|
|
|
2 Tone
Shuta Hasunuma & U-Zhaan
Composer/multimedia artist Shuta Hasunuma regularly incorporates environmental and found sounds into his music, which in turn he often incorporates into his art installations and sculptures. For this album he teams up with electronic artist U-zhaan and some startlingly A-list vocalists (Arto Lindsay, Devendra Banhart) and even with famed pop and soundtrack composer Ryuichi Sakamoto to create a crazy quilt of softly bizarre but completely lovely pieces of experimental groove music. A tabla player is featured prominently (the press materials provide no musician credits, so I can’t tell you much more than that), and the rhythms are frequently deeply complex even as the overall mood remains gentle and soft. -- Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
For Glenn Gould
Stewart Goodyear
Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear here pays tribute to one of his heroes, the legendarily idiosyncratic Glenn Gould. For this disc Goodyear plays the same program that Gould played for his American debut: a weird-looking but actually deeply logical assortment of works by Gibbons, Sweelinck, Bach, Brahms, and Berg. This program allowed Gould to express both his deep love of counterpoint and polyphony, and the streak of Romanticism that always ran just beneath his sometimes dry-sounding articulation. Goodyear’s tribute to Gould is loving but not slavish, and brings new light and insight to this strange but wonderful recital program. -- Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
John Coltrane
Years of canonization have obscured how John Coltrane was at a bit of crossroads in the early '60s, playing increasingly adventurous music on-stage while acquiescing to Impulse!'s desire to record marketable albums. Whenever he could, producer Bob Thiele would capture Coltrane working out new music with pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bassist Jimmy Garrison. One of these sessions happened at Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio on March 6, 1963, when Coltrane's quartet was in the thick of a residency at New York's Birdland and just before they were scheduled to cut an album with vocalist Johnny Hartman. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman appeared in record stores in July 1963, but apart from "Vilia," which popped up on an Impulse! sampler in 1965, the March 6 session sat on the shelf for decades, eventually getting ditched when the label decided to clear out its vaults in the 1970s. Coltrane's reference tape survived, eventually unearthed by his family and assembled for release as Both Directions at Once by Impulse! in 2018. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com
|
|
|
Vivanco: Missa Assumpsit Jesus
De Profundis
Here is an utterly gorgeous disc of choral music by a relatively unknown master of Spanish polyphony. Sebastián de Vivanco was born in Ávila sometime in the mid-16th century and started his career as a boy chorister in the cathedral there. His career eventually took him to several different cities around Spain, and three large collections of his work survive today. The Mass performed here is based on Vivanco’s own motet Assumpsit Jesus Petrum, and it’s presented along with several other motets as well; the program closes with a magisterial Magnificatsetting. De Profundis is an all-male choir without trebles, but their sound is rich and full despite the lack of voices above the alto range. Beautiful music, beautifully sung. -- Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
Awase
Nik Bartsch's Ronin
Pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch has been leading this boundary-busting quartet (originally a quintet) for about 16 years now, and the group’s work continues to surprise and delight. It now consists of Bärtsch on piano, bassist Thomy Jordi, drummer Kaspar Rast, and bass clarinetist/alto saxophonist Sha, and while the group’s instrumental configuration may seem to place it more or less within the jazz mainstream, the music they play most certainly does not. You’ll rarely, if ever, hear any kind of verse/solos/verse structure in these compositions; instead, they evolve in ways that make it unclear where strict composition ends and improvisation begins. At times you’ll hear echoes of Steve Reich or King Crimson (notice the interlocking odd-time passages throughout “Modul 58,” for example), but mostly what you hear is instantly recognizable as Bärtsch and only Bärtsch. Sometimes hypnotizing, often funky, and sometimes brilliantly disorienting, this is utterly unique and deeply beautiful music. - Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
Heaven and Earth
Kamasi Washington
.. Heaven and Earth is more a refinement of the ideas expressed on The Epicthan an entirely new paradigm. There is less wandering, more focus, more inquiry and directed movement, as well as an abundance of colorful tonal and harmonic contrasts. More than anything else, it establishes Washington as a composer and arranger of dizzying potential and still underscores his twin rep as a soloist and jazz conceptualist. - Thom Jurek, AllMusic.com
|
|
|
Tenebrae Responsories
Stile Antico
I await a new release from stile antico the way a seven-year-old awaits Christmas. And so far, I’ve never been disappointed. The group’s latest was released, appropriately enough, around Eastertide: it features the Responses for Holy Week by the greatest composer of the Spanish Renaissance, Tomás Luis de Victoria. These pieces are generally considered to be among Victoria’s finest achievements, and recordings of them are not exactly rare, so what justifies yet another? The unparalleled richness of stile antico’s blend, their flawless intonation, and their unsurpassed ability to balance intensity and inwardness, that’s what. Over the past ten years this group has emerged as the supreme exponent of the Oxbridge sound, and every one of their recordings belongs in every library that collects classical music. - Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
Dan + Shay
It's not quite right to say Dan + Shay play it safe on Dan + Shay, their third album, because they're looking to sustain the success they had with 2014's Where It All Began and 2016's Obsessed. Playing it safe has been central to Dan + Shay's identity since "19 You + Me" climbed its way up the charts in 2013. Arriving at the peak of party-hearty bro-country, Where It All Began adhered to traditional country-pop values: the surfaces were sleek and glossy and the focus was entirely on the softly insistent melodies, which were delivered by Dan + Shay without flair. Four years later, the duo haven't changed their modus operandi, nor have they freshened it much. Largely ignoring the wave of R&B sweeping through modern country -- "What Keeps You Up at Night" has a touch of Southern-fried soul, but it's a throwback to the '60s; "No Such Thing" contains a light rhythm loop, along with allusions to sipping gin and juice -- Dan + Shay is another collection of music that's designed to comfort, not provoke. The duo are so sweet and light they can make Rascal Flatts seem like rowdy renegades, but that's the entire reason for Dan + Shay's being: they're making music designed to be the background for every everyday occasion, whether it's a wedding ("Speechless") or whiling away the hours in a waiting room (pretty much the rest of the album). Dan + Shay may not be much more than aural wallpaper but that's all it's intended to be and, on that level, it's well executed: it's so slick and smooth, it doesn't make a single wave. -Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic.com
|
|
|
Rough Guide to Ravi Shankar
With a recent focus on Indian music taking a foothold on the Rough Guide series, it was only fitting that the grand ambassador of Hindusthani music would get a retrospective of his own. Taking a somewhat surprising turn here, the compilers have stuck with a number of relative rarities highlighting periods of Ravi's career, but not highlighting the more noteworthy performances and collaborations. The album opens with "Kathakali Katthak," a 1989 composition for a theater troupe. Moving on, "Transmigration" hails from the British film Voila, and a rendition of "Mishra Piloo" pairs Shankar with his premier tabla compatriot, Alla Rakha, for an extended, ponderous work. Two dhuns hold the middle of the album, with "Dun Man Pasand" paying tribute to the city of Paris and "Devgiri Bilawal" allows some of Ravi's trademark high-speed runs. "Reflection" comes from the film Transmigration Macabre, and somewhat obviously has a reflective atmosphere, with somewhat unusual rhythmic structures filling out the mood but keeping the whole a bit off-center. "Raga Patdeep" is mixed with a high-speed gat in "Sitarkhani Taal" for another of the signature displays of virtuosity that help to display why Ravi is an undisputed master of the instrument. Dropping Shankar oddly enough on a Shankar compilation, there's a short tabla solo from Zakir Hussain (Alla Rakha's virtuoso son and common accompanist for Shankar as well) from the Concert for Peace, and the album ends on an exceptional working of "Raga Bilashkani Todi" with Ali Akbar Khan on sarod, the two masters playing with some give-and-take as well as working together beautifully. The most notable highlights of Shankar's career aren't here themselves (the East Meets West with Yehudi Menuhin, the London and New York concerts, the San Francisco performances...), but representatives of those eras are present, as are some exceptional, though little heard, pieces from his extensive work with the film industry. There are certainly other worthwhile Ravi Shankar compilations out there, but this one falls in near the top as well, making an excellent starting point for those looking to just get a taste of the master's abilities before delving deeper into the catalogs. - Adam Greenberg, AllMusic.com
|
|
|
Out of the Blues
Boz Scaggs
The self-produced 2018 release finds Boz Scaggs utilizing his iconic voice and guitar skills to a set of classics and four originals. The legendary singer-songwriter and guitarist gathered an all-star studio band. - MidWest Tape
|
|
|
Hills and Home
The High Fidelity
I’m on the record as being against musical purism as an ideology. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with great music that happens to be purist. Consider this album by the young and thrillingly virtuosic High Fidelity band, who look like a bunch of Mormon missionaries and sound like earthbound angels. Named for the annotation often seen on classic bluegrass albums of the 1950s and 1960s, these guys are unapologetic revivalists, drawing on the lesser-known repertoire of artists like the Louvin Brothers, Reno & Smiley, and Jim & Jesse McReynolds. They have a particular affection for gospel songs and deliver them beautifully (note in particular the tight harmony singing on “I’ve Changed My Mind”), but they are also incredibly hot pickers (note in particular the twin-banjo Reno-style workout “Follow the Leader”). Having worked individually with an impressive roster of A-list bluegrass artists, these guys are now something of a trad-bluegrass supergroup, and are clearly poised to make a big noise. It’s going to be fun to watch and listen. - Rick Anderson, CD HotList
|
|
|
Introduction To
Gordon Lightfoot
One of the leading singer/songwriters of the 1960s and '70s, Gordon Lightfoot was Canada's most successful contemporary folk artist, establishing himself as an important songwriter in the mid-'60s and going on to become a major international recording star in the following decade. Lightfoot's songs are literate but down to earth, and deal with personal matters as well as global issues in a manner that's poetic yet accessible. - MidWest Tape
|
|
|
Bach: Six Evolutions / Cello Suites
Yo-Yo Ma
Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of Yo-Yo Ma's new album Six Evolutions Bach Cello Suites, his third and final recording of these works. Bach and his Cellos Suites entered Yo-Yo Ma s life when he was four, when he learned the first measure of the Prélude to Suite No. 1 under his father s instruction. Ma has never lost his initial fascination. "Bach's Cello Suites have been my constant musical companions," Ma writes of the music. "For almost six decades, they have given me sustenance, comfort and joy during times of stress, celebration and loss. What power does this music possess that even today, after three hundred years, it continues to help us navigate through troubled times?" Ma is more convinced than ever of the suites ability to create shared meaning that extends far beyond the here and now. The suites collective vision at once divergent and coherent, empathic and objective reminds us of all that connects us despite an increasingly discordant public conversation. The August release of Six Evolutions also signals the beginning of a two-year, six-continent journey in which Yo-Yo Ma will devote himself to Bach s music, playing all six Cello Suites in a single setting in familiar and unlikely locations. Six Evolutions Bach: Cello Suites will not only offer an essential encapsulation of what this music means now to one of the world's most celebrated artists, it begins a new chapter in the cellist's 58-year relationship with this music. -Amazon.com
|
|
Freegal MusicGet three free mp3 downloads per week and listen to 3 hours of streaming per day with your library card. Available via the Freegal Music app or the Freegal website.
|
hooplaSet-up a hoopla account with your library card to use the hoopla app and website to stream music. You can borrow full albums for one week, up to five per month.
|
|
Mercer County Library System 2751 Brunswick Pike Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 Phone: (609) 989-6922 E-mail: nrsupprt@mcl.org |
|
|