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The International Clarinets recording Prayer For Peace

Dear <<First Name>>,

Clarinets, Rock, Funk: An eclectic week

Today’s big release is a recording of The International Clarinets titled Prayer For Peace. Available in Stereo DXD and DSD (up to 512) as well as Surround Sound DXD and DSD (up to 256).

The label Analog Father has a big week. With 4 new releases spreading across Rock, Funk, Psych and Jazz there is something for many interests.

We are still running our 2L Special! We are offering NativeDSD customers a 25% discount on all previous 2L albums in our catalogue!

Our 2L Special expires on Tuesday, May 10th at the end of day. Until that time the discount is applied automatically during checkout. We added some top picks below!

The new release ‘Home’ as well as 2L’s bundles are excluded from the sale.

Happy Listening,

David & The NativeDSD Team

p.s. did you know that you can still support Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees? If you purchase Music for a Time of War (Pure DSD) all proceeds go to Giro 555, a Dutch aid alliance.

How it began

This album came to be due to the huge respect that Eddy Vanoosthuyse has for both of the Roeselaarse composers. He came to know them throughout different time periods of his career. He met Raymond Ducancq at a young age as a conductor and composer and immediately they developed a strong mutual respect for each other. Raymond dedicated a number of pieces to him and conducted a number of his works for Harmony Orchestra’s both at home and abroad. Vanoosthuyse came in contact with Willy Soenen through a common friend (Guido Six). It goes without saying that the two developed great respect for each other. Vanoosthuyse conducted a number of pieces for clarinet choir and harmony orchestra composed by Soenen. Willy dedicated ‘Concertino for Eddy’ to him after which he created ‘Midwest Clinic’ in Chicago.

The International Clarinets

Founded in 1998 by Eddy Vanoosthuyse, the group is exclusively comprised of students and former students from this Belgian clarinet virtuoso. Throughout the years the ensemble has been comprised of musicians from Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Poland, Norway, Iceland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Algeria, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Thailand, China, Japan, South-Africa, Venezuela, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Chili, Peru, Cuba, Argentina, USA and Australia. Many of these musicians currently hold prominent functions in international orchestras, universities, conservatories and higher music institutions spread across five continents. The group has performed in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and the US. The International Clarinets have worked together with soloists such as François Glorieux, jazz legend Eddie Daniels, Wenzel Fuchs, Larry Combs, and Philippe Cuper, and they are also focused on coaching young talent. Initially the ensemble was founded to provide a platform for students to play together, however the group has now grown to be one of the leading clarinet choirs in the world, with a repertory which is being internationally covered. The programming includes arrangements of the works of Weber, Rossini, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi and others, as well as original works from mainly Belgian composers (Brossé, Laporte, Brewaeys, Van der Roost, Crepin, Soenen, Decancq and Goddaer).

Experimentations in funk & soul

FunCOOLio is a funk/soul band from Riga, Latvia that performs original instrumental compositions in the style of Baltic Fusion. The creative association includes guitarist George Panfilov, drummer Jurij Osipovich, bassist Denis Gradalev and organist Vladimir Tuzov. The material for the second studio album Vol. 2 has been taken during the band's live performances and was supplemented with new ideas as the studio records matured.

Rock music in DSD

Pigeon Is My Friend is a rock band from Lithuania who released their debut album Arrival in 2019. The band consists of three people who listen to very different styles of music, so they are always experimenting and searching for their real sound. The band describes their music as post-rock. Since the first album Pigeon Is My Friend changed their style and in 2022 released an album titled Hope. Through their music the band members are telling stories about their lives and the inner struggles that we all have.

When rock meets jazz

This is the third album from Kochi made up of experienced rock & jazz musicians Kęstutis Bublys & Arvydas Jakubėnas. A new magical, musical journey through the progressive & psychedelic rock jungle. With great analogue sound and rich tonal balance, III was analogue mastered by Vladas Straupas at AnalogFather studio especially for NativeDSD.

A great debut album

A great debut album from very talented jazz fusion band Reinless. Reinless is a near perfect mixture of funk, jazz, electronic and soul music. And no, they didn't mean Rainless.

Reinless' frontman and composer is Jievaras Jasinkis and in 2014 the musical mind behind the sound received an intriguing question: Don‘t you think it‘s about time you did your own thing? Until then his work mainly consisted of arrangements for various bands, orchestras and so on. Throughout the years as a trombone musician, he met and befriended his future band mates. All that was left to do when asked that question was to say 'yes'. And so the story began and Reinless was founded.

Don’t forget! You can still get 25% off selected albums from the label 2L. Below are more recommendations straight from the label. Sale ends Tuesday, May 10th end of day.

Browse the entire 2L collection here.

Album of the Week - 25% off

From the Engineer

A solo double bass album is no small challenge – in more than one respect. First off, of course, is the musician, who has to rely on his own skills and inspiration all by himself. Dieter Ilg can draw on a huge repertoire of technical virtuosity, and the fact that he is his only dialogue partner on stage does not scare him: “The essential part of life consists of self-talk.” If these are run with so much wit and circle around such interesting topics, it would simply be unforgivable to withhold them from the public. The disc is also a challenge for the producers. Because this is about great music and not about great deals with a mass-produced, all-purpose product.

The technical challenges were lots of fun. Since there are naturally few sounds in a solo bass that could mask any band or amplifier noise in the mid-high range, technical purism was the top priority: The signals of two stereo microphones were transferred to a quarter inch tape, a so-called session tape, through a mixer with the sound control switched off. The pieces were then cut out of their environment and glued together in the correct order. The copying of the songs from the session tapes would have only worsened the distance between them. And we have also renounced dynamics processing or filtering out hard-to-reproduce frequencies. Although the record would have sounded reasonably passable on mediocre systems as well, it considerably diminished the enjoyment of a high-quality reproduction chain. Therefore, the music was played without any mastering from the tape directly into the cutting system. After a direct cut, this is the shortest path from the instrument to the cutting stylus: cut directly from the session tapes.

Our search for purism didn’t stop there however – after several conversations with Dieter Ilg we ultimately settled for nine cuts separated by only one single edit. After that I made the direct-to-DSD256 transfer of the analog mastertape. It’s almost impossible to get any closer to the musical spectacle: You get to hear exactly what the artist was playing into the microphone!

– Dirk Sommer

The 25% discount is automatically applied in your cart until May 6th, 2022, when we announce the new Album of the Week.

Thanks for reading the news! If you have suggestions, comments or questions, please feel free to reach out via support@nativedsd.com