SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
The Boston Praise Collective - From Exile to Exaltation (Choral Ensemble with instrumental accompaniment) - Dissonance Resolved Records
Most effective use of surround in a choral album
Published on October 09, 2005
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The Boston Praise Collective - From Exile to Exaltation (Choral
Ensemble with instrumental accompaniment) - Dissonance Resolved Records
Multichannel SACD (no #) ****:
This would be best described as a gospel album, but though at least one of the 17 tracks comes close to that genre, the others run the gamut thru just about every style you could name. The composers and performers recorded the disc as their offering to Bahá’ u ‘lláh, the founder of the Bahai faith. He taught that there is one God, all religions come from the same divine source, and all the world’s people are members of one family. The amazing variety of musical styles heard from these singers and instrumentalists supports the idea of all cultures being part of one huge family. There are African-sounding and East Indian chants, jazzy vocals, hymn-like choruses, New Age vocals, tunes that sound like they came from a Broadway musical, and even rap. Several have narration over the music and some are sung in Persian. One sonically gorgeous track is entirely played on handbells and no vocals. Others accent multiple drummers, flute, strings, guitar, trumpet and keyboards.
That brings up the primary attraction of this disc for audiophiles: it’s probably the most dramatic and involving choral album I have ever heard in surround sound! The entire 360-degree soundfield is used, with voices or instruments in the surrounds answering others in the frontal speakers and even some spinning around. The voices sound close and have tremendous presence, and interesting manipulation is sometimes done with the acoustics, including adding reverberation. This would be a most effective demonstration of the many advantages of hi-res surround sound for music. It even has a built-in A/B comparison, since there is a note on the jewel box that due to space limitations three of the tracks are just in stereo instead of multichannel. The voices have much more realism and transparency in even the stereo SACD mix than than the standard stereo CD option, but the multichannel version is truly a sonically involving experience. For more information: www.dissonanceresolved.com
Tracks: God is Sufficient, We Cry Tears, Ya-Baha, My God My Adored One, Gholl Allah u Yakfi, God is Sufficient, The CAll of Ya Baha u l-Abha, The Greatest Name, Lord of All, HWP #11, God is Sufficient, Persian Chant, Prairie, Unity Prayer, Praise Medley, Questions, God is Sufficient.
- John Sunier
This would be best described as a gospel album, but though at least one of the 17 tracks comes close to that genre, the others run the gamut thru just about every style you could name. The composers and performers recorded the disc as their offering to Bahá’ u ‘lláh, the founder of the Bahai faith. He taught that there is one God, all religions come from the same divine source, and all the world’s people are members of one family. The amazing variety of musical styles heard from these singers and instrumentalists supports the idea of all cultures being part of one huge family. There are African-sounding and East Indian chants, jazzy vocals, hymn-like choruses, New Age vocals, tunes that sound like they came from a Broadway musical, and even rap. Several have narration over the music and some are sung in Persian. One sonically gorgeous track is entirely played on handbells and no vocals. Others accent multiple drummers, flute, strings, guitar, trumpet and keyboards.
That brings up the primary attraction of this disc for audiophiles: it’s probably the most dramatic and involving choral album I have ever heard in surround sound! The entire 360-degree soundfield is used, with voices or instruments in the surrounds answering others in the frontal speakers and even some spinning around. The voices sound close and have tremendous presence, and interesting manipulation is sometimes done with the acoustics, including adding reverberation. This would be a most effective demonstration of the many advantages of hi-res surround sound for music. It even has a built-in A/B comparison, since there is a note on the jewel box that due to space limitations three of the tracks are just in stereo instead of multichannel. The voices have much more realism and transparency in even the stereo SACD mix than than the standard stereo CD option, but the multichannel version is truly a sonically involving experience. For more information: www.dissonanceresolved.com
Tracks: God is Sufficient, We Cry Tears, Ya-Baha, My God My Adored One, Gholl Allah u Yakfi, God is Sufficient, The CAll of Ya Baha u l-Abha, The Greatest Name, Lord of All, HWP #11, God is Sufficient, Persian Chant, Prairie, Unity Prayer, Praise Medley, Questions, God is Sufficient.
- John Sunier
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