.

This is an exceptional recording of some of Vivaldi’s wind concertos, with tremendous presence and great soundstaging. What I would call a "demonstration disc". The music’s not bad, either!

My tastes tend toward the progressive and avant-garde, so, as far as being used for recommendations, YMMV.

I was thinking of getting rid of my CD’s, but once I removed them and their inserts from the jewel cases, put them into specifically designed plastic bags, then put them in specially made high quality file boxes, that desire quickly went away.

I can now store about 7 CDs in the same space that it takes to store one in a jewel case. So, my CD’s, despite having at least a thousand, are in easily accessible, alphabetized, stacked file boxes, in a closet, not taking up any space in my listening room.

Here are some very recent purchases, of all quite recent music:

Green Asphalt - S/T (2022) /Swedish prog band, with more than a nod to prog greats, Gentle Giant.

Mary Halvorson - Amaryllis (2022) / avant-garde jazz guitarist, with possibly her best recording yet. Also has a bit of chamber-jazz feel at times.

Bubblemath - Turf Ascension (2022) / really creative, and complex US prog band.

One Shot - À James (2022) / Great, intense jazz-fusion.

Anna Thorvalsdoittir - Rhizoma (2020) / Chamber and orchestral recordings of Iceland’s best classical composer.

SKE - Insolubilia (2021) / Italian prog band that kind of exists in the chamber-prog realm.

Harrison Birtwistle – Deep Time (2016) / Brilliant, atonal, ’thorny’ contemporary classical piece, by this recently deceased (4/22) Brit composer.

Craig Taborn - Daylight Ghosts (2016) / Great jazz quartet. Kind of on the intimate side of the spectrum. Taborn seems to me, to be the heir apparent to Keith Jarrett, not in exact style, but in musical philosophy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a few more very recent CD purchases.

Elliott Carter - Two Controversies and a Conversation for piano, percussion, and chamber orchestra (2011) - Carter composed this at the age of 102, and does not show any lack of creativity or artistic ability. Carter should seriously be spoken of with the same levels of respect as Stravinsky, Bartok, Sibelius, and other 20th century luminaries. 

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - Real Enemies (2016) - close to brilliant, progressive, modern big band jazz.

Steve Coleman's Natal Eclipse - Morphogenesis (2017) - Coleman continues to prove why he was a recipient of a MacArthur 'genius grant' in 2014. Incredible contemporary jazz.

Magma - Zess (Le Jour Du Néant) (2019) / Despite being a very small step down from their best, this is still brilliant stuff. Magma were the founders of a very distinctive subgenre of prog known as "Zeuhl", which combines Coltrane like 'spiritual jazz' mixed with Bartok and Carl Orff influences. With terrifying levels of musicianship. They also made up their own language, with rules of grammar, decades before Sigur Ros did.