The best hi-res albums on Tidal Masters

Our pick of the releases that benefit the most from being heard on the uncompressed streaming format

Orphée

Jóhann Jóhannsson

Jóhann Jóhannsson is a composer who almost alone could prove the necessity of hearing recorded music at master quality. Orphée is the final solo album released before the Icelandic musician’s sudden death last year; at times hauntingly melancholic, its marriage of orchestral movements and light-handed electronics is permanently beautiful.

Power, Corruption And Lies New Order

Power, Corruption and Lies

was arguably the record that defined New Order as being a band apart from Joy Division. Its use of synthesizers is far broader than on Movement, its predecessor, but still intelligently intertwined with guitars and acoustic percussion for a sound that is at once texturally dense and refreshingly spacious.

To Pimp A Butterfly Kendrick Lamar

Few hip-hop albums have influences so sprawling as

To Pimp A Butterfly. From dub to free-form jazz, the backdrop to Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus is ever-changing, texturally complex and laced with subtleties despite its often abrasive delivery; this is an album deserving of the deeper listening that the master files facilitate.

Lust For Life Iggy Pop

Many of David Bowie’s finest hours were spent the other side of the mixing desk – including on this, his second production credit for Iggy Pop. Songs such as the title track and The Passenger made this Iggy’s most commercially successful album to date, and Lust For

Life retains the garage rock aesthetic of The Stooges while treading its own path.

It Won/t Be Like This All The Time

The Twilight Sad

The Twilight Sad have never been shy of making a racket, and, despite its peppering of ’80s-infused synth lines, It Won/t Be Like

This All The Time still revels in the kind of noise and cavernous reverb it’s difficult to bend your mind around with a compressed reproduction; the added insight here is invaluable.