Jean-Michel Blais - II (2016)
Jean-Michel Blais - II (2016)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) | 00:27:27 | 128 Mb
Classical, Piano | Label: Arts & Crafts
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) | 00:27:27 | 128 Mb
Classical, Piano | Label: Arts & Crafts
Jean-Michel Blais is a 31 year-old pianist from Montreal, Canada. His enchanting instrumental compositions pair the melodic pop sensibilities of Amélie-era Yann Tiersen and Arts & Crafts alumni Chilly Gonzales with the breathtaking technical skill of classical minimalists like Philip Glass and Erik Satie.Tracklist:
I was recently playing Il, the debut album by classically trained Montreal pianist Jean-Michel Blais, in my office, and a co-worker stopped in her tracks. It sounded, she said, like I was playing piano, that the music was coming from all around, rather than just my two speakers. Listening to it at home, on headphones, I'd experienced a similar feeling; at times, I felt so immersed in the music, so surrounded, that I was compelled to glance over my shoulder. Though it's a minimalist work of art, Il is overwhelmingly present and alive.
There is just one instrument here, performed by one musician, but there's a world of sound at play on Il, which Blais recorded in his Montreal apartment using just a Zoom recorder: the speech of a child outside on the single-take, improvised opener "Hasselblad 4"; the click-and-whirr of the titular camera on that track and "Hasselblad 2" as a friend took photos (one of which would become Il's cover); a window shutting to block out the sound of rain on the gorgeous epic "Casa"; a bird singing at the end of "Rondo majeur"; Blais' intakes of breath and the gentle tok of the piano's pedals throughout.
It all contributes to a sense of immediacy. Il is minimalist piano for a living, breathing city, for walking in the rain, for sun pouring through curtains. Blais purposely avoided recording it in a church because he says he "realized the songs don't belong to that kind of space."
The only song here that intentionally features more than just a piano is lead single "Nostos," which comprises two disparate piano parts that Blais' friend and electronic musician Bufflo sutured together with an ambient middle, and it's the one track that warrants comparisons some have made between Blais and Nils Frahm. Elsewhere, the improvised, off-kilter melodic beauty of "Hasselblad 4" and "Hasselblad 2" evoke Erik Satie's best, while the playful "Dada" recalls Chilly Gonzales' and Yann Tiersen's best work.
Don't let these comparisons fool you, though. Blais maintains a strong sense of originality and personality on Il — a hard thing to do on an instrument that's over 300 years old — by mixing a number of styles into his own strongly emotive sound that's never overly cheery or melancholy, but still suits both moods perfectly. Simply put, Il is a masterpiece. (Arts & Crafts)
1 Hasselblad 4 (Improvisation)
2 il
3 Dada
4 Nostos
5 Hasselblad 2 (Improvisation)
6 Budapest
7 Casa
8 Rondo majeur (3 mains)
Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011
EAC extraction logfile from 5. April 2016, 18:31
Jean-Michel Blais / Il
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD+-RW GH30N Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 102
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 : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 1:51.43 | 0 | 8367
2 | 1:51.43 | 2:05.57 | 8368 | 17799
3 | 3:57.25 | 2:40.04 | 17800 | 29803
4 | 6:37.29 | 4:31.56 | 29804 | 50184
5 | 11:09.10 | 0:58.45 | 50185 | 54579
6 | 12:07.55 | 3:50.61 | 54580 | 71890
7 | 15:58.41 | 7:47.00 | 71891 | 106915
8 | 23:45.41 | 3:41.65 | 106916 | 123555
Track 1
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\01 Hasselblad 4 (Improvisation).wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 88.9 %
Extraction speed 1.0 X
Track quality 99.9 %
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Track 2
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\02 il.wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 3
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\03 Dada.wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 4
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\04 Nostos (feat. Bufflo).wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 1.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 5
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\05 Hasselblad 2 (Improvisation).wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 6
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\06 Budapest.wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 7
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\07 Casa.wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 8
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\08 Ronda Majeur (3 Mains).wav
Peak level 89.3 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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End of status report
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[CTDB TOCID: qVHLjOAFRf_u23KqwISfTFy29Hk-] disk not present in database
==== Log checksum 103DB9DBD4232589919867FAFC4190BB39B63CF8EA178768813000FB79A9FDDC ====
EAC extraction logfile from 5. April 2016, 18:31
Jean-Michel Blais / Il
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD+-RW GH30N Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 102
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 : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 1:51.43 | 0 | 8367
2 | 1:51.43 | 2:05.57 | 8368 | 17799
3 | 3:57.25 | 2:40.04 | 17800 | 29803
4 | 6:37.29 | 4:31.56 | 29804 | 50184
5 | 11:09.10 | 0:58.45 | 50185 | 54579
6 | 12:07.55 | 3:50.61 | 54580 | 71890
7 | 15:58.41 | 7:47.00 | 71891 | 106915
8 | 23:45.41 | 3:41.65 | 106916 | 123555
Track 1
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\01 Hasselblad 4 (Improvisation).wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 88.9 %
Extraction speed 1.0 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC BC737D7B
Copy CRC BC737D7B
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\02 il.wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track not present in AccurateRip database
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Track 3
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\03 Dada.wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D961A72E
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Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\04 Nostos (feat. Bufflo).wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 1.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track not present in AccurateRip database
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Track 5
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\05 Hasselblad 2 (Improvisation).wav
Peak level 89.2 %
Extraction speed 1.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 6
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\06 Budapest.wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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Track 7
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\07 Casa.wav
Peak level 89.6 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 44C2CA5F
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Track not present in AccurateRip database
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Track 8
Filename C:\EAC Rips\Jean-Michel Blais - Il [FLAC]\08 Ronda Majeur (3 Mains).wav
Peak level 89.3 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.3
[CTDB TOCID: qVHLjOAFRf_u23KqwISfTFy29Hk-] disk not present in database
==== Log checksum 103DB9DBD4232589919867FAFC4190BB39B63CF8EA178768813000FB79A9FDDC ====
Thanks to the Original ripper TacticalSanta !