Tina Guo – Dies Irae (Album)

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“I am so excited to share this collection of music 3 years in the making! Dies Irae consists of 13 tracks, set in the year 3000. It explores different textures, genres, and sounds, rooted in my classical music background, and expands from there into various directions. This version of the Moonlight Sonata is set on an Alien Planet interspersed with the calls of Spirit Animals that live in the skies- when producing the arrangement, I envisioned the setting and visuals, which you can see in the music video. I hope you guys enjoy this song!”
— Tina Guo

The GRAMMY® Award-nominated and BRIT Female “Artist of the Year” Award-nominated cellist stands out as the rare talent who can bring an outdoor festival crowd to its feet or ignite the score of a record-breaking blockbuster. As a soloist, her cello courses through the soundtracks for Wonder Woman, The Lion King, Inception, Dunkirk, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, X-Men Dark Phoenix, Iron Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, 3, & 4, League of Legends, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, CSI: NY, and The Vikings, to name a few. She has accompanied Hans Zimmer, Steven Tyler, Skrillex, Joe Bonamassa, Foo Fighters, Al Di Meola, and Carlos Santana on stage and John Legend, Ciara, and many more on tape. She thrived in the spotlight on Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson “The Immortal” World Tour, which entertained 3.7 million-plus concertgoers in packed arenas and became one of the highest-grossing tours of all time. Not to mention, she lit up the sold-out League of Legends World Championship at the Staples Center streamed over 33 million times. Along the way, she also picked up 53 million YouTube views, 374K subscribers, and 40 million Spotify streams to date. However, Tina’s vision unfolds like never before on her 2021 album, Dies Irae [Sony Music Masterworks].

It comprises 10 classical pieces and three original compositions. The trio of originals includes the solo “Moonheart” and a version with vocals by none other than iconic System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian. Anchoring this celestial dreamscape, her cello floats underneath a dynamic performance from Serj as his voice stretches to operatic heights before crashing back to whispers and poignant spoken word. “I’ve been a huge fan of Serj since middle school,” she smiles. “It was a dream come true to be able to collaborate with him. It’s a very mystical track. It’s a little esoteric and slightly out there. I didn’t even tell Serj about the concept, and he wrote these lyrics about space. I’ve never had a vocal feature, so this was really amazing.

Tracklist:

01.Moonlight Sonata
02.Moonheart
03.Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto Mvt 1
04.River Flows In You
05.The Swan
06.Summer
07.Adagio for Strings and Organ
08.Fantaisie – Impromptu (Op 66)
09.Requiem- Lacrimosa
10.Toccata and Fugue
11.Night on Bald Mountain
12.Returning Home
13.Moonhearts in Space

OVERALL RATING: 5 stars

Vilma Alina – True Crime (Album)

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True Crime is the third studio album by Finnish singer-songwriter Vilma Alina , released on August 27, 2021. The album has been produced by Ilkka Wirtanen.

Tracklist:

1.True crime

2.Särkymisen arvoinen

3.Kerran sun, aina sun

4.Alttari

5.Rikollinen

6.Joku jota oisin voinut rakastaa

7.prologi

8.Nuoret rakastavaiset

9.Marie Kondo

10.Metsästäjä-keräilijä

11.Jäljillä

12.Surupallo

13.Raunio

OVERALL RATING: 4 stars

Nite Jewel – No Sun (Album)

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Written in the wake of a divorce and while working toward a PhD in musicology, the Los Angeles musician’s first album in four years is a breakup record stripped to its most elemental parts.

In ancient Greece, mourners performed ritual laments at funerals as a way of grappling with the turbulent emotions that accompany grieving. A chorus of women would overwhelm mourners with collective vocalizing, channeling their fear of the unknown and allowing for a cathartic purging of emotion. No Sun, the latest album from Nite Jewel, aka Los Angeles singer-songwriter and producer Ramona Gonzalez, seeks to replicate the formidable vulnerability of those ritual laments by way of expressive, low-lit electronic pop centered on her own heartache. Written in the wake of the dissolution of her 12-year marriage and while working toward a PhD in musicology, No Sun is a breakup record stripped to its most elemental parts. Lonely synth lines that beep like EKG machines and stretches of silence guide Gonzalez’s sleek blend of electronic, pop, and jazz music. The album is her most accomplished, arresting work yet.

Gonzalez’s music transports you to a dreamy otherworld, with scuffed backdrops and oblique, guarded lyrics. On earlier Nite Jewel albums, her airy voice was a swooning medium for nostalgic electro-pop filtered through funk and R&B. Her voice was often more a texture than a focal point, which some critics have been quick to charge as a weakness, but on No Sun she changes strategies. Gonzalez’s vocals are front and center, to emphasize the grief in her lyrics, especially on the standout, seven-minute opener “Anymore.” An oscillating synth beats in the background as Gonzalez sings about losing her sense of self in the aftermath of her breakup. “I wonder if I took over your life/Because it seems you took over mine,” she sings plaintively, her voice growing more delicate as it arrives at a revelation: “It’s no use now to cry/You have yours and I have mine.”

Gonzalez returned to her own independent imprint, Gloriette, in 2016, following a spate of label troubles, and since then, her music as Nite Jewel has taken on more riveting forms, a shift that was clearest on 2017’s buoyant Real High. With rubbery basslines and melodies that recalled Janet Jackson at her most featherlight, Real High opened up a more lyrically straightforward side that No Sun continues. The ballads “Before I Go” and “This Time” present her pain in cut-and-dried terms. “I won’t talk about my feelings if you come around,” she sings in the former over a glimmering synth; “Mm, what’s it about?/You hesitate to touch the water but I’m swimming out.” She lets her words linger afterward, the silence around them like a vacuum.

Even at its most desolate, No Sun allows light through the cracks. “To Feel It” uses bright keys, jittery synths, and a staggered beat to zero in on how even the most monotonous tasks—getting out of bed in the morning, picking a pen for work—can be loaded with memories of a past life. “I can try and distract my thoughts by getting close to another,” Gonzalez sings in a hopscotching voice. “The thing is there’s nothing like the one who’s your lover.” The songs on No Sun are musically syncretic, joining together sparse, varied sounds with ease; in the album credits, brown paper bags and ceiling fans appear alongside drum machines and string arrangements. Even the instrumental “#14,” with long, ambient stretches of Rhodes, bass, and synths, feels in tune with the album’s inward, thoughtful intention.

“Thought I saw something, or was it a warning?” Gonzalez asks on the late-album highlight “No Escape.” It’s one of many songs on No Sun that lean into passages of silence, a shuffling, stop-and-start synth-pop song that takes its time and allows a way to grieve what’s lost while looking ahead. Cymbals clatter in the background as synths quake, just as Gonzalez comes to a breaking point. “I don’t know where to run,” she admits, “This one you can’t run from.” The song doesn’t find her totally at peace—“there’s no escape,” she reminds us—but in its murmuring melodies and sighing relief, it’s certainly close. (S)

Tracklist:

01 – Anymore
02 – Before I Go
03 – Show Me What You’re Made Of
04 – To Feel It
05 – #14
06 – No Escape
07 – This Time
08 – When There Is No Sun

OVERALL RATING: 3½ stars

Annakin – The Light Before Love Disappears (Album)

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“The Light Before Love Disappears” is the album by the singer Annakin.

Release Date: 27.08.2021

Tracklist:

01 – The Love, the Love (Album Version)
02 – The Measuring of Truth
03 – Lullaby
04 – Humans
05 – Parachute (Album Version) (feat. Ed Harcourt)
06 – Intermezzo
07 – Dancing Sky
08 – Black & White Circus
09 – Before Love Disappears
10 – Secret Wounds

OVERALL RATING: 3½ stars

AuRa – Soundtrack to an Existential Crisis (EP)

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Singer songwriter Au/Ra release her new project ‘Soundtrack To An Existential Crisis’ on August 27th.

Tracklist:

1.Dead Girl! (Shake My Head)

2.Screw Feelings

3.Bite Marks

4.heavy.

5.u

6.Young Giants

7.Hush

8. no future

9.Soundtrack to an Existential Crisis

OVERALL RATING: 4 stars

Becky Hill – Only Honest On The Weekend (Album)

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Powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Becky Hill has announced the release of her highly anticipated debut album Only Honest on the Weekend.

The 15-track album will drop on August 27 via Eko Records/Polydor and will include the previously released ‘Remember’ with David Guetta, ‘Better Off Without You’ featuring Shift K3Y, ‘Heaven On My Mind’ and ‘Last Time’. The album also sees guest appearances from Banx & Ranx, S1mba, Topic and Ella Eyre, with production from the likes of Lost Boy, MNEK, MJ Cole and MK.

Becky has written or co-written every track on the album, which acts as a follow up to her 2019 LP Get To Know which featured a collection of singles she released herself or wrote and guest performed on.

Speaking about the release of her debut album, Becky said: “I’ve been waiting nearly 10 years to be able to say this! Finally, I get to introduce you to my album, my first complete body of work that I’m so in love with, proud of and excited to be putting out.

“With everything I’ve learnt in the music industry and in life, Only Honest On The Weekend reflects all that hard work, graft and growth. I feel so relieved, grateful and proud of myself, my team and my label for getting to this point. Here’s to many more albums and loads more success!”

Over the years, Becky Hill has made a name for herself as one of the most exciting and sought-after vocalists and songwriters in the electronic music scene.

Tracklist:

1.‘I Got You’
2.‘Last Time’
3.‘Make It Hard To Love You’
4.‘Better Off Without You’ (ft. Shift K3Y)
5.‘Remember’ (& David Guetta)
6.‘Perfect People’
7.‘My Heart Goes (La Di Da)’ (ft. Topic)
8.‘Could Be My Somebody’ (ft. S1mba)
9.‘Business’ (ft. Ella Eyre)
10.‘Waiting Not Looking’
11.‘Distance’
12.‘Lessons’ (ft. Banx & Ranx)
13.‘Heaven On My Mind’ (with Sigala)
14.‘Is Anybody There’
15.‘Through The Night’ (ft. 220 Kid)

OVERALL RATING: 4½ stars

Gretta Ray – Begin To Look Around (Album)

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Begin to Look Around is the debut studio album from Australian singer-songwriter Gretta Ray, released on 27 August 2021 through EMI Music Australia.

The album was announced in May 2021 with Ray saying “This record is a documentation and celebration of the lessons I have learned about love, life and my unremitting passion for music as I’ve stepped into my early twenties. It is beautiful how much you change your mind throughout those formative years; things can always be seen from a different perspective, and when you’re immersed in incredible opportunities that see you travelling the world, falling in and out of love and losing your sense of independence only for it to return stronger than ever before, it is only natural that your view of yourself and the world will be refined when you wake up, and begin to look around.”

Tracklist:

1.Becoming

2.Bigger Than Me

3.Passion

4.Happenstance

5.Human

6.The Brink

7.Paris

8.Cherish

9.The Cure

10.Readymade

11.It’s Almost Christmas In Philly

12.Worldly-wise

13.Learning You

14.Love Me Right

15.Care Less

OVERALL RATING: 5 stars

Halsey – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (Album)

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If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is the fourth studio album by American singer Halsey. It was released on August 27, 2021, via Capitol Records. The album’s production were handed by the industrial rock duo, Nine Inch Nails, composed of American musician Trent Reznor and English musician Atticus Ross. She described the project as “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth”.

The cover artwork of the album was inspired by artistic depictions of Mary, mother of Jesus. A theatrical film directed by American filmmaker Colin Tilley, titled after the album and featuring its music, screened in select IMAX cinemas around the world on August 25 and 26, 2021, leading up to the album release.

Tracklist:

01.The Tradition
02.Bells in Santa Fe
03.Easier than Lying
04.Lilith
05.Girl is a Gun
06.You asked for this
07.Darling
08.1121
09.Honey
10.Whispers
11.I am not a woman, I’m a god
12.The Lighthouse
13.Ya’aburnee

OVERALL RATING: 4 stars

Minami Kuribayashi – Just the truth (Single)

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The movie “”Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Licht – The Nameless Girl (Theatrical Feature)” Main Theme Song: Just the truth” will be released this summer! The theme song is Minami Kuribayashi’s 39th single! Minami Kuribayashi, who is celebrating her 20th anniversary, has sung the theme song for the first time since the TV anime series. The song “Just the truth” is a mystical song that expresses her determination and commitment.

Release Date: August 27, 2021

Tracklist:

01.Just the truth
02.clear
03.Just the truth (OFF VOCAL)
04.clear (OFF VOCAL)

OVERALL RATING: 4 stars

Kohei Matsushita – つよがり (Single)

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“つよがり” is the single by the singer Kohei Matsushita.

Release Date: 2021.08.25

Tracklist:

1.つよがり

2.STEP!

3.みんなが見てる空

OVERALL RATING: 3 stars