CLASSICAL
Franz Schubert
Extemporize
Shuann Chai
Cobra
0091
I’m always excited to hear a new performance of Schubert on the fortepiano, because Schubert’s music is such a great test case for the arguments in favor of historical-instrument recordings. It’s always seemed to me that if you hear a modern piano being pushed to its expressive limits in a performance of Schubert, chances are good that the performer is playing in a mannered or exaggerated way. Not so for the fortepiano, which has a more limited dynamic range and a very different timbre and tonality; when a Schubert performer takes the fortepiano to its limits, she is illustrating what Schubert was up against in the early 19th century, and demonstrating how he managed those limits. None of this is to say that the fortepiano is the only “right” instrument for Schubert, just that it’s an instrument that can bring a particular kind of insight to his music. Of course, none of this works unless the right person is playing — and Shuann Chai is exactly the right person. She plays this program of eight impromptus (opp. 90 and 142) with obvious joy, and also with powerful stylistic insight.
Various Composers
Invocazioni Mariane
Andreas Scholl; Accademia Bizantina / Alessandro Tampieri
Naïve
V 5474
Not too long ago I was asking myself “Hey, I haven’t heard anything from Andreas Scholl lately,” which made me sad — I think he’s possibly the most exciting countertenor of his generation. Then this disc arrived, much to my delight. It showcases a program of Neapolitan music from the 18th century, featuring composers both famous (Pergolesi, Vivaldi) and much less so (Pasquale Anfossi, Leonardo Vinci). The unifying theme here is the anguish of Mary incident to Christ’s crucifixion, and there is a mix of instrumental music (an overture by Nicola Porpora, a violin concerto by Vivaldi), oratorio extracts from Leonardo Vinci, and a culminating performance of Vivaldi’s electrifying setting of the “Stabat Mater” text. The playing by Alessandro Tampieri and the Accademia Bizantina is magnificent, and sumptuously recorded — but holy cow, Scholl is absolutely at the peak of his powers here. His voice achieves that truly elusive sweet spot for countertenors: it’s rich and weighty like a good contralto, but when deployed at the top of his range it turns as light and agile as a bird. Strongly recommended to all libraries.
George de la Hèle
Missa Praeter rerum seriem & Works by Manchicourt, Payen & Rogier
El León de Oro / Peter Phillips; Marco Antonio García de Paz
Hyperion (dist. Integral)
CDA68439
I have not been able to stop listening to this album since I received a promotional download a few weeks ago. The concept behind it is an exploration of the work of several Franco-Flemish composers who were hired in the late 16th century by King Philip II of Spain and subsequently worked in his Capella Flamenca (built for this purpose) providing sacred music to meet his exacting standards. The centerpiece of this album is a parody Mass by the obscure composer George de la Hèle, in its first complete recording. Based on a motet by Josquin des Prez, this setting adapts the unusual rhythmic gestures and voice distribution found in the original motet to create something truly unique and beautiful in its beauty and solemnity. Motets by Philippe Rogier, Pierre de Manchicourt, and (probably) the little-known Nicolas Payen round out a lustrous but somber program. As always, the singing by the mixed-voice El León de Oro choir is luminous.
Various Composers
The King’s Playlist
Ensemble Molière
Linn (dist. Naxos)
CKD738
The title may seem a bit cutesy, but it’s actually quite apt: the music on this program, which includes chamber works by the likes of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel-Richard Delalande, Jean de Cambefort, and Marin Marais, was written (as the liner notes indicate) “to accompany Louis XIV, the Sun King, in his daily life.” Just as you or I might go about our daily duties with music playing through earbuds, French royalty in the baroque era had court musicians to provide a soundtrack to both private relaxation and public ceremonies. Here the five-piece Ensemble Molière provides a lovely selection of concert suites and opera and ballet overtures, all played with the lightness and elegance that royal tastes of the time demanded; I can’t say enough about the group’s tone and blend, and even if some of the works here are relatively familiar (Marais’ Pièces en trio, the overture from Charpentier’s Les Art Florissants, etc.) there are also a couple of delightful surprises — and the program as a whole hangs together beautifully.
Various Composers
Heretical Angels: Rituals of Medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dialogos; Kantaduri / Katarina Livljanić; Joško Ćaleta
Arcana (dist. Naxos)
A560
This is a weird, eerie, and really quite wonderful collection of music that was inspired by “mystical inscriptions on ancient Bosnian tombstones.” Having been inspired by these inscriptions, Katarina Livljanić, director of the Dialogos ensemble, conducted research into Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian manuscript archives in which she found “remnants of pagan beliefs… often infused into the Christian context.” A particularly fruitful source turned out to be the 15th-century Miscellany of Radoslav, a collection from which several of the works featured on this album were taken. Some of the music itself is reconstructed from these sources, and some is interpolated from folk traditions or seems to have been created specifically for this project. What does the music sound like? Unsurprisingly, it’s spare and dark, sometimes featuring solo voices, sometimes folk instruments, and sometimes multiple voices in astringent harmony. There will be elements here that sound familiar to those immersed in Eastern Orthodox liturgical music and to those who have spent time with Eastern European folksong, but I promise this album overall will sound like nothing you’ve heard before.
JAZZ
Noah Haidu
Standards II
Sunnyside
SSC 1739
Put the word “standards” in the title of your jazz album and you have a better-than-average chance of inducing me to listen — especially if it’s your second standards album after a beautifully successful first installment. And that brings us, of course, to pianist Noah Haidu and his all-star trio (bassist Buster Williams, drummer Billy Hart). The program opens with an arrhythmic, apparently mostly improvised rendition of “Over the Rainbow” that most listeners will have to strain to recognize until the last few minutes (it’s over ten minutes long), and then segues into an exquisitely tender and searching performance of “Someone to Watch Over Me.” “Up Jumped Spring” starts out in an arrangement much like that of “Over the Rainbow,” but then lapses into a gently swinging waltz; “Days of Wine and Roses” swings powerfully but restrainedly. Overall, this is a truly special album that should find a welcome home in any library’s jazz collection.
Yosef Gutman Levitt
The World and Its People
Soul Song
No cat. no.
For a couple of years now I’ve been following the work of bassist/composer Yosef Gutman Levitt, whose recent projects have involved collaborating with musicians from various regions and also creating new arrangements of traditional Hasidic melodies. His latest is recognizable as a Levitt project, but also sounds very different from his previous work. At certain moments it sounds like contemporary classical music, and at others it flirts with jazziness — but then there are tracks (like “Nigun Tzemach Tzedek”) that strongly evoke 1980s New Acoustic Music. The latter can be explained by the influence of The Goat Rodeo Sessions, a newgrass project that had such an impact on Levitt that he recruited its producer, Richard King, to mix The World and Its People. The result is a deeply sweet and slightly melancholy set of tunes, underneath which a radiant joy shines warmly through. A passing or casual listener might hear the light textures and often-pentatonic melodies and dismiss this as New Age music. That would be a big mistake. There is a depth and a beauty to these compositions and these performances that rewards close and careful listening.
Mostly Other People Do the Killing
Disasters Vol. 1 (vinyl & digital only)
Hot Cup
201
Advancing on a Wild Pitch
Disasters Vol. 2 (vinyl & digital only)
Hot Cup
231
The adorably named Mostly Other People Do the Killing is a puckish avant-jazz ensemble led by bassist/composer Moppa Elliott. Over the years the group, in various configurations, has made some of the most challenging but also most charming and interesting albums in contemporary jazz, and this pair of new releases on Elliott’s Hot Cup label is no exception. As their titles suggest, both are concept albums. Disasters Vol. 1 finds a piano-trio version of MODtK performing a set of Elliott originals united around the idea of natural and man-made disasters that have taken place over the years in various Pennsylvania towns. The tunes are written in a pretty straightforward way, but in performance are subjected to various improvised interventions that sometimes radically undermine their structure. Disasters Vol. 2 is performed by an Elliott-led quintet operating under the name Advancing on a Wild Pitch. For this album the unifying concept remains the same, but the vibe is very different: the quintet configuration and the group’s playing style are very conventional and explicitly evoke the classic cool and hard-bop combos of the late 1950s and early 1960s. If you didn’t know the theme was disasters, you’d think you were just listening to an exceptionally fine straight-ahead jazz album. Both are strongly recommended to libraries supporting jazz curricula.
Sam Wilson
Wintertides
Self-released
No cat. no.
This is one of those discs that I keep cuing up while I’m doing my work, and then hitting <play> again as soon as it ends. It’s a highly unusual jazz album, and one that departs from most jazz conventions in significant ways, but that never seems to get old in the listening. Guitarist/composer Wilson composed and performed this music while dealing with some significant personal challenges and in the middle of the COVID pandemic; working with bassist Geordie Hart and drummer Jen Yakamovich, Wilson based her tunes on ideas generated by long walks on Galliano Island, just off of Canada’s west coast. The music doesn’t follow (at least not obviously) the standard head-solos-outchorus format of conventional jazz structure, and the performances feel paradoxically both carefully composed and freely improvised. I don’t know how to explain that; it’s worth listening carefully just to try to figure out how she does it. The playing is quiet and gentle throughout, but also emotionally searching. I found myself thinking of both Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny at their best — though Wilson’s tone is very different from theirs, very much her own. Highly recommended to all libraries.
FOLK/COUNTRY
Chatham County Line
Hiyo
Yep Roc (dist. Redeye)
YEP-3090
The stylistic innovation at the heart of Chatham County Line’s sound is no longer really groundbreaking — they’ve been doing this for 20 years now. But sonically, it’s still comes as something of a surprise: the expansive song structure of “Right on Time”; the anthemic but nearly arrhythmic “Lone Ranger”; what I’m pretty sure is a synthesizer on “Magic.” Dare we call it… prog-grass? Obviously, it doesn’t really matter much whether there’s a good term for their sound — what matters is that Chatham County Line’s sound is thrilling, and that the band achieves that thrillingness by drawing deeply on the country and bluegrass verities and then applying them however the heck they want. Not since the Mavericks has a country-adjacent band so gleefully transgressed musical boundaries, and bless them for that. And then they give us a dreamy, impressionistic Hank Cochran cover. Heh.
Wynn Stewart
The Bakersfield Pioneer: Complete Releases 1954-1962 (compilation; 2 discs)
Acrobat (dist. MVD)
ADDCD3497
He may not be as famous as Buck Owens or, heaven knows, Merle Haggard (or Dwight Yoakam for that matter), but Wynn Stewart was arguably every bit as important as any of them to the development of the Bakersfield Sound. And definitely more important than Yoakam, who’s a genius, but more of a Bakersfield Sound exponent than an architect. This generous collection comprises most of the singles and album tracks Stewart released during a twelve-year period between the mid-1950s and early 1960s, and for those who (like me) knew his name but not much of his work, it’s a revelation. Stewart may not have had a backing band led by Don Rich, but it must be said that he was a better singer than Buck Owens — his voice is prettier, with less exaggerated twang and just a bit more chesty richness; honestly, if Owens and Jim Reeves had had a baby, it would probably have sung like Wynn Stewart. And the songs themselves are sweet and cheesy in just the right ways, with that great mid-century production sound.
Driftwood
December Last Call
Self-released
No cat. no.
It’s a little bit annoying for me when a band bills itself as “Americana,” because that tells me I’m going to have a hard time deciding whether its release belongs in the FOLK/COUNTRY or the ROCK/POP section. Prominent fiddles and/or steel guitars can help me make that decision; so can significantly distorted guitars. But it’s often a bit of a coin toss. Driftwood is one example of the latter: there’s no question about the band’s deep roots in country and electro-folk, but it’s also true that the organ-driven “Every Which Way but Loose” evokes Tom Petty more than John Prine, and that “Just a Kid” comes across a bit like an Eagles outtake. I mean both of those observations in an entirely positive way. “Up All Night Blues,” on the other hand, with its 12/8 sway, has a vibe a bit like a sea shanty crossed with a country love song, while “Here at Last” is a slow honky-tonk stomp that (in a rational world) would be on every country station’s playlist. Great album overall.
ROCK/POP
Bas Jan
Back to the Swamp
Fire
FIRECD713
Both the album title and the cover art might lead you to expect some messy, humid, Southern Louisiana boogie rock. But no — in fact, the latest from Bas Jan could hardly be further from that aesthetic. For one thing, this all-woman quartet hails from London; for another, they’re named after a Dutch conceptual artist who disappeared mysteriously at sea in the mid-1970s. So there’s that. With all of that information, you might have a better idea of what to expect: odd, experimental, but weirdly accessible post-punk art-rock. There’s a violin (my promo copy came with no liner notes, so I’m not sure whether it’s a bandmember or a guest), as well as sturdy beats, understated (but attractive) sing-speaking from bandleader Serafina Steer, and song titles like “Margaret Calvert Drives Out” and “Credit Card.” Longtime adepts of post-punk art-rock will hear echoes of Delta 5, the Raincoats, and even (if you listen carefully) Gang of Four. Dubwise atmospherics sneak in from time to time (check the title track) and the drums are sometimes a bit funky, but the music is generally low-key and almost contemplative.
Jlin
Akoma
Planet Mu (dist. Redeye)
ZIQ460
Jlin is one of those artists working in the shadowy borderlands between dance music and contemporary classical — borderlands that may be shadowy, but that at least exist now. (For a long time there wasn’t anything there at all.) While Jlin’s music continues to reflect her background in the footwork scene and often brings in elements of hip hop, dubstep, and trap, on Akoma you’ll find her collaborating with the Kronos Quartet (on the marvelous “Sodalite”) and with Björk (on the album-opening “Borealis”). Elsewhere, “Summon” sounds like an outtake from an orchestral horror-movie soundtrack, “Eye Am” brings a strong Muslimgauze vibe, and “Open Canvas” is a galloping house-derived entry with an off-kilter 6/8 interlude that feels like dubstep on speed. This is an outstanding record that would sound equally confusing in the club and in the concert hall. More power to her.
Adrian Sutherland
Precious Diamonds
Midnight Shine Music
No cat. no.
On his second solo album, Canadian singer-songwriter Adrian Sutherland pays explicit homage to his indigenous heritage, writing two songs entirely in the Cree language. The lyrics on his English-language songs also address issues specific to the social and political struggles of his people. In musical terms, his style is pretty much meat-and-potatoes roots rock — but roots-rock of the highest caliber, with bittersweet chord progressions, powerful hooks, and anthemic sing-along choruses. Sutherland’s singing is also well worth noting: his voice is rich and sweet, his intonation perfect, his delivery emotional but not strident. I keep looking for highlight tracks to mention, but every song is great; you could maybe start with the 1950s-flavored “Feeling of Love,” but “Notawe,” the album’s lead-off track, is actually probably the best point of entry. Highly recommended to all libraries.
Amanda Grace
Give Me Away (digital only)
Self-released
No cat. no.
This album was my introduction to the fine Minnesota singer-songwriter Amanda Grace, whose music draws on a variety of old- and new-school American influences and whose voice is an unalloyed joy. Her primary style is a sort of roots/Americana hybrid, but it’s not self-consciously old-timey; “Wouldn’t Be You” has a stomping, Tom Waits-style bluesiness, but is really more of a modern torch song that replaces smoldering sexuality with defiance; “Love Yourself” is a quiet piano ballad with a therapeutic lyrical orientation; “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” is a slow and shimmering take on the classic Frankie Valli hit (and may be the album’s only cover, though since the promo came with no liner notes I can’t be sure). But for me the highlight is “The Last Ones,” a tender but powerful anthem of encouragement and uplift. This is a wonderful album and is strongly recommended to all libraries.
Nabihah Iqbal
Dreamer
Ninja Tune
ZENCD288
I somehow slept on this album when it was released last year — what brought it belatedly to my attention was the announcement of a digital-only remix EP that just came out last month. So, first things first: Dreamer is a fantastic avant-dream-pop excursion, on which a sort of New-Order-meets-Cocteau-Twins synthpop style (note in particular the wonderful “This World Couldn’t See Us”) rubs up against house-derived dance tracks (“Sunflower,” “Sky River”), glistening acoustic folk-pop (“Lilac Twilight”), and shoegaze-y ambience (“A Tender Victory”). Sometimes she sings lyrics in a conventional style, but often her voice is mixed so far to the back that you can’t tell whether she’s singing words or just syllables — meaning that much of this music is functionally instrumental. All of it, however, is simply stunning. Iqbal’s particular skill is for taking familiar musical elements and combining them in ways you might never have anticipated, and putting them to work in delivering subtly but powerfully engaging songs. The remixes are a bit of a mixed bag, as remix collections always are, but all are worth hearing.
WORLD/ETHNIC
Farah Kaddour
Badā (vinyl & digital only)
Asadun Alay
AAR2
The buzuq is an Arabic stringed instrument closely related to the Greek bouzouki, the Turkish saz, and other members of the long-necked lute family used in various musical traditions of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Farah Kaddour is a Beirut-based instrumentalist, musicologist and educator, and she has a distinguished history playing in bands as disparate in style as Sanam (unclassifiable Middle Eastern folk-rock-industrial) and Mustafa Said’s Asīl Ensemble (contemporary classical Arabian). But on Badā she steps out as a soloist, accompanied minimally on two tracks by percussionist Ali El Hout. Most of the music here is improvised; some is precomposed, and one is a traditional tune given her own unique interpretation. Her virtuosity is obvious but not ostentatious; the modes and rhythms will sound familiar to anyone who has experience with music from this region, but there’s something very distinctive about her sound — her attack, her phrasing, her uses of repetition and variation are all uniquely her own, and every track is fascinating and intense.
Creation Rebel
High Above Harlesden: 1978-2023 (compilation; 5 discs)
On-U Sound (dist. Redeye)
ONUCD159
In 1978, the young Adrian Sherwood was in the process of transitioning from a record distributor to a record producer. He established the Hitrun label and organized a studio band that included percussionist Bono Iyabinghi Noah (who would go on to make gorgeously idiosyncratic records as African Head Charge), bassist Lizard Logan, and drummer Style Scott (soon to team up with Errol “Flabba” Holt to form the Roots Radics and, later, the bass/drums foundation of Dub Syndicate), and others. Under the name Creation Rebel, this loosely-configured ensemble would not only create brilliant backing tracks for such singers and deejays as Prince Far I and Bim Sherman, but would also become one of the UK’s most creative and innovative purveyors of instrumental dub reggae. This is the core of the band’s approach on such seminal releases as Starship Africa (basically a dub concept album) and Rebel Vibrations. Rhythms first featured on these albums would reappear later as backing tracks for a variety of vocal tunes and as the foundation of other dubwise excursions on the On-U Sound label. This box set, which also features the band’s outstanding 2023 return, Hostile Environment, is a bit short on bonus material to benefit longstanding fans, but is still a priceless document of a deeply important thread in the rich tapestry of reggae history.
Glass Beams
Mahal (EP; vinyl & digital only)
Ninja Tune
ZENDNLS667
This Melbourne-based trio cultivates an air of mystery by revealing little information about its members and by performing while wearing chain-mail-like masks. Their music is largely instrumental (voices emerge from time to time, but are generally used to convey melody or texture rather than lyrics), and it blends a standard guitar-bass-drums format with electronic treatments while also blending Eastern and Western melodies and rhythms. The group’s sparse output — this is their second EP, and comes three years after their first release, also an EP — belies its popularity; it regularly sells out venues in both the UK and the US. Listening to Mahal, you can see why. The music is hypnotically repetitive but never boring; melodies are repeated and varied, but never spun out into self-indulgently extended solos designed to impress the guitarists in the audience while boring everyone else. Textures are delicate but sturdy, intricate but never dense. Mahal is a completely unique and delightful listening experience.
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