OUR TOP HI-RES STREAMING PICKS
Gems to sample via music-streaming giant Tidal
Having launched its partnership with MQA a number of years ago, music streaming service Tidal now has thousands of hi-res albums available to stream through its Android and IOS apps, compatible hi-fi components (either natively or via Tidal Connect) and software platforms like Roon. That means subscribers to the service’s top tier, Tidal Hifi, can hear music in its intended glory wherever they may be. Apple Music, Amazon Music HD and Qobuz also offer hi-res streaming, of course, but Tidal is one of the most established services, one of the best-sounding and, for that matter, priciest too.
The number of hi-res albums on Tidal is always on the rise, but we’ve selected some of our favourites to get you started and prove just what Tidal Masters (and hi-res streaming, generally) is capable of.
NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS THE ROAD
While we mourn the fact that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s triumphant 2021 Carnage album has not been released as a Tidal Master, we find consolation in the fact that one of their previous collaborative efforts, the soundtrack to John Hillcoat’s The Road, has. An achingly beautiful yet suitably sombre accompaniment to the 2009 post-apocalyptic drama, where Ellis’s wistful violins and Cave’s low piano create an ambience that’s captivating and, despite the film’s theme, never bleak.
ST VINCENT DADDY’S HOME
Inspired by the release from prison of Annie Clark’s father and also a gushing love letter to ’70s rock’n’roll, Daddy’s Home is a stomping follow-up to the band’s acclaimed 2017 album Masseduction – a family affair full of groove, funk and personality that deserves to be heard with all its punch and sparkle intact.
NINA SIMONE THE MONTREUX YEARS
A Nina Simone fan must-have, The Montreux Years is a newly released, career-spanning collection of recordings from her five legendary Montreux Jazz Festival concerts, from the first time she ever took the stage in the summer of 1968 to the last time 22 years later, and of course including her legendary 1976 appearance, widely regarded as the festival’s best ever. It’s a beautifully edited collection and the audio quality is truly excellent. What’s more, from track 16 onwards, we get to hear the debut show in its entirety for the first time ever.
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON ORPHÉE
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 passing in 2018. At times hauntingly melancholic, its marriage of orchestral movements and light-handed electronics is permanently beautiful.
TALKING HEADS SPEAKING IN TONGUES (DELUXE VERSION)
That you’ll find a number of Talking Heads records on Tidal Masters is undoubtedly one of the tier’s fortes as far as we’re concerned. Speaking In Tongues makes most of the higher resolution with its idiosyncratic grooves and playful instrumentation, not to mention two of the band’s finest moments in Burning Down The House and This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody).
KENDRICK LAMAR TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY
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 and laced with subtleties despite its often abrasive delivery; this is an album deserving of the deeper listening the master files facilitate.
IGGY POP LUST FOR LIFE
You won’t be lost for David Bowie’s work on Tidal Masters, but many of his 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 a path that is unmistakably his own.
NICK DRAKE PINK MOON
If the idea of this improved sound is to bring the artist closer to the listener, there can be few better examples of its importance than a suite as intimate as Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. As much as you can hear fingers shuffling between the strings of Drake’s guitar, it is said intimacy that here helps foster an even more tender relationship between the listener and the music.
MILES DAVIS TUTU
Tutu is admittedly not an entirely cohesive listen, but it is no less intriguing for it. Inescapably a product of the 1980s, its combination of synthesizers and drum machines that make a bed for Davis’s farreaching trumpet lines perhaps shouldn’t work, but they photograph a creative mind that simply refused to be limited by genre.