apologies for my constant fixation on chinese-language albums, instead of english-language ones. you are welcome to recommend to us good english-language cds that you have come across lately, especially those with interesting music and good recording. readers should know by now that i am foremost a music lover who happens to be an audiophile. i seldom listen to audiophile-approved cds like those from labels like stockfishe (spelling), FIM, premium etc etc. and i absolutely hate test cds :-)

if you have read my recommended cd in av xpress inaugural issue, you would have known who cheer chen is by now.

i have said it many times in this blog - that taiwanese recording engineers are world-class and many albums i bought in the last two years boast of first-class recording. it is clear to me that many taiwanese musicians and recording engineers are definitely audiophiles and they are willing to engage the best people in the industry to do recording and mastering for them. cheer's album in my review last time was mastered by the mastering legend doug sax from the mastering lab. for this live album, they have now engaged bernie grundman, the grammy award-winning mastering guru from USA. and he has done a wonderful job.

i tell you, this live concert is gorgeously captured. plenty of air, deep and wide stage, excellent ambience and crystal clear voice from cheer chen. i would even rate it higher than live recordings from james blunt and jacky cheung's charity concert (2005), two of my favourite live recordings in recent years.

if you love cheer's music like i do, then you can't afford to miss this album. if you like chinese music and haven't listened to cheer chen yet, then this is the perfect way to get into her music. her live performance is flawless. what's more, the recording is sumptuous as well.

what a bliss.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely loved the Jacky Cheung concert 2005 CD as well. The song are indeed wonderful.

In fact I felt some of Jacky's renditions even bettered the originals!

maggielurva 愛美姬 said...

i like the double-cd as well!

yeah, jacky sings better than the original singers in some songs... there were moments where he forgot his lyrics, did you detect that? ;-)

Anonymous said...

I did not spot that he had forgotten lyrics, but he did confess to doing so in the concert.

I am not well versed in chinese, especially mandarin, but can still enjoy chinese songs fortunately.

Will your first CD project for So Music be english based or chinese?

Either way, I am looking forward to it!

maggielurva 愛美姬 said...

chinese music (especially mandarin pop) has beautiful melody, tho' it doesn't have the variety of western pop. i am glad you do appreciate it. then you would love all those chinese albums i recommended here :-)

so music will concentrate in mandarin pop market for a start. depending on the response, we may do cantopop later. it is not likely that we will do western pop due to the fierce competition.

Anonymous said...

i've got an extra double alb for sale, it's acq'd form yesasia

contact 0162166066, if interested