Legere Recordings Germany 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: During the various pandemic lockdowns of 2020, BBC Radio Wales suggested to multi-instrumentalist Carwyn Ellis that he joined forces with their National Orchestra of Wales and Brazilian band Rio 18 for a one-off, audience-free concert. In the end, Rio 18 were not permitted to travel, so instead their contributions were recorded remotely and assembled by Ellis and his producer Shawn Lee, to which the orchestrated parts were then added live. Despite this complex recording process, the results are stunning: sublime songs, sung in Welsh, with an attractive mixture of Brazilian rhythms and instrumentation, soaring orchestration and attractive melodies aplenty. It has a conceptual theme - it's meant to be a sort of musical day in Rio - but that doesn't really matter; what matters is the music, and it's uniformly spellbinding.

Review: In the spring of 2020, during the UK's first COVID-19 lockdown, Nichol Thompson and Shawn Lee decided to join forces and make an album inspired by their love of smooth jazz, fusion and turn-of-the-'80s jazz-funk. The results, credited to the Super Highway Band and collected together on this essential debut album, are little less than spectacular. Both Thompson and Lee are highly talented multi-instrumentalists with a deep love of the sounds they're emulating (think CTI Records, George Duke, Quincy Jones and the Crusaders), and you can genuinely tell. Funky, polished, brilliantly performed and blessed with some genuinely righteous horn arrangements, it's a hugely enjoyable romp full of memorable moments and floor-fillng workouts. Oh, and quite a bit of languid trombone.