In this year’s listening, the balance swung back from classical toward the popular a little again. In the non-classical arena, the focus for me is still on acoustic music, real instruments and warm, open production. The year has also been full of delighted rediscoveries and re-connections with ‘old friends.’ For instance—even though she doesn’t have a 2011 release—it’s clear to me now that I haven’t spent nearly enough time over the years listening to Laurie Anderson, who remains a singular creative talent and political voice in American music.

As before, I will limit my lists to records released in 2011. I won’t add re-releases that came out in 2011, though there were many (like U2′s Achtung Baby, or the Smiths box set).

Best new music – Popular, jazz, world, etc.

Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane: Finally, another Alison Krauss & Union Station album! Even though I liked her excursion with Robert Plant, it didn’t really ‘stick.’ Krauss’ clear soprano is still best framed by the inimitable “newgrass” sound of her original band of ace instrumentalists and harmony singers. Another impeccable collection of modern country songs wrapped in traditional dress, this is well worth owning and listening to repeatedly. There is something very wonderful and grounding about this band’s output—a world where such musicianship can exist cannot be all bad, despite what the news may suggest.

Amos Lee – Mission Bell: Amos Lee is a talented songwriter and, as a vocalist, sounds somewhat like the young Cat Stevens. This is his fourth solo album and constitutes a sort of emergence from under the yoke of having been typecast as a sort of Norah Jones alike in his early recording career. On Mission Bell, he teams up with the producer-musicians from the wonderful Calexico (a perennial favourite of mine in their own right, and competent instigators of making others sound cool on a number of different records, for example on the I’m Not There soundtrack). Mission Bell is well worth hearing and becomes more rewarding as you listen repeatedly.

Helge Lien Trio – Natsukashii: I haven’t written nearly enough about Norwegian jazz here. Every jazz musician in the country seems to have a unique, Nordic take on the genre. And while the roots of this trio are clearly somewhere between ECM’s spacious acoustic and the minimalist groove of E.S.T., the focus here shifts from having bebop as its base to something simpler, less technical, more emotionally resonant. Perhaps it’s a conscious further development of the moment when Keith Jarrett is said to have brought ‘folk’ elements into his solo improvisations, perhaps it’s the influence of Scandinavian mythology (or heavy metal?), but this trio sounds like the architect rock stars of what jazz will turn into eventually—and increasingly, this is the kind of talent jazz needs in order to continue to be a vital genre in the 21st century.

Iron and Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean: I deliberately listen to very little ‘indie’ music these days, having somehow grown tired of it in the last few years. Rock rarely grabs my ears the way it once used to. But this caught my ear by surprise and hasn’t really let go. Bright, intelligently arranged songs full of strong melodies. There’s a kind of 80s sensibility to this record which seems different to anything else I’d heard by Iron and Wine—it’s more ‘pop’ than the more folk/country-oriented, subdued work we previously heard from Sam Beam.

Sierra Hull – Daybreak: Sierra Hull is a very young and very talented bluegrass singer and mandolin player. As an Alison Krauss protegé, she benefits from the same widescreen production values and outstanding musicians her mentor employs on her own albums. But there’s something so singularly well done about this that it doesn’t really fit into the “sounds like” category. She plays and sings with the confidence of someone much more experienced, and her songwriting is also excellent. And there are two mandolin-focused instrumentals here that’ll make your speakers smoke.

Nitin Sawhney – Last Days of Meaning: Nitin Sawhney is a UK producer/composer/DJ who originally came to fame as part of a late 90s wave of “Asian underground” DJs who were pioneering a multi-culti dance sound (then) unique to the UK. Since that time, his songwriting ambition has steadily grown through a series of subtle and exceedingly well-produced records featuring guest vocalists from various cultural backgrounds (East, West, and everything in between). Lately, his albums have included more cultural/political commentary—usually told through fictional characters and their stories. In this latest effort, veteran actor John Hurt plays a hermitic old man with conservative, xenophobic views who’s been sent a tape containing songs that—at the surface—sound like everything he hates about the world. Listening to them, he gradually softens and gains new insights. Sawhney’s songs are outstanding miniatures, intelligently written and true to their specific genres. Highly, highly recommended (as is virtually everything else Sawhney’s ever released, including his soundtrack for the BBC’s Human Planet).

Coeur de Pirate – Blonde: My original review is here.

Tinariwen – Tassili: Another fantastic record from Mali’s most amazing musical export (currently living, that is). This is the blues in its original form, all two chords of it, and you can clearly hear where John Lee Hooker’s inspiration came from. Tinariwen are an excellent band with strong rhythm, a rock ‘n roll attitude and an uncompromising musical vision. The fact that Tinariwen are joined here once or twice by some people from TV on the Radio is only a minor distraction (and actually quite good). What’s consistently awesome is how sophisticated and engaging this trance-inducing music with the sing-song melodies and limited harmonic development is. It’s the sort of world music that gives back a mile when you give an inch.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator: I think Derek Trucks is currently the world’s best blues guitarist. He’s an unfailingly tasteful and minimalist player who seems to have no technical limitations and effortlessly puts simple licks into strategic spots in songs where they genuinely matter musically. Formerly a touring guitarist of the Allman Brothers Band and fronting his own outfit, the Derek Trucks Band, Trucks has now joined forces with his wife Susan Tedeschi (a superb blues singer/songwriter) and a cast of 11 or so others, including two (!) drummers. The results are astounding and exhilarating, half blues, half soul, all played true to the idiom with perfect phrasing on guitar and vocals. Two giants, really, at the top of their respective game. You should totally buy this.

Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive: Another accomplished album by Steve Earle. Continuing the “new Steve Earle” trajectory he started in the mid 90s, this record reaffirms the departure from ‘country’ and mines an immense number of related genres: alt-country, folk, roots rock, Irish reels, even Tom Waits (who, let’s face it, is a genre unto himself). I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is merely a solid Steve Earle record (certainly not the greatest he’s made), but as such is one of the better albums of the year virtually by definition. Deeply credible, critical of the political status quo, committed to social justice without being preachy, able to wield a simple lyric like a sharp weapon, and capable of connecting to a broad spectrum of listeners: Earle has become the social conscience of roots music lovers everywhere.

Patricia O’Callaghan – Matador: The Songs of Leonard Cohen: O’Callaghan is a Toronto-based, classically trained vocalist whose considerable skills are typically brought to bear on interpreting other people’s songs. On this record, she focuses entirely on Leonard Cohen songs—music, I’ve often thought, that benefits from being performed by people who are not Leonard Cohen. O’Callaghan’s performances (one or two of which have been previously released) are so assured, so incredibly well worked out, her phrasing so spot-on, the arrangements so good, they stake a reasonable claim for being better than the originals. Her version of ‘Who By Fire’ is astonishing, her ‘Hallelujah’ impeccable and her ‘Everybody Knows’ is clean and—without Cohen’s grit—takes on a different inflection entirely that’s just as good as the original. Highly recommended. I’ve also enjoyed Patricia O’Callaghan’s album with the Gryphon Trio from earlier this year, Broken Hearts & Madmen. It’s perhaps not completely worthy of a “best of 2011″ mention (or maybe I just think there are too many songs sung in Spanish on it), but it’s also outstanding and more than deserves to be heard. I love its version of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Pieces and Parts.’

Best new classical music

Eric Whitacre – Light & Gold: Eric Whitacre is a young American composer of mostly choral music. He has, in recent years, built himself quite a reputation on Youtube (virtual choirs and the like), and his last two records genuinely ‘crossed over’ into the outer layers of the mainstream. My inclusion of this album as a “best of 2011″ pick feels slightly tentative because I can’t entirely shake the sense that there’s something ever-so-slightly cheesy populist about some of Mr. Whitacre’s pieces… or maybe, I find myself reacting to the unbridled enthusiasm with which he’s embraced by all sorts of listeners who otherwise don’t know classical music from a bar of soap. His crossover ‘pop’ status puts him in close proximity (at least physically, in music stores) to the Susan Boyles and Andrea Bocellis of this world. Yet his music is often astonishingly beautiful, interesting and deserves a serious audience.

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz – Mendelssohn Piano Concertos: Mendelssohn’s early piano concertos are delightful confections of “Early Romanticism,” all pretty melodies and a string orchestra. Pre-Sturm und Drang, this reflects much of Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel’s technical advancements without yet carrying the weight of Romanticism. Bezuidenhout, who’s from South Africa, plays the fortepiano, a predecessor of the piano we know today, whose character is brighter, nimbler—but also more brittle and less ‘full’ than your Steinways and Bösendorfers. It works beautifully here (whereas I struggle with some of the piano solo material when it’s played on a fortepiano). The Freiburg Baroque orchestra does a lovely job. This is an immensely listenable release that continues to delight time and again.

The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Stephen Layton – Beyond all mortal dreams: American a cappella: This is a panoramic traversal of some very fine American choral music, exceptionally sung by one of Britain’s foremost choirs. All of this material is form the 20th century, but is about as far from serial music or other modernist art musics as one can imagine. Though harmonically advanced and interesting, this isn’t dissonant music. While it can sometimes be quiet, the recording’s dynamics demand your attention (this isn’t ‘casual listening music’). I hear connections between this and Arvo Pärt—much of it comes from within a distinctly religious tradition. If you’re looking for introspection and a wonderful showcase of the fine harmony human voices can produce, look no further than this.

Stephen Hough – Chopin Complete Waltzes: Stephen Hough, it strikes me, is one of the few pianists who seem to have absolutely no technical limitations. Like Marc-André Hamelin (the other pianist in the small group that immediately springs to mind), Hough appears able to focus all his energy on interpretation—on providing us with musical insights into the work. I say “appears” because I know that much of the dynamics of performance spring from “doing battle with” one’s own technical limitations, and I’m also aware that suggesting someone doesn’t have technical limitations implies that their performances would be particularly light (or that they don’t need to practice). Neither applies here or is in any way an issue (and Chopin’s waltzes certainly deserve a certain lightness of touch). This is a beautiful record—just like everything else I’ve ever heard Hough play. I would say these are definitive performances.

Heinz Holliger, Camerata Bern, Erich Höbarth – Bach Oboe Concertos: A lovely collection of well-played, well-recorded Bach concertos and sinfonias rendered for oboe and Baroque orchestra. Heinz Holliger’s research really shines here, rendering what are more often performed as works for the violin on the oboe (a legitimate transcription, and sometimes performed like that in Bach’s time), and surrounding them with sinfonias/chorale transcriptions to give them a longer arch, better shape and create a program that flows better. If you’re looking for one instrumental Baroque disc this year, this should probably be it. (Although I feel like I could have a whole separate post on “best Baroque recordings of the year.”)

Jean-Guihen Queyras, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Vivaldi Cello Concertos: Queyras is a young French cellist whose tone is more like that of a dark viola d’amore than a cello, and he has the same lightness that someone playing a handheld instrument could achieve. I was first drawn in by his remarkable Bach Cello suites a few years ago which showcased his dexterity, lightness of touch and depth of thinking about Baroque music. Performing Vivaldi may not require the same erudition as Bach’s solo works, but these works are rendered flawlessly (even if the recording has the tiniest bit too much treble). There are also some sinfonias here by Caldara, providing a bit of balance and welcome diversion between the three-movement sets of the concertos. The Akademie plays true to its usual fiery self.

Joyce DiDonato, Karina Gauvin et. al, Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis – Handel Ariodante: This is hands down the best new opera recording of the year for me. Alan Curtis has been rendering Handel operas with his hand-picked European orchestra and an ever-more-amazing roster of singers for many years. This recording now also includes the incredible new Baroque mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato who sings this music so flawlessly that one might imagine it was written for her. What makes this even more special, though, is that every singer here is equally accomplished—so the whole enterprise never sags, drags or lags. Even if you think you don’t like opera, this may be good enough to get you into it. Handel wrote the pop songs of his era, staged with as much fanfare as a Lady Gaga appearance, and this album renders them terrifically.

Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff – Schumann Complete Works for Piano Trio: The Tetzlaffs and Andsnes have established a kind of new European chamber supergroup through a few years of collaborating at Lars Vogt’s Spannungen chamber festival in Heimbach, Germany. Christian Tetzlaff, of course, is one of the current violin greats playing on modern instruments, equally at home in this repertoire as in Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The close ensemble work here is an expression of the three musicians’ finely honed listening skills, high musicianship and excellent preparation. I don’t feel equipped to say that these are definitive recordings (I love the Florestan Trio, too), but it’s an amazing complete compendium of Schumann trio music and consistently of an excellent standard. If you don’t know Schumann’s chamber music, you ought to hear this.

Alina Ibragimova, Cédric Tiberghien – Beethoven Violin Sonatas Vol. 3: The final volume in Alina Ibragimova’s Beethoven sonata cycle, this deserves being included in this year’s best of list: the whole cycle, which appeared on three discs over the course of the last few years, is the result of a series of very well received live recordings at Wigmore Hall. I had my heart set on not liking this as much as the Isabelle Faust/Alexander Melnikov Beethoven sonata cycle from a couple of years ago (which I thought was unbeatable), but Ibragimova and Tiberghien convinced me piece by piece. It is especially remarkable that these are live recordings; the consistent perfection delivered by these two young musicians is simply amazing. Ibragimova is rapidly becoming the new violinist to watch.

Honorary Mention

Adam Gopnik – Winter: Five Windows on the Season (CBC Massey Lectures 2011): Honorary mention goes to Adam Gopnik’s 2011 Massey Lectures which are a delight in terms of both content and delivery. In five one-hour lectures, Gopnik takes us on a whirlwind tour to explore how one might think about the ‘meaning of winter’ from various cultural and historical perspectives. He covers everything from Scrooge to fighting in hockey, arctic explorers to skating as courtship, and the intellectual enjoyment of it never lets up (if anything, he can be a bit of a fast-talker and I occasionally found myself struggling to keep up and had to go back). The book, which appeared before the audio lectures were broadcast on the CBC, is much longer and more detailed. If you want to learn something this season, try these.

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Béatrice Martin, who goes by the stage name Coeur de pirate, is a wildly, fantastically talented singer-songwriter from Montreal. She has just released her second solo album—the excellent Blonde—and she’s only 22. Like many listeners outside of France and Quebec, I first noticed Coeur de pirate as a guest duet vocalist on Bedouin Soundclash‘s lovely ’Brutal Hearts’ from last year’s Light the Horizon. The song itself was definitely a departure from Soundclash’s usual indie-ska with its seductive and striking sing-song melody, and Martin sang her part accent-free and with an innocent country swagger that was both charming and a good blend with Soundclash lead singer Jay Malinowski‘s high tenor.

I didn’t investigate the mysteriously named Coeur de pirate any further at first, and when I finally did a couple of months ago, I briefly listened to her eponymous first solo effort. I might have been a little disappointed in it—it’s a straight-up French singer-songwriter record, very piano-based (the instrument she’s studied since childhood), and showing little of the indie crossover potential that could make some Quebec music interesting to the English-speaking world (including the rest of Canada). My French isn’t what it used to be, but I can work myself through the lyrics with the help of printed text. And even if I wasn’t too fired up about the music, it was clear that she was an astonishingly capable writer with a grasp of songcraft well beyond her years. The first record sold a surprising 400,000 copies worldwide, making her a household name throughout the French-speaking world. “In the rest of Canada I’m still seen as indie, which is nice, but where I’m from I’m not.” (Martin quoted in NOW).

Blonde was released a few days ago, and precisely, almost surgically fulfills the potential that Coeur de pirate hinted at for listeners outside the Francophone world. I won’t make any claims about understanding (or representing here) the history of how certain French pop has managed to cross over in the past 60 years, but of course it’s mostly been about what we’ve projected onto the French: Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Françoise Hardy, Édith Piaf, Carla Bruni, Manu Chao and—yes—Céline Dion all ring a bell for us because they embody what we think the French language and culture are. Much like Anglophone pop, our collective imagination of French popular music somehow culminates in the 60s, images of a busty Brigitte Bardot merging with Gainsbourg and Birkin’s 1969 scandalous single, ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus.’

And Coeur de pirate’s Blonde zeroes in on that sound—a fresh-faced take on 60s pop that sounds a bit like the Supremes, a bit like the Phil Spector girl groups, a little like Nancy Sinatra, with trace elements of the Bangles and Bananarama. “I really wanted Blonde to sound classic. To me, the ’60s are perfect—in change, in cinema, in culture. And I really like what they did in France as well when it comes to music. You could talk about very intense subjects with very light and happy music—but the lyrics aren’t so happy.” (Martin quoted in the Montreal Gazette).

The production is outstanding, with just the right subtle amount of strings and reverb, and with the slightest, faintest touch of analogue distortion meant to signal the limits of 60s equipment or the wearing-out of vinyl grooves. It’s classy and subtle and genuinely groovy without ever taking a turn into the clichéd. Blonde was produced and engineered by Howard Bilerman, who has serious indie credentials as a former member of Arcade Fire and producer and recording engineer to the who’s who of Montreal’s indie scene.

The lyrics? Like I said, I can pretty well follow using the lyric sheet, but I’m perhaps not entirely qualified to judge if they are any good. Knowing the importance of lyrics to the French, though, I think Blonde‘s meteoric climb up the French and Canadian iTunes charts this week probably speaks for itself. Broadly, the songs are about relationships between men and women, about the stories men tell women, and how women believe those stories (or not). About how we hurt each other and then make up. Martin’s words are those of an independent woman, intelligent and lyrical, classic songwriting skills that would translate anywhere. If you’re looking for specific tracks to try, musically the strongest are perhaps ‘Adieu,’ ‘Danse et danse’ (which has a fantastic shuffle sound that could, in fact, make you dance and dance), ‘Ava’ and the country-tinged ‘Loin d’ici,’ a duet with Sam Roberts. But it’s all great and deserves to be appreciated widely.

* * *

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Another interesting project Béatrice Martin is involved in is Armistice, an EP co-helmed by Jay Malinowski and Martin that came out in early 2011. Recorded and written in partnership with Mariachi El Bronx (apparently the mariachi alter ego of punk outfit The Bronx from LA, go figure), this is a collection of 5 widescreen tracks that seem like the logical extension of the previously mentioned ‘Brutal Hearts.’ All tracks are sung as duets by Martin and Malinowski (who are in a relationship), and are simply lovely.

The sound of this somehow evokes a Robert Rodriguez aesthetic from the Mexico Trilogy, or some of the soundtrack materials hinted at in the closing credits of Tarantino’s Kill Bill—music for a ‘fantasy western,’ from Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona, Nashville, and from nowhere at all. The video for ‘Mission Bells‘ (the first single) is seductive, evocative, funny and absurd all at the same time, with Martin and Malinowski happily walking through a dusty Arizona (Nevada? California?) desert landscape, then cavorting on rusty deck chairs in a deserted-looking coastal resort, all the while singing their hearts out. There is an obvious chemistry here that translates directly to the music, resulting in 5 unusual songs that are well worth having and lightly sprinkling into your hipster-chic playlists in the interest of some levity and an odd kind of 21st century authenticity.

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Sometimes, it takes me a while to really start to like an artist. Beck is one of those. I have no excuse, really. This — and quite a few of his other records — is a masterpiece of a kind of modern, hip hop/electronica inflected pop. Beck has the same mastery of song craft that someone like Ron Sexmith has but his music is hipper and — it has to be said — more memorable.

Production duties here are handled by Beck and Danger Mouse. Danger Mouse is becoming the standard bearer of a new kind of pop classicism with techniques rooted in a DIY hip hop aesthetic, establishing a signature sound across the records he produces for or with a broad spectrum of artists such as Sparklehorse, Daniele Luppi, Martina Topley Bird or Gnarls Barkley. I’m starting to seek out Danger Mouse albums in the same way I might look for, say, Daniel Lanois (and it’s interesting to note that Danger Mouse is currently collaborating with U2 on an as-yet unnamed album to be released later in 2011).

In a nutshell, what I love about Beck is how he continually affirms that folk and hip hop are both part of the core of American popular music. They fit together beautifully the minute you stop thinking about it too hard. A few years back, David Gray made a big splash with his ‘integration’ between folk and electronic music, but it never quite worked for me. That was a case of someone thinking about it too hard — the whole music industry was in fact thinking about it too hard.

Beck’s career, and this record is just an excellent example, shows what can happen when you don’t overthink it. Folk + hip hop + a little 70s orchestration for hipster cred = 21st century rock ‘n’ roll.

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A review of Stephen Marley’s Revelation (Pt. 1 The Root of Life)’ (2011)

Voice-wise, Stephen Marley is definitely his father’s son, more so than his brothers Ziggy or Damian. He cut his musical teeth in Ziggy’s Melody Makers, then chose primarily a producer’s path — he is largely responsible for helming Damian’s solo records as well as 1999′s Chant Down Babylon, a collection of authorized remixes and mashups of some of his father’s most famous tracks featuring the cream of  conscious hip hop artists. Stephen consistently delivers (and may in fact be responsible for pioneering) a measured, intelligent and conscious (even spiritual) “new reggae” sound that remains true to reggae’s one drop roots while acknowledging everything that’s come since – dancehall, hip hop, etc.

This record has a lovely, meandering and — dare I say — summery feel to it. It’s by no means a collection of light anthems aimed at reggae tourists (far from it), but there is a woozy, dreamy quality to some of the tracks that (despite their often thoughtful and detailed political message) makes this play particularly well on a hot day.

There’s a broad spectrum of themes here, both musically and lyrically. On the musical front, the variations are fairly subtle. There are several rastafarian chants, scored — in typical 1970s reggae fashion — with hand drums and acoustic guitars. There are quite a few deep one drop anthems with strong tunes in the best Marley family tradition, played and produced with an impressive mastery of both the band and studio idioms. If the lyrics weren’t so sincere and the causes so noble, it would be impossible to completely escape the notion that these versions are almost cynically similar to some of the Wailer’s best 1970s material. Instead, I think the true accomplishment here is that Marley understands the classic elements of the signature sounds of reggae’s heyday so well, he’s actually able to produce authentic and charming new material that’s completely steeped in the tradition.

Oddly, the odd track out here is the first single, ‘Jah Army,’ featuring Damian Marley and Buju Banton. It has a choppy hip hop feel; while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s definitely the most contemporary of the pieces presented here and (for me, at least) doesn’t really work. I admit, though, that I struggle to wrap my head around Buju Banton’s presence on this record at all — he’s easily one of the most controversial figures in reggae, initially gaining international notoriety because of his openly anti-gay views and songs, and lately serving a 10-year sentence in a US Federal prison for conspiracy to possess and distribute approximately 5kg of heroin. As always when great artists also turn out to be despicable people, one struggles to reconcile the two extremes.

This Revelation shows us a panoramic, wide angle view of what reggae was at its zenith, and that those forms are by no means antiquated. According to interviews and press releases around its May 2011 release, Pt. 1 will be followed by Revelation Pt. 2, which promises to contain a wide selection of material that explores how reggae continues to exist, matter and grow in its various descendant genres today.

Also highly recommended: Stephen Marley’s first solo record (I’m actually surprised I haven’t reviewed it here before).

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An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

One of the reasons I think people without much exposure to classical music think they don’t like it or can’t relate to it is because they have artificially reduced the genre to orchestral music.

The most immediate sonic linkage for the non-initiated is film music: since the early days of the ‘talkies,’ we’ve been acclimated to a certain late romantic, big orchestral sound to underscore key moments in the cinema. The sound of 1940s, 50s and 60s cinema is best explained by the War in Europe and its associated wave of emigration to North America: a disproportionate number of film composers were European musicians who studied under Mahler and his disciples and fled their home continent in the 30s and 40s. They wrote what they knew: late romantic music. By unconscious association (or maybe downright transference), we have internalized this sound as the sonic imprint of ‘classical music,’ and now when we hear orchestral Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms, we recognize it and react to it.

Unfortunately, this misdirected connection taints much of (orchestral) classical music with arbitrary (moving) pictures which we may or may not have liked; called up out of context when we encounter the music outside of the film, we cannot help but remember the ‘music video’: the emotions it meant to conjure in that moment, the specific juncture in the plot line, our own preoccupations and memories attached to the movie-going experience.

Classical music, of course, is so infinitely much more than merely its ‘big,’ well-known orchestral or operatic works. There’s a whole world beyond conductors, symphony orchestras and divas.

Chamber music – through-composed music played by small ensembles without a conductor – opens up a whole world of listening pleasure. Regardless of its period of origin (the Baroque, High Classicism, the Romantic era or the 20^th and 21^st centuries), chamber music offers a number of key features that I believe would be very attractive to modern listeners for a variety of reasons.

Intimate scale – music for friends

Composers wrote chamber music for many purposes, but the two primary ones are key to understanding and appreciating it: to perform for and with friends in intimate settings (the home, the salon); and for pedagogical purposes.

In this way, chamber music is designed to speak to us immediately. Ideally, it should be experienced right in front of us and not in a concert hall 100 feet away from the stage. As recording and audio reproduction technology has become better, it’s now quite possible to ‘experience’ a chamber music performance closely – in one’s living room or headphones – close-miked, dynamic, impactful and present. Your ears, at least, can be sitting amongst the musicians anytime.

I like to imagine that many composers reserved their most important artistic work for chamber music because they knew that the intimate setting of the performance would promote a positive reception by an audience of initiates (their friends, peers and rivals).

Imagining an intimate scale – and picturing yourself close to the musicians so that you can not only hear them but see them and experience all the other sensations generated by their playing – certainly sets the stage for thinking about the connection between the human body and music-making.

Making music with the body, playing on a human scale

In chamber music – especially if it’s experienced live or well-recorded – we can hear how the human body is ‘instrumental’ in making music. No electronically generated sounds can be heard; nothing that is stored and triggered by means of a device that’s between the body and the instrument; nothing dissociated or technologically enhanced.

We can hear the human breath inhaling and exhaling; the rustle of clothing a tiny split-second before the beginning of a movement revealing the ‘synching up’ of the ensemble; the occasional thump of feet hitting the ground during a downbeat in a particularly intense or difficult passage. Some musicians (often pianists) can be heard humming along with the music they are playing (Alfred Brendel did this, for instance; notably, so does Keith Jarrett – but only when he plays jazz or improvisations, not in classical music).

Good modern chamber music recordings also showcase the grain of the instruments (particularly strings and winds): there’s a certain fragility, an impermanence, but also a distinct power and authority in running a bow over a violin’s strings (whether steel or gut). A piano in chamber music is so much more than 88 keys, strings and hammers: recordings frequently reveal the slight whoosh of the pedals being released, or the click of the pianist’s fingernails hitting the key a fraction of a second before the note sounds.

The interplay between this texture of the different instruments, which is quite separate from their pitch/register, is a very attractive feature of chamber music and reminds us of the human-constructed nature of the instruments being played, and the body parts involved in making music on them.

Chamber music, therefore, paints a sonic picture that should be easy to connect to because of its lack of artifice, its directness and naturalness, its relative smallness, its human scale.

I think those more accustomed to rock music can easily experience these pleasures by turning to other acoustic music, like bluegrass or folk, for many of the same reasons. There’s something important, primal and connecting about hearing highly skilled humans making music by operating instruments without any (undue, electronic) mediation – and hearing them make music together.

The difference with chamber music is that it’s written down and therefore ‘reproduced’ and not improvised or learned through folklore and oral tradition, as folk and bluegrass are.

Interpretation

The key to appreciating chamber music (all classical performance, really) is to recognize that every performance is an interpretation, and that what differentiates truly skilled artists is their ability to say something new and unique about the piece, even within the (apparently) strict confines of the written notes which – with the exception of a few optional repeats – may not be changed at all.

As a result, the scope for interpretation is subtle. But it’s by no means too subtle to hear or understand even when you’re unfamiliar with the written notes, particularly when you have the opportunity to hear different performances of the same piece next to each other (something our magnificent digital age increasingly makes possible).

Whether you like an interpretation or not is ultimately your choice; despite all the websites, books and classical music magazines I read, I find that I am still frequently unable to articulate clearly what I like about a performance. I do find that I have strong reactions, though; I know – often on first listen – whether the performance captured by a recording is a ‘keeper’ or not.

The parameters defining an interpretation that I think I can successfully detect most often are:

• Tempo
• Rhythmic coherence and drive
• Clarity of ‘articulation’ between notes, melody lines/themes, instruments
• Whether the performance communicates the overall architecture of the piece – does it congeal into something coherent and meaningful when I listen?
• How well rehearsed the chamber group appears to be and whether there is a certain sympathy between them – are they listening to each other and reacting to what they’re hearing? Are they adjusting to each other’s cues?

Listening and collaboration

For me, the key artistic achievement underscored by every good chamber music performance or recording I’ve heard is our human ability to collaborate by closely listening to others and adjusting what we are doing in response to what they are doing.

This is amplified by the narrow confines of the interpretive play in classical music: since both the overall shape of the work and the specific notes are ‘locked up’ in a manner of speaking, the group’s achievement lies in adjusting interpretive parameters that are very subtle and – to the casual listener – possibly quite hard to detect.

Often, of course, there is a ‘leader’ in the ensemble who may set the musical direction of a performance. But in the heat of the performance – and given the everything-laid-bare nature of a small group of musicians playing together at equal volume – even the leader has to trust in the group’s ability to listen, adjust and collaborate.

I particularly love the intense listening and collaboration required for accurately playing quiet ending chords together, often heard in slow movements: when the ensemble nails the pianissimo chord after a short pause in the music, it’s a breathtaking effect and a gorgeous reminder of how we humans are capable of genuinely paying attention to one another in a specific moment and not letting anything else interfere.

Together, chamber musicians regularly achieve something truly remarkable and enjoyable. I suspect we can learn much from this that applies equally in the worlds of business, politics and relationships.

Three recommended recordings:

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Or get the last one digitally, online at Hyperion Records.

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A review of Cee-Lo Green’s ‘The Lady Killer’ (2010)

Cee-Lo Green is that maddeningly brilliant, completely left-of-centre genius that only rolls around every few years in a genre. R&B has of course had its fair share of auteur geniuses: off the top of my head, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Bootsy Collins come to mind (and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least wonder if Hendrix belongs in that group, too; I’ve caught myself thinking his best work is more R&B than rock). Lately, new generations of the weird and wonderful have come thick and fast: Cee-Lo Green. Kelis. Janelle Monáe. Wonderful stuff if you care to find it.

Cee-Lo is a great melodist, first and foremost. His melodic invention seems to know few bounds: his stellar work with Danger Mouse in Gnarls Barkley showed that he could craft timeless melodies and lyrics — songs that indelibly embedded themselves in our musical memories, songs that were both the ultimate in radio-friendly pop and serious, funky R&B, at the same time. It’s a classic R&B sound to be sure: more Al Green, less Usher. More Wilson Pickett, less Chris Brown.

And it seems he learned quite a bit from Danger Mouse: his own productions have become more widescreen, more colourful, grander than they were prior to Gnarls Barkley. There’s a greater facility to the flow of the music, a greater ease with which it all comes together sonically. These are also thoroughly modern productions, employing the best technology has to offer (it takes a lot of tech to sound genuinely old).

Cee-Lo is both tied up and set free by his maverick public persona; be-hatted, giant-sunglasses, coats in wild colours, platform boots… Green is much larger than life, at least on stage. But the masquerade cannot possibly match the invention in his music. The Lady Killer is a classic soul album, a vivid technicolor Gesamtkunstwerk that deserves to find a place among the What’s Going Ons and Sing O’ The Times any day.

Like every great record, there are flaws; the (wholly calculated and anticipated) PR debacle of the single “Fuck You” and its inevitable re-casting as “Forget You” for mainstream radio’s faux public decency requirements seems an unfortunately misguided attention-grab. Great song, though.

I was an avid listener and admirer in the 80s, when Moore — fresh from gaining recognition as a ‘metal’ guitarist by touring with Thin Lizzy — released a string of albums that featured a blend of hard rock (certainly not metal in any sense that we have of it today) and slow, melodious, meticulously crafted ballads that made him the king of slow dancing and hanging out in bars well after last call everywhere.

When the sun set on this kind of ‘power rock’ in the late 80s/early 90s, Moore reinvented himself by releasing a string of straight-up electric blues records which came during an otherwise dark time for this kind of blues rock (Clapton had gone all soft and poppy, and the 90s blues revival had not yet started). Cleverly, Moore included one or two of those trademark ballads each time, and I think those contributed handsomely to each album’s bottom line.

As the music industry changed sweepingly and irreversibly in the 90s and any hope of renewed mainstream success faded for Moore, he continued to release new electric blues records every two years or so. These are truly fine albums, hard-edged and yet emotionally differentiated. Their idiomatic familiarity in no way detracts from how accomplished they are; Moore surrounding himself with fine players, often pushing the power trio format to its limits.

The songs — some covers, many originals — all sound immediately as if you’ve known them your whole life. In the blues genre, this is of course not an indictment but actually a recommendation, an indication that an artist is fully immersed in the idiom and the literature. While Moore is not often recognized as a vocalist, he was an accomplished white blues singer, at least on par with legends like John Mayall or Peter Green (who he was friendly with in the late 1960s, and whose green Les Paul he played on 1995′s Blues for Greeny, a tribute to Green).

As a guitarist, Moore is peerless in a sense. He has a warm yet cutting tone, loud and assertive but never flashy (every note he plays seems to express his disdain for 80s lead guitar excesses à la Eddie van Halen). Often, his solos remind me of the kinds of things Richie Blackmore played in Deep Purple in the late 60s/early 70s.

Above all, Moore’s guitar solos have an unfailing, elegant and emotionally precise sense of melody. Listening to him solo always provides a pleasurable sense of suspense: of course you know where he’s going to end up, but exactly how he gets there is remarkable every time. A criticism that other listeners might level at him is that he doesn’t work hard enough at steering clear of cheesiness, especially in the ballads. But what’s so strangely satisfying about them is that he’s fully committed to their melodic inevitability and wrings every last bit of emotion from them. And he did know how to rock plenty hard, as evidenced by some of his recent work in his ‘rock’ touring three-piece, Scars (with Skunk Anansie’s Cass Lewis and Primal Scream’s Darrin Mooney; video here and here).

I think Gary Moore had a dedicated following and toured frequently, either with his ‘blues’ or ‘rock’ trio. Unfortunately, not many of his 80s hard rock fans made the jump from headbanging to appreciating his later blues albums, and in North America, Gary Moore never had any chart or radio success. As a result, the vast majority of the media coverage of his untimely passing at the age of 58 (from a heart attack, while on vacation in Spain) essentially described him as a guitarist in Thin Lizzy, which leaves out about 90% of the story.

Here is a selection of my favourite Gary Moore blues albums of the 2000s:

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It’s been a different sort of music listening year for me. Starting last January, I largely took a break from listening to popular music and reconnected with my first love, classical music. The last few years of increasingly commercial ‘indie’ rock had left a decidedly bad taste in my mouth. (The pretence of innovation when things are so blatantly derivative of something that’s derivative itself will eventually do that to you.) And the classical area on my CD shelves left much to be desired — even in core repertoire.

What I discovered was that the culture of indie labels is alive and well in the classical genre — more so than in rock or electronic music, I’d venture. This is probably because classical music listeners still buy CDs (for audiophile reasons, or simply because their pursuits aren’t as readily available for download, paid or otherwise). I also discovered that I now love whole sub-genres I never cared much about previously (such as string quartets, piano trios, Sibelius symphonies and Schubert Lieder).

Of course, I didn’t completely eschew all other musical genres. Overall, my listening patterns shifted towards music with a more natural acoustic footprint — I found pleasure in jazz, bluegrass, ‘alt’ country, folk and a variety of world music. And yes, the odd rock release piqued my interest too, but they were few and far between, and often idiosyncratic choices.

So this year’s best of list (I notice I didn’t create one last year… hm) is broken down into two sections: a classical top 10, and an ‘everything else’ top 10. The only criterion was that the disc had to have been released in 2010 and not be a re-release. The ‘top 10′ lists aren’t ordered in any particular way, so what’s at the top isn’t necessarily the best of the best.

Best new classical music

Alexander Melnikov — Shostakovich: The Preludes and Fugues: A brilliant young Russian pianist tackles one of the great collections in the repertoire. Inspired by Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier but written in a neo-classical style in the 1950s, this cycle easily slots into the top shelf of the piano literature together with Bach’s Clavier and Beethoven’s and Schubert’s sonatas. Melnikov’s is a flawless contemporary performance.
Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà — Noël: Is there such a thing as a ‘credible populist’? Dubeau is a bona fide virtuoso from Quebec who has been selling increasingly large numbers of CDs on the Analekta label. She strikes a golden balance between classical credibility and record sales by tackling such composers as Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass with her all-female string orchestra La Pietà. Noël is a beautiful collection of Christmas music for string orchestra that will not get your hackles up. Seasonal, and a keeper.
Dunedin Consort & Players, John Butt — Bach: Mass in B minor: This is the best recording of the Mass in B minor I’ve ever heard. John Butt is an academic who is spearheading some of the current refinements in period performance practice with Scotland-based Dunedin Consort. The main attraction here is that the entire mass is performed with only 8 singers — 4 principals and 4 ripienists — so the soloists double up as the choir. In certain quarters, this approach is controversial, but for me it creates an unbelievable sense of clarity, especially in Bach’s intricate inner part-writing. I can’t stop listening to this (and Linn Records’ recording is brilliant, too).
Isabelle Faust — Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin: I first noticed Isabelle Faust when I acquired her and Alexander Melnikov’s Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle last year (which subsequently won a Grammophone Award). Faust is a fiercely focused violinist who blazes her own trail, and while I’ve previously always preferred a true period approach to the sonatas and partitas, this recording (on a modern instrument but with period technique) is making me reconsider. I can’t wait for the second instalment (I hope there will be one).
The Netherlands Bach Society, Jos van Veldhoven — Bach: Magnificat: The second seasonal choice in this list. The Dutch — perhaps because of their close geographic proximity to Germany? — definitely have a way with Bach, pronouncing the all-important words much better than your average British choir. I enjoy this recording tremendously. The performances are at least on par with the best of Philippe Herreweghe’s Bach, and the ‘inserts’ of various Dutch composers lend it a certain additional charm.
Paul Lewis, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiri Belohlavek — Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos: This was one of the most-hyped releases of the year given the immense (and deserved) success of Lewis’ Beethoven sonatas from the years before. I liked this cycle very much and would highly recommend it if you’re looking for a complete modern recording with no particular idiosyncracies or artistic license. I’m not sure I would pick it as a desert island disc over Brendel’s final recording with Rattle, but it’s conceivable that I might.
Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque — Bach: Violin Concertos: Rachel Podger is one of the most ‘musical’ of period performers. With an impeccable pedigree as a period violinist honed in years as a soloist, ensemble player, leader and teacher, she returns with her own very small Baroque orchestra, Brecon Baroque. The approach is to play these concertos almost as if they were chamber music — comparable to Richard Egarr’s Brandenburg Concertos, for example. Two well-known violin concertos are paired with two transcriptions for violin of keyboard concertos, but everything is very idiomatic and spot-on.
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Charles Mackerras — Mozart: Symphonies 29, 31, 32, 35, 36: Before sadly passing away earlier this year, Charles Mackerras released two collections of Mozart symphonies on Linn Records that are probably the most balanced and well-judged performances of these works I’ve ever heard. Their lucidity illustrates — for me, for the first time — how ‘late Mozart’ connects to ‘early Beethoven,’ a connection I knew was there but that I had never heard so clearly before.
Emerson String Quartet — Old World/New World (Dvorák String Quartets): In a way, the Emerson Quartet never ‘goes wrong’ in anything it cares to release; instead, the question is simply whether you like the repertoire or not. I love Dvorak but wasn’t previously aware of his string quartets, so these pristine, lively recordings were a revelation for me.
Florilegium — Pergolesi: Stabat Mater: Sad and beautiful, Pergolesi’s most famous sacred work is performed by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and counter-tenor Robin Blaze. Florilegium is an excellent British Baroque ensemble and beautifully recorded here by Channel Classics.

Best new ‘everything else’ music

Natalie Merchant — Leave Your Sleep: Natalie Merchant (of 10,000 Maniacs and Tigerlily fame) returns with a double CD of self-penned musical settings of famous and not-so-famous poetry written by, or for, children through the ages. It took her 6+ years of work, and the cover booklet is a beautiful bound book in which she tells each author’s story. The music is wonderfully wacky, entertaining and poignant. If I had to pick one ‘everything else’ disc to be my album of the year, this would have to be it.
Natacha Atlas — Mounqaliba: For going on 20 years, Natacha Atlas has merged sounds of the Middle East with Western electronica. This CD, and the previous one, are a slight return to more traditional Arabic music. Interspersed with spoken word academic and/or political commentary, Mounqualiba is a postmodern masterwork. Note, though, that if you don’t already have some sort of appreciation (or at least inclination) for this kind of music, this record may not be the best starting point.
Peter Gabriel — Scratch My Back: Original Teabowl review here.
Bedouin Soundclash — Light the Horizon: I’ve loved at least the last two of Bedouin Soundclash’s three records prior to this. They’re an intelligent reggae/ska/pop band from Kingston, Ont. who forge very much their own path with a highly melodic, folky blend that should appeal to hippies, hipsters and aging punks alike. Brilliant songwriting, and also an immensely concise record at roughly 35 minutes (though some would call that an EP).
Black Dub — Black Dub: Daniel Lanois’ latest project achieves a great, dense sound with all the trademark Lanois elements, and Trixie Whitley is a very good white soul singer. I think the critics were somewhat divided about this, but I think it reveals its depths the more you listen to it. It’s not stylistically related to anything au courant and may thus be a bit of a navel-gazing album. You’ve been warned.
Elvis Costello — National Ransom: An outstanding return to form, this time featuring members of both the Imposters and the previous CD’s more country-tinged backing band. Costello’s songcraft is like nobody else’s — from the uniformly literate lyrics to the sophisticated harmonies. He no longer tries on genres, he authentically inhabits them. I had not expected to actually like this as much as I do, having been ambivalent about Elvis Costello for most of my adult life. I’m glad he’s done (for the time being) with jazz standards.
Food — Quiet Inlet: Original Teabowl review here.
Johnny Cash — American VI: Ain’t No Grave: There really ain’t no grave for Johnny Cash; he keeps releasing new records. This one — like the rest of the Rick Rubin produced ‘American’ series — is nothing short of astonishing. If you’re not familiar with Cash’s last records, you owe it to yourself to explore them, regardless of what you think you think of him.
Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden — Jasmine: A beautiful, quiet accomplishment. Jarrett and Haden play jazz standards in a minimal setting, bringing their combined experience to bear on the material. This is very much a ‘late night’ record that requires focused listening to be fully appreciated. Then again, it could also just be really great background music to a dinner party.
Edgar Knecht — Good Morning Lilofee: A German piano trio re-imagines German folk songs as jazz standards. Wildly imaginative even if you’re not familiar with the source material (you can always look it up on Youtube). Stylistically related to trios like E.S.T. and some of the other Scandinavian groups, Knecht does very much his own thing and succeeds spectacularly. The top notes of folk here make this CD sound similar to some of Tord Gustavsen’s trio records on ECM.

And with that, I wish each and every one of my readers happy holidays, a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous start to the New Year.

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A review of Myriam Alter’s ‘Where Is There’ (2007)

Myriam Alter is one of those musicians about whom the Internet seems to know very little. What Google manages to dig up more or less tells the same story: Alter hails from a Belgian family of Sephardic Jews. She started piano lessons at age 8 but abandoned the instrument at 15 for other preoccupations. After studying psychology at university, she worked for an advertising agency and later ran a dance studio. When she was 36, she rediscovered the piano and slowly but determinedly built a career for herself as a jazz performer and composer. She has made a number of well-reviewed records — with carefully hand-picked band members and frequently someone else at the piano — that are little-known but quite beautiful.

Alter’s music — like that of Enrico Rava, for example, or Stefano Bollani — reflects a typically European jazz sensibility pointing back all the way to Django Reinhardt. Unlike American jazz, it incorporates a myriad of influences that aren’t based in the blues, such as Italian folk songs, the oddly dichotomous happy/melancholic melody lines of the Klezmer tradition of Eastern Europe and a sense of (melo)drama that may stem from French chanson or cabaret.

Adding to this eclectic mix is the cello of Jaques Morelenbaum, an increasingly well-known Brazilian instrumentalist who regularly appears with his own ensembles and the big luminaries of Brazilian popular music, like Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. Apparently an integral part of the Brazilian musical establishment by birth (he’s married to a well-known singer, his sister plays clarinet for the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, etc.), Morelenbaum has unique musical abilities as a classically trained cellist who’s worked in popular world music and jazz all his career. More rhythmically oriented and less stiff than Yo-Yo Ma (whose efforts in playing Brazilian music always left me cold — similarly to a lot of the rest of his recorded work), Morelenbaum has an innate empathy for Myriam Alter’s melancholy flirtations with the strong Sephardic/Moroccan percussions she offers in ‘Was It There’ and other tracks. These rhythms may, in the end, not be that different from what centuries of the slave trade brought from Africa to Bahia (musicologists, I imagine, may have definitive ideas about the migratory patterns of rhythms and instruments through the various diasporas, intersecting in North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula).

For music that is essentially through-composed (possibly with room for improvisation/cadenzas for some of the solo instruments such as the clarinet and solo saxophone, both excellently played here), Alter’s pieces have a spontaneous character and remind us of many different musical traditions at the same time. In general, they have a “old world” sensibility and — unlike other experimental world music and much jazz — do not require an ‘open mind.’ One reviewer perceptively notes that “[i]t’s the kind of music that for once will not chase the family members out of the room, it may even attract them.”

Myriam Alter’s ‘trick,’ of course, is her ability to pack musical interest, complexity and challenge into deceptively light-sounding fare — something she does with unfailing certainty on Where Is There. At the surface, this music is only fleetingly ‘sad’ or ‘melancholy.’ In fact, it’s packed with the same kind of minor-key joyful abandon that we know and love from Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz from the 1930s which also disregarded all the rules of the blues and in so-doing established an authentically European and unique voice in popular music.

The recorded sound is of the highest order and reminds me of recent ECM records of a similarly acoustic nature. Highly recommended.

I’m fully aware of the inherent futility of the encyclopedist’s pursuit, so I respond to my interrogators with things I’ve listened to in the last little while or tell them I like things I imagine they’re familiar with. I haven’t actually ever met anyone else who is genuinely enthusiastic about as many arcane genres, artists and musical experiments as I am, though I’m sure they are out there (and I would love to meet them).

About ten years ago, I worked in a team with two other guys who were also voracious music listeners and commentators, and we referred to the (physical or digital) stacks of newly obtained but not-yet-heard albums as our “musical inboxes.” My musical inbox contains both new and old things, things I’ve just bought and added or things I have recently ‘ingested’ digitally (my CD collection is forever in the process of being ripped and re-ripped).

Every 2 weeks, from now on, I’ll post the highlights of what I’ve been adding to iTunes and/or listening to in the previous 14 days (give or take). Maybe it’ll inspire you to ask me about it or give the one or other disc a spin yourself.

Here, then, is the first installment.

Bedouin Soundclash – Light the Horizon (2010)
Bill Laswell – Imaginary Cuba (1999)
Bill Laswell – Trojan Dub Massive Chapter One (2005)
Bill Laswell – Trojan Dub Massive Chapter Two (2005)
Blair Douglas – Angels from the Ashes (2004)
Blair Douglas – Beneath the Beret (1990)
Blair Douglas – A Summer in Skye (1996)
Capercaillie – Beautiful Wasteland (1997)
Capercaillie – The Blood is Strong (1996)
Culture – Cumbolo (1979)
Culture – Harder Than The Rest (1978)
Culture – Two Sevens Clash (30th Anniversary Edition) (1977)
Daniel Müller-Schott, Jonathan Gilad – Mendelssohn Works for Cello and Piano (2010)
The Dowland Project – Romaria (2008)
Dr. Israel – Inna City Pressure (1998)
Dreadtone International – Patterns of War (2005)
Dubmatix – System Shakedown (2010)
Emerson String Quartet – Beethoven The Complete String Quartets (1997)
Enrico Rava – Easy Listening (2004)
Enrico Rava – The Words and The Days (2007)
Federico Aubele – Gran Hotel Buenos Aires (2003)
Federico Aubele – Panamericana (2007)
The Florestan Trio – Schumann Piano Trios (1999)
The Florestan Trio & Thomas Riebl – Schumann Fantasiestücke, Piano Trios & Piano Quartet (2000)
Forro in the Dark – Light a Candle (2009)
Gentleman – Confidence (2004)
Gentleman – Diversity (Deluxe Edition) (2010)
Gentleman – Journey to Jah (2002)
Gentleman – Trodin On (1999)
Gentleman & The Far East Band – Live (2003)
Gigi – Gigi (2001)
Gigi – Gold & Wax (2006)
Gigi – Illuminated Audio (2003)
Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble – Officium Novum (2010)
John Legend & The Roots – Wake Up! (Deluxe Version) (2010)
Kasey Chambers – Little Bird (2010)
Keith Jarrett – Bridge of Light (1994)
Kronos Quartet & Wu Man – Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic (2008)
Lena Willemark & Ale Möller – Agram (1996)
Lena Willemark & Ale Möller – Nordan (1994)
Mandelring Quartett & Claire-Marie Le Guay – Schumann Piano Quartet/Quintet (2010)
Matisyahu – Light (2009)
Matisyahu – Youth (2006)
Matisyahu – Youth Dub (2006)
Michael Brook – RockPaperScissors (2006)
Michael Franti & Spearhead – All Rebel Rockers (2008)
Natalia Clavier – Nectar (2008)
Nigel Kennedy & The Kroke Band – East Meets East (2003)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Dap-Dippin’ With The Dap-Kings (2002)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – I Learned The Hard Way (2010)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Naturally (2005)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – 100 Days, 100 Nights (2007)
Sinéad O’Connor – I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (Limited Edition) (1990)
Sinéad O’Connor – Throw Down Your Arms (2005)
Various Artists – Brave Hearts: New Scots Music (1998)
Various Artists – Nordic Roots (1998)
Various Artists – Nordic Roots 2 (1999)
Various Artists – Nordic Roots 3 (2001)
Various Artists – Roots, Reels + Rhythms: A Scots Fusion Experience (2000)

Clearly, it’s been a reggae and Celtic sort of two weeks, interspersed with my continuing infatuation with chamber music. In addition, there’s a sprinkling of Nordic/Scandinavian folk music (which is delightfully similar to Celtic music, but also quite different) and the odd 2010 new release.

Before anyone asks: yes, most of that stuff was in my shelves and had to be re-ripped (I’m currently in the middle of a lengthy project that sees everything re-ripped as 320 kbps MP3 files). I follow no particular ‘project plan’ for re-digitizing everything; my approach is to organically follow whatever I’m inspired to listen to in the moment. From this, a pattern develops by following the obvious and not-so-obvious connections, and so another stack of 10, 20 or 30 discs gets ingested every week or so.

Sometimes, you just connect with a CD — immediately, powerfully, viscerally. That’s how I reacted when I first heard Sinéad Lohan’s No Mermaid, a 1998 disc that few people heard and fewer bought (her Wikipedia entry claims that No Mermaid ‘enjoyed moderate success’ in Ireland, the UK and the US — which means she sort of got swept up amongst all the Lilith Fair stuff at the time).

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Lohan is an Irish singer/songwriter of immense talent and clarity of voice, and a masterful songwriter of great simplicity and effortless depth. Lohan’s material never sounds like it came easily to her, but rather appears to be the result of much consideration. Her lyrics — assertive, independent, searching — are elegantly crafted and thoughtful, exploring the highs and lows of human relationships.

The disc is produced by Malcolm Burn, former collaborator of Daniel Lanois and independently the mastermind behind the subtle but recognizable sound language of several excellent records by Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Blue Rodeo, Lisa Germano, Tara MacLean and Patti Smith. Where Lohan’s previous album Who Do You Think I Am (1995) — also quite beautiful — was a folky affair with conventional instrumentation and a couple of Irish radio hits, Mermaid takes on a mysterious sheen, a new commitment to really exploring instrumentation and rhythm. Burn’s tasteful electronic textures —never dated, never out of place, never pandering to the ‘trip hop’ and downtempo predilections of the late 90s — swirl around Lohan’s exquisite voice and simple picked or strummed guitar, engulfing her, challenging her to not be too sweet, cute or folksy. The contrast to Who Do You Think I Am is stark and fundamental; No Mermaid is a mature collaboration between two outstanding musical individualists that represents a unique moment in time.

Sinéad Lohan’s voice is a fantastic instrument. She sings in a way that’s profoundly unaffected and without artifice. To be sure, Ireland has a long history of accomplished female folk singers, and Lohan certainly and obviously carries an immense debt of gratitude to the tradition around which she grew up. What’s so touching about her vocals is her complete disregard for ‘runs,’ embellishments, coloratura — call it what you will, but there’s none of it here. This is sung as straight up as it gets. Lohan can definitely ‘carry a tune,’ as the saying goes. She may define carrying a tune on this record.

As with many artists whose records I have loved deeply, every so often I check in to see what they may be up to these days. I note with some sadness that Sinéad Lohan has basically disappeared from the music industry, and apparently from public life, altogether. She seems to have made the switch from performing and recording musician to motherhood/family life sometime in the early 2000s (a noble and important calling). Malcolm Burn’s website indicates that there’s a new album the two recorded together several years ago which remains unreleased. Her website hadn’t been updated in years and the domain finally expired sometime this year.

Perhaps waiting for another Sinéad Lohan record is an exercise in futility. As she says in ‘People and Tables,’ probably my favourite track on No Mermaid:

waiting for nothing confuses the mind
letting go pieces for no one to find [...]
i never wanted, i never wanted and i never got, i never got
i never wanted, i never once wanted and i never got, i never once got

(Sinéad Lohan’s previous record — while certainly no Mermaid — is filled with uniformly appealing, accomplished songs and also highly recommended.)

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A review of Food’s Quiet Inlet (2010).

In its web review, the BBC calls this “a magical hybrid of technology and improvisation, Europe and America, ambience and dance.” It’s definitely all those things.

I find myself especially excited about this release because there have been so few genuinely successful jazz/electronica hybrids worth listening to. This music manages to be idiomatic and credible in both genres. The genre transcendence achieved on this disc has a magical, mystical, almost spiritual aspect that – in an interesting way – places it firmly into the tradition of ‘acoustic music’ regardless of the actual sounds and instrumentation used. It’s not really jazz, not really electronic music, but it’s not world music either. It’s what Miles Davis tried to do in his electric days, only in 2010, there are no more limitations to instrumentation, sound design or the possibilities of arrangement.

Food is Thomas Strønen (drums, live electronics), Iain Bellamy (tenor and soprano saxophones), Nils Petter Molvær (trumpet, electronics) and Christian Fennesz (guitar, electronics). A super group of sorts, at least in the areas of European improvised jazz and brainy, glitchy electronica. Strønen and Bellamy have been at it for a while as Food. Molvær had a short but intense brush with fame in the late 90s when he released a few reasonably successful electronica/jazz crossover records on ECM (only to leave the label when it couldn’t get its head around the openness of remix culture, preferring to think of albums as complete artist statements). Fennesz has enjoyed a surprisingly high profile given that he has released only a handful of records of ambient, glitchy, noisy guitar-driven electronica in the last 10 years (his latest, Black Sea, is brilliant and very listenable; Venice and Endless Summer are quite brilliant but not terribly listenable).

Quiet Inlet is a collection of fiercely rhythmic ambient jazz, partially composed and partially improvised. The overall profile of this ensemble is saxophone, trumpet, electronic pads and textures, and electronically treated drums.

Thomas Strønen is a fantastic drummer – the booklet images (in typically stylish black and white ECM photography) show him using a huge amount of electronics, possibly greater in number than actual drums – with a fail-proof sense of groove and the uncanny ability to shoe-horn any amount of polyrhythmic detail and ornamentation into a track without cluttering it. He strikes me as a sort of contemporary Manu Katché, an impossibly groovy and musical drummer, but with an embrace of the full spectrum of electronic enhancements, sampling, loops, and so on.

Iain Bellamy sounds like a very focused free jazz improviser. Given that this is an ECM release, his sound often comes across as not entirely unlike Jan Garbarek‘s, but with more Celtic (and obviously fewer Nordic folk) influences. I really find myself appreciating the restraint he exercises in these pieces – there’s a great economy in his playing, not dissimilar to Jon Hassell‘s, maybe.

Nils Petter Molvær has a beautiful, subdued, muted, yet sharply-drawn Miles Davis trumpet sound that blends easily and effectively with Bellamy’s. I recall not liking his previous ECM efforts all that much (they seemed like the explorations of someone fascinated by electronic music who was nonetheless not entirely able to make the jump), but here – since he’s not setting the agenda (I assume) – he’s an outstanding session contributor. Of course, it’s hard to say which of the four musicians is responsible for which electronic texture, so it’s quite possible that Molvær is much more instrumental to this than I think. (I should also say that I haven’t heard anything of his since Solid Ether.)

It’s even harder to say where Christian Fennesz’ noises on Quiet Inlet begin and end. His guitar mostly acts as an ‘input’ instrument and he hardly ever plays a lead part (although you can hear his guitar clearly on ‘Fathom’). Knowing his other work as I do leads me to imagine that quite a lot of the textures, pads and ‘bass lines’ here may be his.

ECM’s sound, as always, is impeccable – clear, crisp, spacious, great imaging, full, present without losing any of the dynamics of the music. I love this label (I’ve been listening to a lot of ECM lately), and this release may be one of its best in 2010. Highly recommended.

What’s left now is L’Atelier Grigorian, a small specialist classical and jazz CD store (very well curated but unfortunately expensive), HMV’s flagship store on Yonge Street (whose classical department upstairs focuses more and more on Naxos, Brilliant and other budget releases), and the classical sections in stores like Soundscapes (whose classical buyer is either myopic or schizophrenic, or both; it appears that only a small selection from mostly major labels gets brought in – surprising in a store that is so ‘indie’ in all other genres). There are classical departments in an ever-shrinking number of second hand CD stores in Toronto but they’re typically not really worth visiting.

Naturally, my eye has drifted online. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and its various independent sellers have generally been a good, speedy – and cheap source. ArkivMusic (with its very useful catalogue containing syndicated reviews from Fanfare and other premium online review sources) is also very good (though pricier on average, and shipping can take a while).

One of the more exciting options these days is buying music digitally. While I remain deeply skeptical about iTunes (or anything that comes in a low-ish quality and with DRM), there is now an increasing number of credible and accomplished indie labels selling high-resolution digital files directly. In some cases, these are actually higher-resolution than a CD – up to actual studio master quality (SACD resolution or better). Even though I don’t have equipment that would easily allow me to play back high res audio files like that, it’s exciting to imagine that – as computer-based audio becomes cheaper and less niche-y – it’ll be possible one day to fully enjoy a studio quality master at home.

First up in the classical digital download offerings has to be Linn Records. Founded as an off-shoot of the Scottish high-end stereo manufacturer in the early 80s, Linn Records is a boutique audiophile label that is slowly emerging with a limited but excellent catalogue of classical recordings (as well as forays into jazz and singer/songwriter material). I’m a big fan of some of Linn’s Baroque releases, such as the truly outstanding and unanimously well-reviewed Bach Mass in B minor by the Dunedin Consort, a Scottish group that performs this work with one-to-a-part voicings (only one singer for every voice in the choral parts – this has the distinct advantage of showing off Bach’s intricate part-writing and illuminates the music’s overall architecture).

Other Linn releases I love are by various other Scottish Baroque players, many of whom have made big names for themselves in their various specialties since (and, sadly, moved on from Linn Records as a result). Particularly wonderful recordings are by the Palladian Ensemble (featuring the wonderful Rachel Podger, my favourite Baroque violinist) and by Pamela Thorby (who plays the recorder). Thorby’s Garden of Early Delights, performed together with Andrew Lawrence-King on harp and psaltery, is one of the loveliest selections of early Baroque music I’ve heard, beautifully played and recorded with an immense clarity, resonance and a width of sound stage second to none.

In fact, the audio quality of Linn’s work – there’s an interview with Linn’s chief producer/engineer, Calum Malcolm, here – is outstanding on every release. I’ve now bought and downloaded 320 kbps MP3 versions of a number of releases, and everything is breathtakingly well recorded.

Linn offers its own Adobe Air based download manager application, which works very well. The only complaint I have is about the somewhat awkwardly done digital booklets (they are PDFs of the print versions, so the pages are out of order in the PDF) and poor MP3 metadata. This latter issue is somewhat inexcusable for a download store – and while I understand that my 320 kbps MP3s are at the low end of Linn’s offerings and price point, there really is no reason why I should have to spend 10 minutes after every download importing and re-working the metadata in iTunes to ensure that it’s complete and accurate.

Another excellent digital music seller is Hyperion Records. Hyperion is primarily known for its outstanding efforts in chamber music, Lieder and the pre-classical repertoire. Its greatest claim to fame so far is probably the complete edition of Schubert Lieder (something I aim to own – and listen to – one of these years…).

Hyperion offers digital downloads either as VBR MP3s (targeting 320 kpbs) or FLAC (FLAC is generally emerging as the audiophile download format of choice – I grab FLAC where I can for archiving and down-convert to 320 kbps MP3s for the time being, in the interest of portability).

I’ve bought several excellent digital selections from Hyperion Records. Particularly enjoyable have been releases by Stephen Hough, an English pianist whom I admire greatly (and who also has an always intriguing and occasionally amusing Twitter presence). His Mozart Album is a wildly successful recital of Mozart and Mozart-inspired music, and I highly recommend it. I’ve also grabbed two very special Rossini releases – the Soirées musicales song cycle and an otherwise out-of-print edition of the String Sonatas in their original chamber version played by Elizabeth Wallfisch and ensemble.

Downloading from Hyperion is less convenient than Linn Records because Hyperion doesn’t offer a download manager (it references a few on its website, but alas – I use Google Chrome and none of the Firefox plugins support my browser) so you have to actually download each file separately. On the plus side, though, Hyperion’s metadata-labeling is superb and I have no completeness or accuracy concerns to report.

As I build my classical library, lingering doubts remain after every digital-only purchase. “If only I had bought the CD instead. What if MP3 or FLAC aren’t the last word yet for digital audio? If I owned the CD, at least I could re-rip it at a future date into whatever format will then be de rigueur.”

For right now, convenience wins out. 320 kpbs MP3s sound quite wonderful to my ears on most equipment (barring, perhaps, my main stereo in the living room, where they sound merely somewhat above acceptable but lack the fullness and depth of my CD player), and their portability-to-audiophile-to-economy ratio on a 160GB latest generation iPod is quite excellent (especially with one of these line-out iPod dock cables for the car).

There are other classical digital download options. Notably, Deutsche Grammophon offers some 3,500 of its releases, as well as some of the Decca catalogue (both now owned by Universal Music) as 320 kbps MP3 downloads. I haven’t tried this yet, but at first glance, the online catalogue seems somewhat confusing (you can always trust the corporate behemoth to create the dodgiest e-commerce offering). I was a little sad to see that the DG website doesn’t offer all of the newly merged Universal classical labels – I would have liked to be able to access the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi catalogue in this way, as it contains many gems I’d like to get my hands on digitally. Finally, I’m keen to see whether Harmonia Mundi itself, the fantastic French indie classical label, has digital sales plans of its own. Now that would be something…

These two videos explain the process and are an interesting micro-documentary.

Part one:

Part two:

The CD is also entirely worth owning, even if it is a little expensive:

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A review of Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back (2010)

It’s a tricky business, doing covers of well-known and well-loved songs. Perhaps not when you’re Keith Jarrett or Brad Mehldau and you can fall back on a long-established tradition of converting the day’s popular songs into improvised jazz, a process by which they become ‘standards.’

But when you’re the éminence grise of politically conscious progressive rock, the expectations are high. You can’t just go ahead and perform the songs in ways reminiscent of their original arrangement. You need to add something significantly new and insightful, shine a different light on them, make them your own. (Why this should be required is an interesting question, and – somewhat ironically – the rule only seems to apply to those who have proven themselves capable songwriters. Nobody expects Michael Bublé to add penetrating new insights to Frank Sinatra’s songs.)

The starting point for this collection was, as Gabriel says in the short but eloquent sleeve notes, to perform songs by others that he loves, and to use no drums or guitars. Setting a deliberate constraint like that is an interesting and useful artistic conceit – brushing up against the limits of the constraint helps clarify the vision (it’s a useful trick in all sorts of creative situations – try it some time in a meeting).

The end result is twelve tracks (53 minutes) of mostly quiet, stark beauty – some of the songs are very different from the originals, most are successful as covers, some are entirely outstanding and all shine a light on the original that wasn’t there before.

The songs are set orchestrally, arranged and orchestrated by John Metcalfe, sometimes with piano, and all the instruments are acoustic. The CD is beautifully recorded, obviously with a great deal of care and skill.

Here are my thoughts about each track:

David Bowie’s ‘Heroes‘ receives a tentative, cracked-voice, minor-key makeover. Without the 1970s German prog rock ‘motorik’ beat we know from the original, it becomes a lot more pensive and fragile sounding. The orchestra builds to a crescendo, Gabriel’s voice shifts up an octave into his ‘power range’ and, somehow, magically, this becomes a Peter Gabriel song. It ends suddenly, a little surprisingly, and in so-doing elegantly answers the question of how to end songs without a fade: just stop.

Paul Simon’s ‘The Boy In The Bubble‘ is next. This is a tough song to cover without drums. The original is so vividly and memorably marked by the concertina, Bakithi Kumalo’s fretless bass and Vusi Khumalo’s booming, elastic drums that it’s hard to make the connection at first. Curiously, and I think somewhat unfortunately, Peter Gabriel opts for a slight piano arpeggio to provide the rhythmic backing, slowing the track down to the ‘slow mo’ of the lyrics. Most disconcertingly, he re-chords much of the song, often creating discomfort between the melody and the backing. This does create (in me, at least) an interesting tension between what I’m expecting and what I’m getting. And of course the harmonies eventually resolve, but only after a fairly uncomfortable four minutes. I oscillate between thinking it’s genius and hating it. I suppose that makes it a good cover.

Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball,’ from 2008′s outstanding The Seldom Seen Kid, is an obvious choice because Gabriel’s and Elbow singer Guy Garvey’s voices are actually quite similar, and the original already has an orchestral backing in the chorus. I think this is well done but ultimately, perhaps, one of the lesser covers here. It does demonstrate, though, just how much Peter Gabriel has influenced the current ‘new wave’ of prog rock. You can easily hear it in Elbow, TV on the Radio, and many others. (The vocal similarities between Gabriel and Garvey are coincidental to the quality of the cover, the songwriting similarities aren’t – and that’s what makes Gabriel easily inhabit this song.)

I’m not familiar with Bon Iver’s ‘Flume,’ but it’s evidently a brilliant song and eerily Peter Gabriel like. This is perhaps the one track that could most easily pass for a Peter Gabriel original here (and I think that’s great praise). Part of what makes this arrangement so successful is that we’re used to hearing Gabriel’s voice paired with dense horn arrangements. While they’re typically synthetic pads, it is a sound he’s favoured for a few decades so ‘Flume’ sounds familiar to us sung by this voice with this backing. It would not be out of place on So or Us.

Talking Heads’ ‘Listening Wind‘ from 1980′s Brian Eno produced Remain in Light is one of the best covers I’ve ever heard, period. A satisfyingly quivering, squirming and twitching call to anti-colonial resistance in the original, Gabriel’s version here lifts it into the realm of essential listening for our troubled, war-torn 21st century. The swirling string arrangement sounds at times like the Kronos Quartet, a the ‘free trade zone’ in the lyrics suddenly sounds like everything you’ve ever heard about Baghdad’s Green Zone, sad and threatening at the same time.

‘The Power Of Your Heart‘ is a new Lou Reed tune. It doesn’t appear to be available on any Lou Reed releases yet – according to Google, he’s been playing it live for a few years, and it’s been recorded for a Cartier advertising campaign (but I couldn’t find it on that website, either; just on Youtube). This is a beautiful piece of song craft and suits Gabriel like a glove. It has the stateliness, the grace of his older slow songs, like ‘Don’t Give Up,’ while not exactly sounding like a Peter Gabriel original. The thoughtful arrangement gives is a 21st century Tin Pan Alley sheen that’s quite lovely.

Next up is Arcade Fire’s ‘My Body Is A Cage,’ a long-time favourite of mine and beautifully done here. It’s been re-chorded, too, but much more gently than ‘The Boy In The Bubble.’ I love the drama of the orchestration – it has a dark, movie-like scoring that suits it very well. What’s curious is that the Peter Gabriel version drifts between menace and fragility while the original is agonized, spiritual and seeking. There’s quite a contrast between the two, yet both versions shed light on the lyrics in entirely legitimate ways. I also love the ending: around minute 4:45, Gabriel introduces a choir in one of those incomparable Peter Gabriel moments of quiet, poignant beauty which – I think – elevates his version above the original if only for the subtlety and complexity of the orchestral arrangement.

I don’t know The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book Of Love,’ but this version makes me want to seek out the original (something all good covers should do). With lyrics that gently make fun of the silliness of romantic love’s gestures, words and songs, this doesn’t immediately jump out as something that would be a natural fit for Peter Gabriel. But the various Gabriel shows I’ve been to over the years revealed a gently funny man with a quiet sense of humour and a great deal of humanity. ‘The Book Of Love’ is a beautiful lighter moment on Scratch My Back.

‘I Think It’s Going To Rain Today‘ by Randy Newman is stylistically similar to the Lou Reed cover. It’s pensive, and the piano backing – recorded at a resonant and slightly wooly distance – makes it sound almost like a Schubert Lied. I don’t think it’s terribly successful, but it’s not very problematic either in the greater context of the record. It’s a resting point of sorts, and at just over 2 minutes it hasn’t been given enough time to reveal any magic it may hold.

Regina Spektor’s ‘Après Moi,’ on the other hand (another one I’m not familiar with in the original; Youtube to the rescue once more) seems very problematic to me. Here, the bigness of the arrangement makes what’s merely banal in the original overblown and unwieldy. It sounds a lot like one of those faux agony moments in many modern musicals – something by Andrew Lloyd Webber, perhaps. I also find the Peter Gabriel arrangement oddly pompous, adding circumstance where the original had very little, and I’m not sure of the interpretive intent. I’ve never been a big fan of Regina Spektor (in fact, I sold or gave away her first two CDs after owning them for a couple of years and never warming to them). And that thing she does in the chorus where she explains ‘après moi’ by immediately following it with ‘after me comes the flood’? Ham-fisted in the way the actors on CSI always explain everything in ‘casual conversation.’

I don’t have much to say about ‘Philadelphia,’ the Neil Young song. I feel similarly about it as I did about the Randy Newman tune discussed above. It’s quiet, to the point, and provides another resting point. ‘Quietly elegant’ might be the best way to describe it. I suspect that repeated listens will reveal more of it than I’ve discovered so far.

Finally, there’s Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)‘ which – without the rapidly picked guitar and high-pitched agony of Thom Yorke’s voice – is quite different. What I like here is that Peter Gabriel deliberately strains his voice near the top end of his register to achieve a similarly pained effect. I really like the instrumentation here, the piano and orchestral palette chosen are interesting and engaging. There’s a lightness and theatricality to the cover that the original doesn’t have and that Radiohead themselves only learned after recording ‘Street Spirit.’ I’m quite fond of this.

All the artists covered on Scratch My Back will also cover a Peter Gabriel song each, to be anthologized on a future CD called, presumably, And I’ll Scratch Yours. Some of these covers are currently being released on iTunes as song pairs (one Peter Gabriel song covered by someone else coupled with Peter’s cover of that artist’s song).

All told, I think Scratch My Back is one of the better cover records by a major artist I’ve heard. Its predominantly pensive and somber mood leaves me unsure of whether this will become a staple on my iPod, but I know there are songs here that I’ll prefer in this version over the original – and there are one or two I’ll prefer to skip over entirely. As always, the quirks may bring me back to this more frequently than I think. I’m learning this about great records: it’s the quirks that make them great.

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A review of Madagascar Slim’s Good Life Good Living (2009)

Sometime in September or October 2009, I woke up – as I always do – to the sounds of CBC Radio 1. I’m not always sure why I listen to it, but it has something to do with all other options on the dial being much, much worse. Andy Barrie, the host of ‘Metro Morning,’ has a sort of dignified, grown-up way about him, a seemingly sincere desire to pander to my shrinking highbrow demographic, and so I get my tax dollar’s worth every morning between 6 and 7. Very occasionally, Metro Morning plays music; to introduce something the editorial team has deemed worthy of our rarefied ears. That morning, I encountered Madagascar Slim, an exceptionally talented Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist, originally from Madagascar.

Now, Madagascar isn’t a geography I’m familiar with musically, despite having lived in Southern Africa for 20 years. This was perhaps a sign of South Africa’s disconnection from the rest of the region (culture, like foreign currency, wasn’t allowed to flow freely during the Apartheid years, and rebuilding regional relations since has been slow). In terms of widely recognized African music, West Africa (Mali, Senegal…) and South Africa itself always seemed to dwarf everyone else’s output, especially since the Western market for ‘world music’ isn’t known for its ability to differentiate sounds or appreciate the subtleties of regional inflection.

Madagascar, the world’s 5th largest island, had been a proudly independent seafaring monarchy for centuries before being invaded and colonized by France in the 1880s. It was a crucial trade gateway between East Africa and Southeast Asia, and – perhaps this is purely in my head – some of these influences can be heard in Slim’s music. For me, the recognizable elements are similarities to a certain South African ‘folk’ – I hear early Johnny Clegg (when he was still playing with his original band, Juluka) and Vusi Mahlasela. There’s a simple lyricism with very distinct Southern African elements here (I would call them kwela rhythms, but I realize that that’s just nomenclature). There’s also a “Latin” tinge, perhaps echoing the deep influence salsa, son and cumbia have wielded in other African coastal economies (such as Senegal, whose music is deeply influenced by Latin American sounds imported by sailors). While I can’t really hear an Asian influence, I sense elements of European folk song – evidence, no doubt, of the missionary colonialism present everywhere in historical Madagascar; this is similar to Waldemar Bastos from Angola, say. In this sense, Madagascar Slim’s music is an amalgam of his country’s history and geography.

Known as a Canadian world music guitar virtuoso, Slim also has another set of influences. Much has been made of his early discovery of Hendrix and his desire to play Jimi’s and B. B. King’s music. And certainly, there are tracks on Good Life Good Living (such as the cleverly named ‘Take Me Home (Slight Return),’ the name an homage to Hendrix’ ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’) that feature electric, blues-inflected guitar work. In essence, though, this is largely an acoustic, melodious, low-key affair that’s a lot less austere than a blues record, and it has absolutely nothing in common with West African ‘blues’ like Tinariwen, Ali Farka Touré or Boubacar Traoré. (I find myself wondering whether the “Malagasy kid discovers Hendrix, takes up guitar” origination story is maybe one of those self-perpetuating PR myths that don’t really serve to shed any light on an artist’s work but rather obfuscate the complexities of heritage and the richness of influence.)

There is much on this CD that is both immediately accessible (for someone open to world music) and benefits from repeated listening. Slim is an outstanding acoustic picker (witness the instrumental ‘Neny Malala,’ for example) whose simple picked chords propel everything here. There’s a heaviness of spirit here, a sadness of love and loss, underscored by strong and simple harmony vocals (‘Fankahalana’). Since I don’t understand the Malagasy lyrics and don’t have access to the CD cover (bought it on iTunes), I can’t say if it’s longing for lost love, home or a resolution of Madagascar’s complicated politics and poverty, but it’s touching in its simplicity and earnestness.

There’s one moment that borders on a misstep: ‘Take Me Home,’ a beautiful melody and a perfectly executed mid-tempo number, is apparently about every immigrant’s nightmare of living abroad, away from home, and about being sent home, deported. Suddenly, in the middle of the song, there’s a very Canadian voice (presumably meant to belong to an immigration official) announcing Slim’s deportation. It’s jarring… presumably deliberately, but uncomfortable nonetheless. At the end of the track, we hear a female voice waking the singer from his nightmare. It puts this track uncomfortably close to the ‘novelty song’ category. On the other hand, it’s these idiosyncrasies that make us remember and cherish certain albums, so I’m choosing to interpret it this way.

All is well the minute the next track comes on – a rollicking party of a song called ‘Sitaka’ that blends Malagasy roots, Quebec folk (or maybe Zydeco?) and intersperses it with a beautifully executed 12 bar blues seemingly out of nowhere. It’s effortless and demonstrates why Slim is in high demand as a sideman in Toronto’s blues scene.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this if you’re at all interested in world music. It’s one of the freshest things I’ve heard in a while, particularly since African music on CD has become so heavily oriented towards West African desert blues in recent years.

Madagascar Slim’s Good Life Good Living is available on iTunes, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.com. He also had a self-released (?) earlier album called “Omnisource” that is out of print and has sketchy availability.

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A review of The Neville Brothers’ Yellow Moon

Sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, I became interested in Daniel Lanois‘ music. Here was an enigmatic producer who had worked with Brian Eno, U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, Jon Hassell and Bob Dylan. For each, he had forged important, sometimes career-changing records, yet somehow he had put his own unmistakable stamp on each record. Regardless of genre differences, it’s quite possible to immediately identify a Daniel Lanois produced album when you hear it. It’s a very specific style: there’s a groundedness, a deep connection to all archetypal American music, a solid base in folk, funk and the blues, an earnest honesty, a certain electronic sheen- slightly industrial, but never jarring, a lo-fi hiss, a generous and well-balanced depth of field, a core musicality that shines through everything. Above all, Daniel Lanois has a deep repect for each performer’s musicianship.

The Neville Brothers – best known to most listeners because of brother Aaron’s unusual high tenor – had a patchy history of local New Orleans success prior to constituting themselves as an R&B outfit in 1975. Commercial success, however, remained elusive through subsequent studio and live albums. In 1988/89, they teamed up with Daniel Lanois and his then-engineer Malcolm Burn (now a renowned producer in his own right) to record what would become their career-high.

A deeply unique record in many ways, Yellow Moon is an atmospheric CD. Full of percussion, Lanois’ trademark dark synth pads and Charles Neville’s saxophone, the sound is a sort of lo-fi funk with a strong pan-African identity. There’s a definitive version of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ here, two out-of-left-field but excellent Dylan covers (‘With God On Our Side’ and ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’) and a number of brilliant self-penned tracks.

While the radio single ‘Sister Rosa’ sounds slightly dated today due to its ‘early rap’ vocals, the most outstanding piece of music here is of course the title track. ‘Yellow Moon’ is a brilliant piece of sophisticated, bluesy, swamp-reggae, carried by Hammond licks, a tireless, lively bass line and propelled by Aaron’s plaintive, longing vocal.

Is she hid out with another? | Or is she trying to get back home? | Is she wrapped up in another’s arms? | Or is the girl somewhere all alone?

Like all the best pop music, this is pure emotional pain wrapped in transcendent musical beauty. It’s the kind of song that you have to play again and again when you first hear it. The sort of song that you’ll have in your headphones, late at night, and suddenly you’re standing in the middle of your living room swaying, with your eyes closed. The rest of the record – which is truly excellent, fantastic even – does fade slightly against the bright shooting star of this song. It’s a traditional R&B track at heart, something Sam Cooke might have written, timeless and traditional despite its electronic touches. Lanois, as always, finds how to be the conduit for this music and elevates great R&B to become part of the canon of classic American music, transcending the genre.

The Dylan covers mentioned above are quite incredible, too. ‘With God on Our Side’ becomes a gospel meditation, all low synth pads – the music itself is self-effacing here, almost not there at all – as a frame for Aaron’s heartfelt vocal. It’s a genuine surprise to hear this song – part of the core folk repertoire – so significantly transformed here. The Nevilles make it their own. ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’ is a lo-fi blues track, a dark, driving story song with an excellent slide guitar. Both tracks are great examples of how Aaron Neville’s voice, so fraught with adult contemporary meaning post Linda Ronstadt and one too many Christmas albums, can sound organic and authentic in the right context.

The Nevilles also do a version of A.P. Carter’s ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,’ at first glance a hard-to-believe pick. But in the context of Lanois wall of amorphous synth sounds and a simple heartbeat thud as the backbeat, the brothers’ four-part harmonies affirm what you already know: American music really vanquishes racial boundaries and is rooted in a single sound. Johnny Cash and Elvis knew this, and so do the Neville Brothers and Daniel Lanois.

Hearing Yellow Moon 20 years after it was released continues to be a great joy. For those of you who don’t know it, this anniversary is a good time to get acquainted with a classic of the American repertoire.

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A review of Diane Birch’s Bible Belt

It almost didn’t happen, my finding out about Diane Birch. My friend and coworker P. and I decided to visit our local Sunrise Records yesterday, on our way back from lunch. You know, two old people looking at CDs. And while I was mildly interested in seeing that Rodrigo y Gabriela have a new release out, the store guy kept telling us about what he was playing on the speakers: Diane Birch. How she was the new Norah Jones, “if this next song doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will,” that sort of thing. He was an older guy, too. And he was zeroing in on the only demographic that still buys CDs. It was a job well done, really, until he started telling us about how good-looking Diane Birch is. Neither of us could quite figure out why that should be a deciding factor, but I dutifully took a look at the CD cover where she appears dressed like Twiggy and gazes back at us with serious big eyes. I wasn’t buying it, or anything else for that matter.

P., on the other hand, rolled the dice and bought it. And so, back at the office, I made a copy, just to see if my on-the-spot judgment had been wrong.

And it was. Diane Birch is quite amazing, and this is a great record. The bio on her website summarizes the story to date: born in Michigan, spent her life in Southern Africa until she was about 10 (her dad was a missionary pastor), returned to the US, learned to play the piano, grew up, moved to LA to become a film composer, supported herself playing standards on the piano, learned to sing, learned to write songs, got a record deal, moved to New York. That’s the really short version. But since she’s only in her mid-20s, perhaps it isn’t really much longer than that.

The record is a remarkably likable blend of 70s female singer-songwriter styles with some pure r&b thrown in for good measure. Music people like to classify things by offering comparisons, and I’ve been thinking about that since yesterday. Everyone is comparing her to Norah Jones. There’s certainly something to that idea: she’s a singer-songwriter who got a young start, sounds mature beyond her years, plays a style that’s not “of her generation,” and uses authentic-sounding retro instrumentation. So that’s certainly one legitimate point of comparison. But it’s lacking in some core ways: this is the album that Norah Jones could have made instead of The Fall, her own new outing (which I’m not done listening to yet, but it certainly didn’t seem to provide the same level of immediate emotional resonance this has).

Other points of comparison might be Katie Melua (same clarity of voice, but Diane Birch has 1000% more substance and writes her own songs), Joss Stone (there’s some serious r&b singing going on here – Diane Birch is not in Joss Stone’s league but then again, that’s neither her game nor how she’s being marketed), or perhaps some of those white British retro-r&b singers, like Adele or Duffy.

The marketing bio on her website draws careful historical comparisons to Laura Nyro, Karen Carpenter and classic AM radio. I won’t comment on those alleged parallels, but this is big, friendly music with accessible melodies that had me humming more than once. The playing is tasteful and thoughtful throughout – she’s surrounded herself with the cream of the crop of New York session musicians, and the collective experience shows.

Ultimately, though, Diane Birch’s voice is the real star here: not too high, not too low, not too gritty – she has an everywoman voice, like Carole King perhaps. The most beautiful thing about her voice is that she never oversings, never strains, never becomes shrill. She displays a remarkable economy in her vocals that’s both admirable and really surprising in a singer so young. Her phrasing’s impeccable, too. Like other singers who don’t think of themselves as singers primarily, she knows how to shape her vocals with a self-effacing restraint that complements her music beautifully.

The songs are lovely, open, accessible and likable by the broadest cross-section of listeners. They are the sorts of songs you catch on the AM radio of your mind when driving on your imaginary California freeway. Another reviewer has said that the record should have been shorter by about three tracks but couldn’t really say which ones should have been cut. I’d counter that perhaps they all belong there. There really isn’t a weak song here. Even the slightly indulgent ones are charming and somehow work as part of the whole.

I, too, didn’t really want to like Diane Birch. I think her label’s marketing is not doing her justice, and the cover images (often the first and only thing you have to go on in a record store) produce some very strange cognitive friction. But the music is – unequivocally – glorious and deserves to be heard and loved.

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Is there a more valuable, interesting and diverse catalogue in popular music than this one? In twelve records, the Beatles changed the entire face of music several times over, imprinting their songs on our culture in a way that transcends generations, politics, location and taste preferences.

I think of music as belonging – at the very highest, surface level – to one of two categories: music bought by music lovers, and music bought by people who don’t buy music. People who don’t buy music may listen to the radio or encounter music in other ways in their daily lives, but they never purchase music. Their CD collections, even when they are adults, consist of roughly 15 CDs, most of which were birthday presents from well-meaning but misguided friends. You’ll find an alarmingly high density of artists like Queen, Dire Straits and Hootie and the Blowfish in their CD shelves; also U2, Coldplay and maybe an older Radiohead CD that’s a little dusty.

The Beatles are the one act that consistently and powerfully transcends both types of musical public. The fact that their career together was so short and eventful, of course, contributes immensely to this: even people who aren’t particularly interested in the biographies of musicians know, in broad terms, the story of John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Beatles created their own archetypes.

The music is peerless in more ways that I can enumerate here. I’m not going to describe each record because – if you haven’t – you simply need to hear them all. Even the Beatles’ throw-away album filler tracks are extraordinarily evolved compositions, well-produced and fabulously entertaining.

The remasters, so memorably released on 09-09-09, are tastefully and carefully done. They are subtle in ways that other remasters are not: following a careful audio restoration process that took several years to complete, they are not just louder but provide new insights into the music. As a general rule, it does feel as though audio cobwebs have been removed. Where the previous, 1980s CD reissues sounded tinny, thin and frequently harsh, these sound full, balanced and well-rounded while never lulling you into a false sense of security. There’s more space here, better stereo imaging, more depth of field. The vocals are clearer and have less sibilant distortion. And McCartney’s Höfner bass is a revelation on most pieces, as these new editions finally do it justice and allow it to anchor the music properly, something the old CDs never managed to convey.

I have spent many days listening to the Beatles remasters over the last two months, and there have been any number of new discoveries and insights. I’m particularly impressed by the many ‘new’ album tracks that I wasn’t as aware of before. I suppose this is a good illustration of how the 1980s CDs gave me listening fatigue. I feel as if there are many songs that I’m really only encountering fully now that I have the remastered discs.

For example, I’ve enjoyed Magical Mystery Tour tremendously, including such album tracks as ‘Blue Jay Way’ and ‘Your Mother Should Know,’ neither of which I had consciously encountered before. I’ve also reconnected with Let It Be, which – contrary to popular opinion – I think is the better record in the Phil Spector version (rather than McCartney’s revisionist release from a few years ago). For example, I think that ‘I Me Mine’ is an extraordinary song that should get far more attention than it does.

On the whole, the remasters have brought the Beatles into the digital age, made them digitally listenable, and have provided countless hours of enjoyment. The subtlety and skill applied in the creation of these new versions cannot be praised too highly.

I think this is essential music, and every household even remotely interested in popular music should own these records. You will find that they transcend age, taste and personality differences.

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Despite the ongoing controversy over the remaining Beatles’ reluctance to see their music released digitally, a digital version of sorts will be released just in time for Christmas:

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I simply bought the individual CDs on the day of release, instead of the box set. I felt that I didn’t particularly need the box and the poster.

Finally, there’s also The Beatles in Mono, a box set of the original ten or so records that were released in mono. It appears that the Beatles themselves only attended the mono mixing sessions of their LPs. EMI has made these mixes available as a separate limited edition box set whose packaging is more elaborate and historically authentic. I’ve heard some of them and can’t say that I was all that impressed. They are great-sounding remasters, too; it’s just that I’m used to the Beatles in stereo.

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A review of Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug (2009)

In 2005/2006, the Arctic Monkeys were the British rock world’s most-hyped new rock ‘n’ roll sensation. Before they had ever released an album, the tornado of media opinion preceding them ensured they’d sell a vast number of their first release, and they did. This first offering was followed by diligent touring and a second album that was, by all critical accounts, possibly even better than the first.

Musically, the Monkeys played a sort of nervous New Wave/classic rock blend on their first two offerings – derived, in equal measure, from Franz Ferdinand, the Clash, the Jam and – maybe – Oasis. They were a precise band that wrote decent songs and had a healthy postmodern disregard for even the most recent rock history: they were kids in the 90s, when rock was post-rock and popular music had already entered its permanently relativist state. Their music was likable, but perhaps no more so than, say, Ash or the Subways once you stripped Arctic Monkeys of their immense media profile.

For me, their first two records lacked a certain grounding. Entertaining enough to listen to, clever in many ways, both Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare had great tracks but, in the end, left me a little cold. Maybe in the same way that Franz Ferdinand’s weaker album tracks leave one cold.

Enter Humbug in 2009. The Monkeys have retained the services of Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age fame to produce their new album. While I’m not that closely familiar with Homme’s output overall, his music in Queens wouldn’t in any obvious way suggest that he’d be a good match for producing the nimble, light-footed, hardworking, nervy Monkeys. Queens of the Stone Age is all about lowdown, heavy grooves, growls and drones; music that has tons of bottom end.

And yet, on Humbug, something magical has happened. Homme has helped Arctic Monkeys find an anchor of gravity, has tied their music down and bolted it into the floor. While other reviewers have pointed out that this record is so much more experimental than the first two, I think the main achievement here is actually the songwriting that’s resulted from the new lower frequencies: there’s a darkness, or rather many of the tracks are darkly funny in the same way that Nick Cave or recent Morrissey is.

In fact, I was surprised by how sonically similar this CD is to Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry, 2004′s formidably rocking (and funny) comeback record.

Humbug, then, is the Arctic Monkey’s sonic coming-of-age record. It’s immensely listenable and quite brilliant, although – I suspect – it hasn’t gotten the right kind of media attention this time around because it doesn’t comply with our preconceived notions about the band, and because change is not always welcomed. I, for one, am thoroughly enjoying the darker textures, weirder lyrics and harder orientation.

Two recent Arctic Monkeys videos to round out this brief posting: the first is the single from Humbug, the second is a fabulous cover of Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand,’ released, apparently, only on the web.