Universal Music – Verve

The Universal discs hailed from Decca Classics, Lost Highway Records and Verve Music Group. The collection includes two Diana Krall titles on the Verve Music Group label, ‘The Look Of Love’ and ‘When I Look In Your Eyes’, presented at 96kHz 24-bit with dedicated surround and stereo tracks. The DVD-Audio discs include an artist biography and photo gallery but ‘When I Look In Your Eyes’ also features an audio interview with Krall and a video of ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’. Both titles are available as SACDs (only one of which is a hybrid) although neither offers any of the supplementary content.

Universal Music – Decca Classics

For the classical music fans, Decca Classics released three new titles. ‘Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6’ performed by Valery Gergiev contains an artist biography and photo gallery, but is presented at a disappointing resolution, 44.1kHz 20-bit (little better than Compact Disc). ‘Mahler: Symphony No.8’ performed by Riccardo Chailly fairs a little better with both stereo and surround tracks weighing in at 48kHz 24-bit. Renee Fleming’s self-titled album also includes a biography and image gallery as does Cecilia Bartoli’s ‘The Vivaldi Album’, another at 48kHz 24-bit.

Claudio Abbado’s series of Beethoven Symphonies has been postponed, we’re unaware of re-scheduled release dates.

Universal Music – Lost Highway Records

Lost highway were responsible for just one new title, ‘Gold’ by Ryan Adams. The disc contains a considerable number of supplementary materials; song lyrics, a biography, photo gallery and three videos ‘Answering Bell’, ‘New York, New York’ and ‘Rescue Blues: Live at the Paradiso’. The audio resolution is puzzling however, the surround mix is presented at 96kHz 24-bit, but the stereo track is of lowly Compact Disc standards, namely 44.1kHz 16-bit. We’ve yet to receive an explanation from Universal as to why this should be.

Warner Music Group

Warner finally released the long-awaited new title from the Flaming Lips, ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’, delayed from September 23rd. The package, which includes a CD copy of the album affords a number of supplementary materials via the DVD-Audio alternative, which contains two versions of ‘Do You Realize?’ one directed by Mark Pellington and the other by Flaming Lips frontman, Wayne Coyne. The videos of ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1’, ‘Fight Test’ and ‘Are You A Hypnotist? ’ are accompanied by documentaries chronicling the making of ‘Do You Realize? ’, ‘Yoshimi’ and ‘Yoshimi 5.1’. Also spotlighted is the audio oddity ‘Phoebe Battles The Pink Robots’ (recorded for but never used in an episode of ‘Friends’), and the trailer for the film-in-progress ‘Christmas On Mars’, with an all-original Flaming Lips score.

Additional bonus material includes DVD ROM animated episodes of ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1’ and ‘Fight Test’.

5.1 Entertainment – Silverline

Silverline introduced four new discs, from the Robert Cray Band comes ‘Time Will Tell, there is a self-titled album by The Mavericks, Living Colour make their debut in high-resolution surround by way of ‘Collideoscope’ and there is a double-album (containing two discs) from Carl Perkins entitled ‘Jet Propelled – The 1978 Comeback’. The second disc contains a number of sessions recorded live for BBC Radio One.

5.1 Entertainment – Myutopia Recordings

We ran a story last week about Myutopia Recordings’ Cell Series of titles and were informed at the time that all ten would be released on the 18th. That didn’t turn out to be the case, in fact only five surfaced: ‘Cell One: Poet Name Life Presents the Sound Proof Wall’, ‘Cell Two: From Hip Hop to Drum and Bass’, ‘Cell Three: Penchant For Bu**ery’, ‘Cell Four: Camarillo Blues Triangle’ and ‘Cell Seven: Feel It All the Time’.

The remainder are delayed for one week, until November 25th. For more information on this series, see the related links below.

J Records