I like Discovery and love its main characters. The third series is not as good as the first two but the score did make up for the drop in script quality, so I bought this.

It's good, for what it is, but, like most TV OSTs, it's snippets. Some beautiful parts pass far too soon. TV is a voracious and parasitic medium and composers are no less ill-used by its churn than writers. That's what money does to art, I suppose. There are any number of tracks on here that deserve expansion. A pity.

Pop/classical crossover seldom works, and world music crossover often risks abusing its sources. However, this has an honest feel, working with the musical cultures it is built from, rather than appropriating them. The instrumentation enriches the extraordinary collection of vocal performances that are at the heart of the album. It also serves the album’s structure.
I have posted a fuller appreciation here: danceswithcats.uk/2022/11/05/a-tricky-proposition-triumphant/

Lovely. It's sedate and poised yet lighthearted. A fine album for the declining months of a long, hot summer.

Praga Digitalis are costing me too much money, but their catalogue is amazing. This album feeds my ongoing Shostakovich phase. The first work here, the sonata Op 40, is, by Dmitri's standards, an almost cheerful piece. The other long piece, Sonata Op 147, is also not typical Shostakovich. It seems to have an air of peace that I do not associate with his work: pleased acceptance of life's sorrow, rather than the sense of dread that overshadows the Quartets and some of the orchestral works.

The 15th is my favourite of the Shostakovich quartets, and a deeply sad, haunting work. I've got the Fitzwilliam Quartet's complete Shostakovich string quartets, so this is, at first glance, a bit of a superfluous buy. However, the Two Pieces that sit between the quartets on this album are new to me and add a new dimension to the composer's chamber music. Also, on second hearing, this seems to me a more spacious and steady performance than the Fitzwilliams' recording.

Stunning. The pain is evident in all four songs, and they seem to be about to unravel all the way through, but each song maintains a loose coherence and they're never less than beautiful. Love and art are, truly, stronger than the madness of selfish evil.

The work of a true artist.

Not my usual sort of music, but a track leapt out at me on Bandcamp Weekly and I ended up buying the album. I think you'd describe it as downbeat hip-hop: it has a rich, melodic jazz inventiveness that is immediately musically engaging.
What has kept me listening, though, is the way the raps catch you with narrative force: on 'Underground', Synik talks about working in the shadow economy, 'Wega' is a clear depiction of being in an alien environment, while your heart is focused on home.

Bonkers but perfect. I get moods of Sigur Ros, Cocteau Twins, Kurt Weill and Portishead. There's a detached irony here, but also an intensity that reminds me of the torch song effect of Anthony and The Johnsons. I heard them on a recent Bandcamp Weekly and hit the heart, and I'm so glad I followed through. They have half a dozen other albums, so I should be getting to know them for the rest of the summer. More thoughts here: danceswithcats.uk/2022/03/28/736/

I'm on my third listen and this album has real depth. Different passages keep leaping out at me, but I like the way it maintains a characteristic tone while being full of melodic, rhythmic and modal variety and even surprise. Really good. I wish I'd bought the CD.

Ms Kermes's recording of Dido & Aeneas made me understand what people see in vocal classical music. To find a recording by her on Bandcamp is like bumping into your hero in your favourite pub. This is a gloriously simple set of recordings; just her exquisite, rich, clear voice and the lute-like theorbo, played by Gianluca Geremia. I had to look up what a theorbo was, by the way, but it's beautiful. It's all beautiful.

I bought this album several years ago, but haven't listened to it much until recently, when I have become a little hooked. It is winter-dark chamber music with the very lightest hint of theatrical menace, as befits a mystery game soundtrack, though it is complete in itself.

I've just bought the game in Steam's sale and have it on my Steam Deck so I anticipate my relationship with this music changing soon. However, the album stands on its own strange, haunting beauty.