2011 Nguyên Lê - Songs of Freedom {ACT Music} [CD]

As a result, this isn't an album featuring standard cover versions. Instead, familiar melodies are introduced with great respect to pulsating new sound streams from all over the world ... - Nguyên Lê

 

 

Nguyên Lê takes the title of his latest album from one of his favourite songs of freedom: Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” sits alongside hits from Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton and the Beatles, whose “Eleanor Rigby” and “Come Together” frame the album - credit where credit’s due, these artists wrote some of the finest songs in recent memory. But Lê takes the liberty to unearth these icons of pop and rock history from their dust (or gold) covered depths and brings them to the present day and to the global village, with the help of his own formidable musical prowess as well as many exceptional guests from all over the world who provide support in his band.
Together with Lê, Illya Amar (marimba, vibraphone and electronics), Linley Marthe (electric bass) and Stéphane Galland (drums) form the dynamic basic framework of these transformations, continually pushing forwards rhythmically but remaining easy going and light. The singers Youn Sun Nah, Dhafer Youssef, David Linx, Ousman Danedjo, Himiko Paganotti, Julia Sarr and the percussionists Karim Ziad, Stephane and Prabhu Edouard, Hamid El Kasri and Keyvan Chemirani and the saxophonists David Binney and Chris Speed give each song their own personal stamp. Lê brilliantly arranges these musicians, placing them in suitable yet always surprising situations. On several occasions he converses with his guests, so to speak, with brief self-composed intros which offer the perfect introduction.
As a result, this isn’t an album featuring standard cover versions. Instead, familiar melodies are introduced with great respect to pulsating new sound streams from all over the world. “Music is like a bird. Once it has been released it will fly in any sky. The earth becomes rounder and rounder and invites all cultures to an exchange and to immerse themselves in one another. This leads to the freedom to make these songs one’s own: to still lovingly play the original melodies yet with the boldness of our own arrangements which celebrate the realm of imaginative power and fantasy,” says Nguyên Lê.
These poetic words are not too far-fetched, and this is undoubtedly proven on the album. Here we can hear how the soul of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” immerses totally harmoniously in Caribbean-Asiatic sound worlds, and how Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” rolls along not only Californian but also Indian, Japanese and French paths. Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” is also transformed in to a rousing whirlwind, with the band being led by the eternally and indisputably precise Youn Sun Nah who is here surprisingly rocky and irresistibly intense.
“Come Together” is therefore not simply the last track of the album, but represents what the album is about. With these 15 songs of freedom, Nguyên Lê impressively brings together a wide and previously unheard range of individuals and sounds from various different origins - West merges with East, North with South, great vocals with instrumental virtuosity and the melodic legacy of the past with the sound of the future

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 5. April 2011, 20:43
Nguyen Le / Songs of Freedom
Used drive  : Optiarc DVD RW AD-7260S   Adapter: 2  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
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Read offset correction                      : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 128 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : No
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TOC of the extracted CD
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        7  | 28:51.68 |  6:25.21 |    129893    |   158788
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        9  | 35:53.66 |  7:01.64 |    161541    |   193179
       10  | 42:55.55 |  5:18.39 |    193180    |   217068
       11  | 48:14.19 |  5:29.30 |    217069    |   241773
       12  | 53:43.49 |  4:46.06 |    241774    |   263229
       13  | 58:29.55 |  5:25.46 |    263230    |   287650
       14  | 63:55.26 |  0:43.19 |    287651    |   290894
       15  | 64:38.45 |  5:47.71 |    290895    |   316990
Track  1
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Track  2
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Track  3
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Track  7
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Track  8
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Track 10
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Track 11
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Track 12
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Track 13
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Track 14
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Track 15
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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
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End of status report

REM GENRE Fusion
REM DATE 2011
REM DISCID E510820F
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4"
PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
TITLE "Songs of Freedom"
FILE "01 - Eleanor Rigby.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Eleanor Rigby"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "I Wish"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 07:02:64
FILE "02 - I Wish.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Ben Zeppelin"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 05:45:52
FILE "03 - Ben Zeppelin.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "04 - Black Dog.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Black Dog"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "Pastime Paradise"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 06:20:55
FILE "05 - Pastime Paradise.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
    TITLE "Uncle Ho's Benz"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 08:01:73
FILE "06 - Uncle Ho's Benz.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "07 - Mercedes Benz.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    TITLE "Mercedes Benz"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
    TITLE "Over the Rainforest"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 06:23:22
FILE "08 - Over the Rainforest.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "09 - Move Over.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
    TITLE "Move Over"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
    TITLE "Whole Lotta Love"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 06:59:65
FILE "10 - Whole Lotta Love.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 11 AUDIO
    TITLE "Redemption Song"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 05:15:40
FILE "11 - Redemption Song.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 12 AUDIO
    TITLE "Sunshine of your Love"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 05:27:31
FILE "12 - Sunshine of your Love.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 13 AUDIO
    TITLE "In A Gadda Da Vida"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 04:44:07
FILE "13 - In A Gadda Da Vida.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 14 AUDIO
    TITLE "Topkapi"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 00 05:22:47
FILE "14 - Topkapi.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "15 - Come Together.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 15 AUDIO
    TITLE "Come Together"
    PERFORMER "Nguyen Le"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00