Collecting up the seven albums recorded for the Atlantic label between October 1973 and December 1978 by the double bassist and composer Charles Mingus, as well as an entire album of previously unreleased alternative pieces, this magnificent box set captures the legendary jazz musician’s last major creative period before Charcot's disease would take his life prematurely in January 1979, at the age of just 56. While some of the records in this set have been enshrined in Mingus' discography’s pantheon since their release, others, for years, have been the victims of ignorance and carried less favourable reputations. Everyone respects the twin albums Changes One and Changes Two, recorded by the double bassist in 1974 at the head of a brand new quintet, during the same exact session. Propelled by the drums of the faithful Dannie Richmond, and featuring two newcomers to his galaxy, saxophonist George Coleman and pianist Don Pullen, these are traditionally recognised as his ultimate masterpieces. One of the great virtues of this compilation is that it allows us to appreciate the entire period with the benefit of hindsight, and appreciate the rest of his oeuvre. A few tracks deserve to be singled out: the freshness and bluesy charisma of Three or Four Shades of Blues, recorded by Mingus in 1977 at the head of an expanded band, features the talents of three young guitarists destined for greatness: Larry Coryell, Philip Catherine and John Scofield. The baroque luxuriance of the two long orchestral suites on the album Cumbia & Jazz Fusion, conveys subliminal dialogue between Duke Ellington and Nino Rota in a dreamy Latin context. The musician's last recording, the very moving Me Myself An Eye written and whilst confined to a wheelchair and obliged to accept the dual role of composer and supervisor of the session which, despite the conditions, vibrates throughout with an inextinguishable power of life. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

Forever paired in the jazz consciousness with its follow-up—1962's Waltz for Debby, which was recorded on the same day—Sunday at the Village Vanguard was the first album by the Bill Evans Trio to be released after the untimely death of bassist Scott LaFaro. While nobody likely ever accused Riverside head Orrin Keepnews of being overly sentimental, pushing this album out —along with a "Featuring Scott LaFaro" subtitle—just weeks later was reportedly a decision made by both Keepnews and Evans together, to highlight the way that this trio worked together in a live environment and how LaFaro was integral to that interplay.To that end, the selection of material here is focused on the communication between Evans, LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian, and serves to illuminate how daring and innovative this approach was for the time. To be sure, the piano is still the dominant melodic force, but the structure and atmosphere is defined by the near-telepathic rhythm section. The three players never venture too far from one another, working closely together throughout each piece, and LaFaro's ability to easily shift from supporting Motian to complementing Evans makes him the fulcrum on which much of this material derives its energy. The two LaFaro originals that bookend the album— "Gloria's Step" as the opener, "Jade Visions" at the end—are excellent examples of this, but it's when the group takes on songbook standards like Cole Porter's "All Of You" or the Gershwins' "My Man's Gone Now," that it's clear how much this group has revolutionized—and democratized—the idea of a piano trio. All three players seem to be simultaneously in the spotlight and sharing it. An essential release that has been both restored to its original running order and remastered to deliver excellent fidelity. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

It was designed to be a blockbuster and it was. Prior to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John had hits -- his second album, Elton John, went Top 10 in the U.S. and U.K., and he had smash singles in "Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel" -- but this 1973 album was a statement of purpose spilling over two LPs, which was all the better to showcase every element of John's spangled personality. Opening with the 11-minute melodramatic exercise "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" -- as prog as Elton ever got -- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road immediately embraces excess but also tunefulness, as John immediately switches over to "Candle in the Wind" and "Bennie & the Jets," two songs that form the core of his canon and go a long way toward explaining the over-stuffed appeal of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. This was truly the debut of Elton John the entertainer, the pro who knows how to satisfy every segment of his audience, and this eagerness to please means the record is giddy but also overwhelming, a rush of too much muchness. Still, taken a side at a time, or even a song a time, it is a thing of wonder, serving up such perfectly sculpted pop songs as "Grey Seal," full-bore rockers as "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock & Roll)," cinematic ballads like "I've Seen That Movie Too," throwbacks to the dusty conceptual sweep of Tumbleweed Connection in the form of "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)," and preposterous glam novelties, like "Jamaica Jerk-Off." This touched on everything John did before, and suggested ways he'd move in the near-future, and that sprawl is always messy but usually delightful, a testament to Elton's '70s power as a star and a musician.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Dirt is Alice in Chains' major artistic statement and the closest they ever came to recording a flat-out masterpiece. It's a primal, sickening howl from the depths of Layne Staley's heroin addiction, and one of the most harrowing concept albums ever recorded. Not every song on Dirt is explicitly about heroin, but Jerry Cantrell's solo-written contributions (nearly half the album) effectively maintain the thematic coherence -- nearly every song is imbued with the morbidity, self-disgust, and/or resignation of a self-aware yet powerless addict. Cantrell's technically limited but inventive guitar work is by turns explosive, textured, and queasily disorienting, keeping the listener off balance with atonal riffs and off-kilter time signatures. Staley's stark confessional lyrics are similarly effective, and consistently miserable. Sometimes he's just numb and apathetic, totally desensitized to the outside world; sometimes his self-justifications betray a shockingly casual amorality; his moments of self-recognition are permeated by despair and suicidal self-loathing. Even given its subject matter, Dirt is monstrously bleak, closely resembling the cracked, haunted landscape of its cover art. The album holds out little hope for its protagonists (aside from the much-needed survival story of "Rooster," a tribute to Cantrell's Vietnam-vet father), but in the end, it's redeemed by the honesty of its self-revelation and the sharp focus of its music. [Some versions of Dirt feature "Down in a Hole" as the next-to-last track rather than the fourth.]© Steve Huey /TiVo

The scene: Three percussionists (Ed Blackwell, Clifford Jarvis, Kumar Kramer), two saxophonists (Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp), two bassists (Jimmy Garrison, Cecil McBee), a vocalist (Tulsi Reynolds) and one bandleader, harpist Alice Coltrane, walk onto the Carnegie Hall stage and get set up with their instruments. It's Feb. 23, 1971. They've got exactly 90 minutes to play on a curious bill that also includes folk singer Laura Nyro and rock band the Rascals. It's Coltrane's first Carnegie Hall performance as a bandleader. Her label, Impulse! Records, has set up recording gear to capture the set for potential release, hoping that Coltrane's then-new album, Journey In Satchidananda, will do well enough on the market to warrant some sort of live record.More than a half-century later, Impulse! has finally turned that Carnegie Hall recording into a double album, delivering a gift to spiritual jazz disciples drawn to Coltrane's singularly exquisite work. The pianist-harpist-composer's legacy has only grown since her 2007 passing, and as such The Carnegie Hall Concert feels like a gift from the aether, one that drifts in as her octet eases into opening song "Journey In Satchidananda" and Coltrane introduces her instrument with a luxurious glissando. Over the next hour, they work their way through three other pieces: Her "Shiva-Loka" (also from Journey to Satchidananda) and a pair, "Africa," and "Leo," by her late husband John, who had died four years earlier.Like the concert's opening piece, "Shiva Loka" is a hypnotic meditation extending nearly 15 minutes, and it allows Coltrane and her eight, especially her longtime bandmates Sanders and McBee, to explore. McBee and Garrison twist through the low end, one using a moaning bow and the other plucking out a repetitive line.As the nine players progress, the band's sound deepens and expands. The bassists tangle in and around the three locked-in percussionists. Horn players Sanders and Shepp, both also part of the Impulse! roster, weave and converse in a musical call and response. Those first two songs seem to swirl around the hall, calm on the surface but churning with understated tension. That atmosphere shifts on "Africa," which begins with an extended percussion explosion, dueling saxophonists and Coltrane pounding out melodic chords on the piano. When Garrison moves into a looping bass line about 10 minutes in, the song, which he recorded on John Coltrane's Africa/Brass album as part of the tenor player's quartet, takes flight. The most memorable are the moments when all eight are unified by the mystical force that is music and create a precisely rendered kind of chaotic beauty. Often these awe-inspiring parts occur in the liminal space between solos, as if looking for purchase and order. The mere existence of The Carnegie Hall Concert suggests a similar pattern writ large: an untethered, dormant recording from 50-plus years ago drifts into the present and rolls into the cultural groove as if preordained. © Randall Roberts/Qobuz

The precocious Japanese-German pianist Alice Sara Ott entered the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg at the age of 12, while continuing her humanities studies in her native Munich. Her exceptional musicality would later propel her to a career whose horizons seemed clouded by an unavoidable illness.In 2009, her recording of Liszt's Transcendental Études caused a sensation. It was soon followed by a dozen other albums, including this one devoted to Beethoven, whom she loves dearly. It includes a selection of solo and orchestral works, such as this fluid, luminous, classical version of Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15, accompanied by the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of New York conductor and violinist Karina Canellakis, who pays great attention to nuance and her rhythmic support.The rest of the programme is devoted to a highly meditative vision of the Moonlight Sonata (No. 14, in C# minor, Op. 27 No. 2). Alice Sara Ott's deft, velvety touch and modesty in interpretation are unreservedly admired. Four short pieces conclude this fine monographic album: a fresh, ingenuous vision of Für Elise, two Bagatelles and an Allegretto in B minor without opus number, a delightful Klavierstück composed in 1821 for Ferdinand Piringer, one of his new friends and second conductor in Vienna. © François Hudry/Qobuz

The follow-up to 2022's excellent, Grammy-winning album Crooked Tree, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway's latest continues the youthful, feminine-but-not-girly bluegrass thread woven by Alison Krauss and Sara Watkin; it would be wrong to call Tuttle's femininity incidental. It's fascinating to hear a woman's point of view about the butch and burly California gold rush, as on "El Dorado." "I'm Gold Rush Kate from the Golden State/ With a nugget around my neck/ I keep the red lights burning bright/ from here to Hell and back," she sings against fleet banjo, clear-as-a-bell dobro and her own spirited guitar; it's true-blue mountain music recast for dusty goldfields. Tuttle also celebrates her home state on "San Joaquin," a spritely number about riding the rails out west written with Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor, a frequent collaborator on City of Gold. Loose and meandering in a comfortable way, "Yosemite" is inspired by Tuttle's true story of taking a cross-country road trip with her partner and breaking up along the way: "When all that remains is the gas in the tank/ The tread on the tires/ What's left in the bank," she sings alongside duet partner Dave Matthews. There's what Tuttle calls "a love song about death" (ballad "When My Race Is Run") about wanting a romance so big it carries over to the afterlife and one about falling in love with yourself: the Jerry Jeff Walker-esque "The First Time I Fell in Love," which finds Tuttle delivering a quick tongue-twister ("topsy-turvy wild and whirly in a hurry full of worry roller coaster ride"). "Next Rodeo'' is a cowgirl romp, "Down Home Dispensary"—a plea to Tennessee legislators to legalize marijuana—turns on the boogie-woogie charm, and "More Like a River" flirts with a gentle jug-band melody. Stomper "Alice in the Bluegrass" reorients Alice in Wonderland in a backwoods country setting. Erie, swampy-sounding "Stranger Things" showcases band member Bronwyn Keith-Hynes' keening fiddle alongside hummingbird dobro by bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas, who also produced the record. And it's a bracingly cold creekwater shock to hear Tuttle spin the gothic tale of "Goodbye Mary," a ballad about a man encouraging his girl to cause a miscarriage she doesn't want. It all leads to her death which, viewed through a modern lens and told by a woman, feels like a frightening survey of a post-Dobbs world. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

After the success on their Love It to Death album and its hit single "I'm Eighteen," Alice Cooper seemed poised to make a giant leap to the head of the hard rock class. Killer delivers on the promise and then some as it offers moments of sweaty rock & roll brilliance, oddball horror ballads, and garage rock freak outs, all wrapped up in a glammy, sleazy package. Working again with producer Bob Ezrin, the band craft a sound that's powerful and lithe with guitars that slash and snake around each other, drums and bass that provide a solid foundation but also aren't short on melody and hooks, and of course Alice Cooper's one of a kind vocals. Whether he's strutting, crooning, or going slowly insane, his voice is like the character in a movie you can't take your eyes off for a second because you might miss a small gesture or look that will shock and surprise. The one-two punch of "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover" is one of the great album operners of all time, both songs taking classic rock & roll tropes and giving them a evil twist with romping horns, doo wop background vocals and the kind of libertine lyrics that are guaranteed to drive parents crazy. After this, the album takes off in a variety of directions including the horror prog ballad "Dead Babies," the raucous rockers "You Drive Me Nervous" and "Yeah Yeah Yeah" that come across like Steppenwolf tracks made by real bikers, the Western gunfighter ballad "Desperado" -- which juxtaposes some lovely orchestrated strings against Cooper's croaking vocals -- and the oddly rollicking title track where Cooper does a convincing carnival barker imitation while guitarists Mike Bruce and Glen Buxton get a chance to unwind and kick up some dust. Each and every track is handled with the same kind of unbridled glee that lets the listener know the band is having a blast; it's hard not to be swept along for the ride. The album's centerpiece "Halo of Flies" is a stunning work of rock & roll that encompasses the gutter freak psych of the band's earliest work, the expansive scope of prog rock, bits of the Sound of Music, martial drum solos, very stoned blues riffing, and Cooper's alternately pleading and withering vocals. It's the work of a band who can barely control all the ideas flowing out of them, yet somehow manage to corral their energy and creativity into something epic and unique. Indeed, there was no other group quite like Alice Cooper operating in 1971 and Killer is the moment where they put all the pieces together and began to soar.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

With 1971's Killer, Alice Cooper released a classic album that encompassed psychedelia, horror movies, musicals, prog and biker rock and compressed it all into timeless nuggets of hard rock gold. It also propelled the band into the rarified upper reaches of the charts and into larger concert halls too. While the next step for most bands would be to stick the the formula and double down on the hooks in ever more commercial ways, on 1972's School's Out these weirdoes did nearly the opposite. Apart from the brilliantly, brutally dumb title track, which indeed does strip their sound down to the thrilling basics and unleashes a perfect marriage of naggingly sharp riffs, hilarious lyrics, and sneering vocals -- the album flies off weird tangents that are barely related to anything the band had done before -- and also the last thing one might expect from them. Case in point the late night jazz ballad "Blue Turk" which comes complete with a finger snapping bass line, multiple horn solos, and a lounge lizard vocal by Cooper. Granted the subject matter is the joys of necrophilia, but the music is a million miles away from what rock fans who were clamoring to hear more Killer-style rockers might expect. "Alma Mater" is another plot twist of a song; a gentle doo wop-inspired ballad that flips the sentiments of the title track on their head as Cooper nostalgically laments his impending matriculation in tones that almost come across as earnest. These pale in the weirdness stakes next to "Gutter Cat vs The Jets," a loping. light-hearted tale of cool cats that morphs into a high-kicking version of "Jet Song" from West Side Story. Alongside these oddball gems, the band sounds locked in on the rockers like the piano-led "My Stars" and the happily vicious "Public Enemy #9"as well as suitably theatrical on "Luny Tunes" a deceptively melodic and orchestrated song about being locked up in the psychiatric ward. All these songs, and the album itself, have a light and almost swinging underpinning, almost nothing rocks as hard as Killer, some of it isn't even rock at all. Half the joy to be derived from listening to School's Out is to marvel at how daringly the band took all the goodwill they had engendered to this point and blew up their just barely established template in fascinating, aolmost reckless ways. The end result is a bewildering, impressively contrary album that's a glorious kiss off to expectations while also showing the band's range and ambition in glorious technicolor.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

When Alice in Chains' debut album, Facelift, was released in 1990, about a year before Nirvana's Nevermind, the thriving Seattle scene barely registered on the national musical radar outside of underground circles (although Soundgarden's major-label debut, Louder Than Love, was also released that year and brought them a Grammy nomination). That started to change when MTV jumped all over the video for "Man in the Box," giving the group a crucial boost and helping to pave the way for grunge's popular explosion toward the end of 1991. Although their dominant influences -- Black Sabbath, the Stooges -- were hardly unique on the Seattle scene, Alice in Chains were arguably the most metallic of grunge bands, which gave them a definite appeal outside the underground; all the same, the group's sinister, brooding, suffocating sound resembled little else gaining wide exposure on the 1990 hard rock scene. Neither hedonistic nor especially technically accomplished, Alice in Chains' songs were mostly slow, oppressive dirges with a sense of melody that was undeniable, yet which crept along over the murky sludge of the band's instrumental attack in a way that hardly fit accepted notions of what made hard rock catchy and accessible. Although some parts of Facelift sink into turgid, ponderous bombast (particularly over the erratic second half), and the lyrics are sometimes immature, the overall effect is fresh, exciting, and powerful. While Alice in Chains would go on to do better and more consistent work, Facelift was one of the most important records in establishing an audience for grunge and alternative rock among hard rock and heavy metal listeners, and with its platinum sales certification, it also made Alice in Chains the first Seattle band to break through to a wider, less exclusively underground audience.© Steve Huey /TiVo

There are aficionados and champions of Alice Cooper's many albums and eras. Some fans insist that Easy Action is one of the most criminally underappreciated records of the rock era, while others feel that Killer is the most rockin' album in the band's entire catalog; heck, there are folks out there who vociferously advocate for the wild charms and unexpected pleasures of Cooper's solo "blackout era" of the early '80s (and those folks are not wrong!). However, one thing that is widely agreed upon is that Billion Dollar Babies is Alice Cooper (the band) at the peak of its powers. The commercial sheen—and success—of its predecessor, School's Out, is seamlessly fused here with relentless, riff-fueled propulsion, decadent arrangements (brass band on "Elected"? Sure!), some of Cooper's most wittily deranged lyrics to date, and, of course, fantastic production from Bob Ezrin, who masterfully balanced all of the band's disparate elements. Babies is where commercial, creative, and critical success convene, and the result is not just a '70s rock masterpiece, but also that rarest of things: a '70s rock masterpiece that still manages to yield surprises. While packed with radio staples—the title track, "Elected," "No More Mr. Nice Guy"—and canonical classics ("Raped and Freezin'," "I Love the Dead"), there are also eyebrow-raising numbers like "Unfinished Sweet" (spaghetti western meets fuzzbox freakout meets rock opera) and "Mary Ann" (a sweet piano ballad that turns on an unexpected plot twist) that reiterate that, despite their success on the charts, Alice Cooper was still a delightfully transgressive band. The track lineup on this 50th anniversary "Trillion Dollar" deluxe edition slightly expands on 2001’s reissue. A 1973 Texas show featured earlier is rounded out with two additional, non-BDB songs from the concert, and the selection of outtakes is now accompanied by four single edits of album tracks. This edition also brings with it a warm, dynamic remastering that delivers on the original mix's maximalistic approach, making this the definitive rendition of a classic. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Written and recorded in about a week, Jar of Flies solidified Alice in Chains' somewhat bizarre pattern of alternating full-length hard rock albums with mostly acoustic, ballad-oriented EPs. That quirk aside, Jar of Flies is a low-key stunner, achingly gorgeous and harrowingly sorrowful all at once. In a way, it's a logical sequel to Dirt -- despite the veneer of calm, the songs' voices still blame only themselves. But where Dirt found catharsis in its unrelenting darkness and depravity, Jar of Flies is about living with the consequences, full of deeply felt reflections on loneliness, self-imposed isolation, and lost human connections. The mood is still hopelessly bleak, but the poignant, introspective tone produces a sense of acceptance that's actually soothing, in a funereal sort of way. Jerry Cantrell's arrangements keep growing more detailed and layered; while there are a few noisy moments, most of Jar of Flies is bathed in a clean, shimmering ambience whose source is difficult to pin down, but is well served by Cantrell's varied guitar tones and even occasional string arrangements. And coming on the heels of Dirt, the restraint and subtlety of Jar of Flies are nothing short of revelatory -- though it was written and recorded in about a week, it feels much more crafted and textured than Sap. Perhaps Jar of Flies would have gotten more credit if it had been a full-length album; as it stands, the EP is a leap forward and a major work in the Alice in Chains catalog.© Steve Huey /TiVo

At 75 years old, few artists are still inclined to take risks. Their career is made: why risk the criticism when it’s so easy to finish the journey gently, shaded by past successes? Vincent Furnier is decidedly not of this breed. Better yet: for the first time in his career, he has proposed his live line-up (different from the musicians who normally accompany him in the studio) to write a collaborative album to tell the story of life on the road. The aptly-titled Road is thus coherent, yet varied. It’s even a euphemism, since the album contains all of the diversity of Coop’s albums from the 70s (From the Inside, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell…).Only the entirely modern production relocates the album in the present. You can listen to this opus in one go, without ever wanting to skip to the next track, since each is calibrated as a “single”, leaving no time for anything superfluous or too long. You love punchy rock? “Welcome to the Show, Big Boots” (with its honky tonk piano) and “Rules of the Road” – which even lets you try acrobatic rock on for size – will be to your liking. You love heavy metal? “Dead Don’t Dance”, “White Line Frankenstein” and “The Big Goodbye” will give you your dose of big, bad riffs. Stadium anthems are your thing? “All Over the World” is for you. Want to quiet things down? “Baby Please Don’t Go” and “100 More Miles”, judiciously placed at the end of the album, are more soothing (although they are by no means ballads).Name dropping tracks may not be wildly elegant, but such a panorama of influences can’t be described without ruffling some feathers. Let’s also remember that papa Alice always brilliantly wields a tongue-and-cheek humour, like on the amusing “Big Boots” that plays with harmonies, on “Go Away”, whose lyrics describe him getting harassed by a groupie. Equally, “Road Rats Forever” is a deliciously overt wink at Canned Heat’s “On the Road Again”. In spite of his age, Cooper doesn’t purr like an old cat on the couch. The troublemaker still plays with his ball of yarn like a kitten, and Road seriously makes us want to play with him.  © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott is a performer who appears to care more about the score and the composer than about her image and interpretations. After promoting Lang-Lang, a pianist of maximal technique but debatable taste, DG has given Ott an exclusive recording contract, and her first release, the complete waltzes of Chopin, shows her to be a pianist of taste and restraint. That is not to say that her performances here are ever less than dazzling, because she plays with supreme ease, or any less than affecting, because she brings out everything in the scores, from sparkling wit to darkest melancholy. But Ott is not interested in demonstrating her technique or in grandstanding her interpretations. Everything here is in the score: the tender countermelodies, the long legato phrasing, the exquisite harmonic balances, and the lilting rubato. It sounds fresh and natural because Ott herself seems fresh and natural, and apparently not at all a showoff. Though by no means the greatest performances of the waltzes ever recorded -- Dinu Lipatti's EMI recording is now and likely always will be the most beautiful, the most masterful, and the most moving version of these works -- Ott's recording is well worth hearing by anyone who loves the music. The sound of DG's digital recording is limpid.© TiVo

According to Lady Gaga, Chromatica is an imaginary planet, a utopia that concretises her search for happiness. "I live on Chromatica, that is where I live. I went into my frame - I found Earth, I deleted it. Earth is cancelled", she said during the promotion for this sixth album, released less than two years after the global success of the soundtrack for A Star Is Born. Chromatica's sci-fi concept naturally steered the singer towards electronic music, tinged with concise and melodic pop. She not only surrounded herself with experienced producers (BloodPop, Burns, Madeon, Axwell...), but also with "extra-terrestrial" guest stars: Ariana Grande (Rain on Me), the K-pop band Blackpink (Sour Candy), and - with a large generational gap - Elton John (Sine From Above).On this flamboyant pink outfit-filled planet, Lady Gaga displays herself as a warrior fighting her own demons, as well as external threats, especially those that overwhelm her fellow-women (Plastic Doll, Free Woman). Her weapon of choice? The most "stupid" love there is, which she clamours for in a cathartic and liberating way (Stupid Love). As the queen of binary bass drums and boundless joy (Fun Tonight), she also has a calm side, especially in three lyrical and majestic instrumentals (Chromatica I, II and III). As the title suggests, Lady Gaga's planet presents an entire spectrum of colours, just like the singer's resolutely colourful soul. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

In 2012, Alice Phoebe Lou left her native South Africa at the age of 19 to move to Berlin. She took to the streets of the city to sing covers of classics, until, in 2015, one of her performances (Walk On The Wild Side) went viral on YouTube. The following year, she released her debut album, entitled Orbit. Shelter is now already the fifth album from this prolific artist, who ended up moving back to South Africa in 2022. An anti-pop star par excellence, labelled "folksy" a little too quickly, the singer parades her free spirit all the way through Shelter, which she describes as a soothing farewell to the young girl she once was. The dreamy harmonies of Angel, Lately, Shine and Open My Door reflect the spirit of this record, with its gentle simplicity and charming vintage mood. A smooth rhythm section, piano, guitars and organ set the scene of the singer's hushed refuge. The peppier Shelter and Lose My Head show that appeasing messages can be communicated with effervescent energy. Halo and its vibraphone personifies the perfect harmony that Alice Phoebe Lou has struck between herself and her ego. On the whole, Shelter is a conversation between the artist and her intimate past; the song that concludes the album shows ties the end up beautifully as Lou addresses a younger woman whom she advises on how to blossom and affront the world around her. ©Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz  

The German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott is one of several young artists trying to break out from the pack of young recitalists, with creatively enjoyable results for listeners. She cultivates a high-fashion look and, still unusually in the concert music realm, uses videos to promote her music. Here she takes a venerable theme, that of the musical nocturne, and tries to bring fresh approaches to some familiar works. Partly it's that some of the music isn't conventionally thought of as "night music"; the Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies of Satie don't specifically refer to nightfall, and despite its title, Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit is no nocturne. Except that, in Ott's hands, it is. Nightfall for her is not a mere atmospheric mood but a moment of deep introspection, and many of her interpretations run counter to type or seem to raise psychological issues. Sample the technically perilous Scarbo movement from Gaspard de la nuit, which is generally a test of pianistic muscle. Ott, in her own trenchant notes, tells you that Scarbo is instead "a gnome who attacks artists in the night and drinks their blood, [and] confronts us with our fear of failure." It's a novel idea but perhaps one not so removed from Ravel's own conception of the work, despite his stated intention of simply outdoing Balakirev's Islamey in terms of sheer virtuosity. Her Debussy is likewise unsettled, with shifts between light and shade that are not smoothed out. A highly recommended outing from a promising rising star.© TiVo

The third volume of Oscar Peterson's Exclusively for My Friends series, all recorded with an invited audience in the warm studio of producer Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, features live trio sessions with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Bobby Durham. The program opens with an unusual medley of Ray Brown's "Waltzing Is Hip" (played with gusto) and a gently swinging "Satin Doll." The influence of Art Tatum is apparent during his intricate runs within "Love Is Here to Stay," while the multifaceted original "Sandy's Blues" (dedicated to his wife) combines a dark mood with a swinging setting. The lighthearted waltzing treatment of "Alice in Wonderland" is pure joy, while another original, "Noreen's Nocturne," is simply a showstopper.© Ken Dryden /TiVo

Alice Cooper hadn't had a hugely successful album in over a decade when, in 1989, he teamed up with Bon Jovi producer Desmond Child for Trash -- a highly slick and commercial yet edgy pop-metal effort that temporarily restored him to the charts in a big way. Fueled by the irresistible hit single "Poison," the album temporarily gave back to Cooper the type of visibility he deserved. There's nothing shocking here, and Cooper's ability to generate controversy had long since faded. But while the escapist Trash -- which was clearly aimed at the Mötley Crüe/Guns N' Roses crowd -- may not be the most challenging album of Cooper's career, and isn't in a class with School's Out or Billion Dollar Babies, it's fun and quite enjoyable. And it was great to see the long-neglected Cooper on MTV next to so many of the '80s rockers he had influenced.© Alex Henderson /TiVo