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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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.

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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This Christmas, music took a strange turn towards the democratic, at least in the UK. And it did so in a fairly unexpected way: not in iTunes or because consumers voted with their credit cards at retail (music retail sales are down 20% year over year). Music took a democratic turn when fans of Jeff Buckley decided they had to put a stop to Alexandra Burke’s inevitable ascent to the top of the British charts and set about organizing the digital resistance.

Burke is the winner of ITV’s X Factor, a British talent search reality show. Her version of the Leonard Cohen penned song”Hallelujah” looked poised to be in the top spot in the UK singles chart, when a group of dedicated, self-appointed entertainment activists decided to take matters in their own hands and save us all from the inevitable triumph of Simon Cowell produced starlets. (If you’re interested, you can hear Burke’s competent but somewhat soulless and loud version on Youtube.)

The Facebook group “Jeff Buckley for Xmas No 1” currently has more than 124,000 members (and appears to be growing by 5,000-10,000 members a day). The idea is that everyone who joins the group buys a copy of Buckley’s acclaimed (and very beautiful) version of “Hallelujah” online, from UK digital music outlets such as HMV or iTunes UK. The group creators write:

We can make this work, and make a huge statement against the barrage of cynical manufactured pop dirtying up our charts. I am willing to download this version the week the X factor version comes out, and I know others will be too.

It seems that the whole thing has sort of taken on a life of its own: today (on the Friday before Sunday’s chart publication), another group has organized a flash mob in Trafalgar square in support of the Jeff Buckley for UK #1 initiative.

The Guardian, in its thoughtful report on this year’s odd Christmas chart, points out that both Cohen and the record company are the real winners here:

A spokesman for Sony BMG, which counts Cohen, Buckley and Burke among its artists, said the company hoped Burke would take the top spot, but conceded: “Obviously it would be brilliant if Jeff got to No 2.”

Cohen, who reportedly was swindled out of millions by his manager, can certainly use the additional royalty revenue.

I, for one, am rooting for Jeff Buckley. His version, without a doubt, is the definitive Christmas single. Or should be. Vive la résistance!

Sky News has a fun report about the whole affair, available on Youtube here.

I had only recently discovered Oliver’s music and blogged about it at length. Sensitive obits from TheStar.com here and here.

The medieval concept and practice of pilgrimages stretching over months or even years – to Jerusalem, Rome or Santiago de Compostela – sits uneasily with today’s package tours and motorised travel. For the original pilgrims, though the destination (both physical and metaphysical) was important, the journey was the thing, with all its physical hardships, the hazards along the way and the shared experience, occasionally violent but mostly convivial. Today there are less onerous, probably safer and certainly faster ways to visit the magnificent abbeys, priories and cathedrals that criss-cross southern France and punctuate the various routes through northern Spain. Yet something is missed if we are accorded only the briefest of glances before the tour guide summons us on to the next step in the itinerary. Medieval men and women had the time to become absorbed, the capacity to be enraptured. (John Eliot Gardiner, from the sleeve notes to Pilgrimage to Santiago)

There’s been a slew of recordings in the last few years from musicians making the pilgrimage (the ‘Way of St. James‘) to Santiago de Compostela, a city in Spain where the remains of St. James are said to be kept. This medieval pilgrimage of potentially 1,000km or more has been made for more than 1,000 years from various originating points across Europe. Pilgrims typically walk; many cycle and a few ride on animals.

John Eliot Gardiner, renowned British conductor of choral music, and his Monteverdi Choir, undertook to walk the camino and sing in many of the churches and cathedrals along the way. These performances of 12th century choral music were recorded and released as Pilgrimage to Santiago.

In 2004, Canadian violinist/fiddler Oliver Schroer chose to walk 1,000km of the camino through France and Spain with his wife and two friends. He carried his violin in his backpack, wrapped in socks and underwear (as described in the sleeve notes (PDF), which are great). Over the course of two months, Schroer recorded himself playing beautiful improvised music in 25 different churches and cathedrals, using a Sony DAT recorder.

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The result is Camino, one of the most intriguing and beautiful records I’ve heard in recent years. For me, the comparisons are the solo violin architecture of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the improvised classical/jazz fusion of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, or even Keith Jarrett‘s solo improvisations. The music is of the same ethereal quality. While it seems that Schroer’s more often associated with playing a slightly left-of-centre version of Canadian ‘Celtic’ fiddle music, there are only limited traces of that in this work. His 5-string violin soars and sings, establishes musical structures involving counterpoint and other ‘baroque’ devices, and inhabits a sonic space that can only be described as ‘classical.’ There are pieces, such as ‘The Garden of Birds and Flowers,’ where a Celtic fiddle/bluegrass sensibility comes a little more into the foreground. But it’s always tempered by what I can only call ‘the opposite of Celtic fiddle music’: the naturally beautiful acoustics of the churches put this music firmly in a spiritual light – there’s none of the rhythmic, foot-stomping, dance music intensity (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) of Ontario fiddle music.

And then I stumbled on another kind of tune. What I call the fractal tune. The material that became O2 and Camino. It had a very different quality to it. It was less of an entertainment, and more of a sacrament. This was music that came to me from a different place. Very deep, unexpected, inexplicable and spiritual. Talk of keeping me amused. It had progressed beyond amusement into spiritual practice for me. And getting back to the search for meaning, there was a lot of meaning in this music. It connected with people, it connected with soul, it expressed something profound for myself and apparently for others. It was a mystery, and a beautiful mystery at that. So that, for what it’s worth, is a bit of the story of my musical journey thus far.

Schroer’s camino music is an interesting hands-on illustration of how closely related ‘old’ music and ‘folk’ music really is. Ultimately, the similarity between Bach’s rigorous partitas and Schroer’s spirited improvisations are a matter of what informed them. Both require incredible technique, focus and musical invention. The fact that Schroer’s compositions were not written down (at least I assume they weren’t, even though his liner notes indicate that some pieces are ‘recycled’ from past projects) is actually the least significant point of difference. Going through some samples of Schroer’s earlier recorded work (http://www.oliverschroer.com), it feels as if the cathedral locations and the spiritual focus of walking a thousand kilometers in the footsteps of pilgrims have caused a shift – away from secular solo violin music (much of which already had the same technical elements as Camino) to playing music for the glory of God. (In a fitting parallel, Gardiner’s new independent record label is called Soli Deo Gloria – for God’s glory alone.) Even if Oliver Schroer notes on his website that his dialogue with God has been incomplete at best (not unlike my own, I think):

The meaning I was looking for I didn’t see or find meaning in religion either. Not that I didn’t see other people finding a lot of meaning and solace there. But somehow it was not cut out for me. And that is not to say that I didn’t have an ongoing dialogue with God my whole life long. I used to read the Bible in secret as a teenager. Always 17 verses a day. I’m not sure why. So I was not ill disposed toward religion. It’s just that I never found that oomph of certainty that other people seemed to get from it.

Camino is more than a violin solo recording. It’s also a clever audio document of the pilgrimage: every so often, there’s a short ambient track featuring the sounds of the trail. There are church bells, the sound of footsteps on a sandy path, voices of other pilgrims, cathedral doors. I initially thought this would be an unpleasant distraction from the music but I’ve since decided that these brief interludes are sort of like the pickled ginger when you’re eating sushi: they clear your head before the next beautiful morsel of music.

Schroer’s technique never ceases to amaze. I still remember being transfixed, as a child, by my parents’ old Yehudi Menuhin recordings of Bach’s partitas. I remember that I had previously thought of the violin as an instrument that was only capable of activating a single string at a time – I recall thinking that’s why you needed so many of them in an orchestra. Hearing the Bach sonatas and partitas jolted me out of that belief and helped me see the possibilities of coaxing harmonies from violins. Of course, Bach also opened my eyes to many other things. (And I once, during my university days, opened a guitar-player friend’s eyes to “where Deep Purple got all those guitar solos from” by introducing him to Bach’s sonatas and partitas – but that’s another story entirely…).

Oliver Schroer combines elements of classical technique with controlled harmonics (which are only enhanced by the suberb natural reverb of the Spanish cathedral acoustics), subtly ‘Celtic’ harmonies and rhythms, and a meditative, circular way of arranging his melodies – the 8-minute opener, ‘Field of Stars,’ doesn’t seem long at all. If anything, you experience a sudden longing for more once it’s over.

The recording quality also deserves commentary. It’s nothing short of remarkable what can be done with a single Audiotechnica stereo microphone and a Sony DAT recorder. This is the sort of recording that’ll make you want to get out the good headphones, or finally upgrade your stereo. I would say it’s as close to impeccable as recording a solo violin can get in a natural recording space. And it’s especially remarkable that it was made by Oliver himself without any assistance from a professional recording engineer. Even if it didn’t contain some of the most extraordinary improvised music you’ll ever hear, this record would be worth hearing for its acoustics alone.

Oliver Schroer has been diagnosed with leukemia and appears to have spent the last two years in and out of various Toronto hospitals undergoing chemotherapy. His website’s ‘Leukemia‘ section has all the details and his thoughts on this weighty subject. Suffice it to say that I hope his treatments are successful and that we’ll have Oliver Schroer around for many, many more years.

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Dave Matthews, particularly with the Dave Matthews Band, isn’t recognized enough for his songcraft. It gets lost under the weight of popular perception about Dave’s music, live shows and achievements: touring jam band, incredible musicianship, big sound, long shows, lots of dope smoked at every show, generally appealing to those who once followed the Grateful Dead (how those two were connected I’ve never understood). Dave’s songs also get lost a little because people say they don’t understand what his lyrics are about, and perhaps because the songs have a certain tentative complexity of rhythm and melody – a quality that makes them sound experimental but that’s actually very planned, calculated and predictable.

I’m a dedicated listener to DMB, regardless of whether it’s their studio or live records. I also tend to order all of their Live Trax releases, which are only available from the Dave Matthews Band website. And while I appreciate the bigness and crispness of the band’s sound (Stefan Lessard’s phenomenally powerful and groovy bass, Carter Beauford’s tight and tireless drums, LeRoi Moore’s muscular saxophone, Boyd Tinsley’s sweet violin and Dave’s acoustic folk guitar that somehow glues it all together), I also love Dave’s songs in their lyrical craziness and melodic, fearless musical invention (he sounds like so many singer/songwriters we know, yet completely unique, all at the same time). Dave’s songs are love songs, sad songs, happy songs, crazy party songs; songs about women, history, life, being on the road and alternate life outcomes. It’s a canon of work as varied, strange, richly developed and textured as many other great songwriters’ – Springsteen, Dylan, Paul Simon, James Taylor.

Live at Radio City, like the earlier Live at Luther College, is that rare Dave Matthews live record that leaves all the musical pyrotechnics at home and foregrounds just the songs. Tim Reynolds, Dave’s long-standing acoustic live cohort, is certainly an excellent guitar player and shines in the acoustic solos here (and, of course, Dave himself is also an under-recognized master of the acoustic guitar, providing pulsing, driving rhythms). But this is about the songs, proving that they can hang together beautifully without 15-minute jams, create their own strange poetry and be compelling, even if you don’t really always know what they’re about.

Favourites for me are “Gravedigger” with its embedded nursery rhyme, a beautiful cover version of Daniel Lanois’ “The Maker” (which is of course also incredible in full DMB live regalia), and “Crush,” to name but a few of many. Over the years, Dave’s voice has begun to sound more and more like Peter Gabriel’s in tone and timbre – it has a dark and quiet but clear command of the musical space set up by the song. It’s an expressive and instantly recognizable voice (like Sting’s or Phil Collins’) that doesn’t really fit into any specific genre. Much like Dave Matthews himself doesn’t fit into any genre, I suppose. Maybe he creates his own.

I can’t really recommend this ‘acoustic’ set strongly enough. It’s best heard together with Live at Luther College because it provides a continuation of sorts – old songs versus new songs, old sound versus new. I could sometimes do without the talking between songs (strangely, Dave – writer and singer of such deeply intelligent songs – doesn’t sound either witty or particularly bright in his ‘announcements’…) but that’s a very minor drawback.

Buy from CDBaby

Tina Malia is a singer-songwriter from California who writes and performs beautiful songs at the nexus of folk, world music and new age. That may not sound terrifically appealing at first glance, but somehow she manages to circumvent cheesiness by a wide, safe margin. Instead, she dresses up her earnest (and sometimes touching) folk songs with incredibly skillful arrangements drawing on a variety of excellent acoustic musicians using traditional folk instrumentation augmented by instruments like djembes, didjeridoos and marimbas.

I can hear traces of Peter Gabriel’s world music production heyday in the title track, Sarah McLachlan in “Beholding,” a pan-Celtic sensibility in “All Roads,” and so on. While this is proudly derivative music in the sense that it acknowledges its roots and wears them honestly, I also think that Tina Malia’s songwriting and production skills are so highly developed that she more than stands on her own. For somebody this talented, it’s a conscious, intelligent choice to release her records on an independent label (best place to buy is either in Amazon’s MP3 store, link above, or at CD Baby). Those who still think major labels are the measure of quality should take a close listen and may realize this is better than much that’s come out of a major label in years.

On CDBaby, Tina is billed as a “tribal folk goddess,” which may be a good description, and her own website describes her background and history like this:

After studying sound engineering and classical vocal performance, she began her professional music career at age 18 as a producer, engineer and vocalist for a children’s music label out of Northern California. She then went on to produce two of her own recordings, and has just released her third “the Silent Awakening”. It features a rich, groove oriented, acoustic and electric feast [...]

Some listeners may love the musical depth and beautiful singing and playing on this record but be skeptical about the ‘new age-y’ tone in the lyrics. There’s a Sanskrit chant (track 8, “In Sunlight”) and a lot of lyrics about love, freedom and nature (the CD booklet’s cover page says, “To those who serve beauty”). But there are also lyrics a-plenty that seem to allude to sensuality, sexuality and faith. I think there’s depth here that I’m sometimes willing to let in, and sometimes not. The overall effect is tasteful and I never feel like I’m being hit over the head with consciousness. I’ll admit that lyrics tend to be less important to me than music, though, so your mileage may vary. I’m recommending this for the music – it’s some of the best playing and production I’ve ever heard in an independently produced record.

Tina Malia’s website has more, and her albums are available at CDBaby.

I went to see Leah Salomaa on the weekend at the Toronto Waldorf School, where she was performing a children’s concert. Leah sings and plays the bodhrán and piano while Chris Gartner accompanies her on guitar. This is done almost like a song circle, involving children and adults actively with gestures, movements and dance. Everyone gets to sing along, and Leah is excellent at getting even the most withdrawn to come out of their shells a little.

Back to the CDs, though. Both are exceptionally well recorded and sound great. The arrangements are simple and leave a lot of space for the songs to really shine. The music is a mix of Celtic, folk and bluegrass tunes, many adjusted lyrically to be more digestible for kids while not losing their charm for older listeners. For example, “Drunken Sailor” becomes “Bow Down Belinda” on I Like to Rise and Father Sun‘s “Mary Mac” has lyrics that are a little less, well, bawdy than the Irish original (then again, there seem to be so many variations on the lyrics that saying anything is ‘the original’ version seems a little meaningless).

Speaking of “Mary Mac,” it’s a fabulous tune and beautifully executed here – definitely my favourite and, I think, deserving of a place in any Celtic music compilation. The verses are sung to only the beat of the bodhrán (she has fantastic pitch!) and are interspaced with superb pipes and accordion playing. It’s a toe-tapping reel for sure, and one that I’m finding myself listening to over and over again.

Leah Salomaa’s website has information about how to book her. Her latest CD, Father Sun and Mother Moon: Soulful Songs for Children (2007), is available through CDBaby. I can’t seem to find I Like to Rise (2004) anywhere online anymore (you’ll have to go to a concert to buy it). Finally, I see traces online that there was a third CD in 2000 called Celtic Trio (I’m assuming this was ‘for adults’) but nobody seems to have it for sale anymore.

Update: Leah Salomaa has since written to me to let me know that I Like to Rise is available at http://www.firetheimagination.ca (her distributor) and http://www.parentbooks.ca, a Toronto store that also sells online. The Celtic Trio album was in fact never released (the record label didn’t make it), which explains why it’s not for sale anywhere. And “Mary Mac” was in fact originally recorded for that album, so maybe that’s why it has a sound that’s more appealing to my grown-up ears :) What a treat to get mail from the artist herself!

That morning, they were playing new Canadian music. Still half asleep, I heard a strikingly good song called “These Roads” by Dave Gunning, a singer/songwriter from Nova Scotia. I grabbed my Blackberry and keyed in ‘Dave Gunning’ so as to not miss it :)

A few days later, I went to Dave’s website at http://www.davegunning.com and ordered his latest CD, “House for Sale,” which arrived within the week (I only figured out later that it’s all available at my friendly local HMV, thinking – obviously – that I was onto something cutting-edge and indie :). It’s an exceptionally well-produced, great-sounding album. If I were pressed to peg the style, I’d say it’s somewhere between Blue Rodeo and Great Big Sea with a little Hank Williams Jr. thrown in as seasoning. It’s got a certain East Coast earnestness to it, but also a wonderful melodic clarity and precise, crisp songwriting. The arrangements are well-judged and played.

This doesn’t happen to me often, but this CD has been playing in my car practically nonstop for a few days now. I may just have been in the mood for something with a little twang (I have times in my life where no particular genre in music satisfies me and I meander around aimlessly but frustratedly until something random really resonates and I really get into it). But I’d certainly recommend Dave Gunning warmly to anyone interested in that Canadian folk-country-rock nexus or good singer/songwriters. I think it’s good enough to transcend any genre-skepticism you may have associated with ‘country’ or ‘folk.’
In the meantime, I’ve also bought Dave’s previous album, “Two-Bit World,” and it’s just as good. Very impressed. (Yes, I know the album covers are a little cheesy :)