Composer John Luther Adams created and honed a distinctively American, rather Ivesian brand of minimalism, with a strong environmentalist bent. Arctic Dreams offers an ideal introduction to his work. It's in seven movements, all but the last for voices and an ensemble of four string players, retuned and manipulated by electronic delay effects that make them sound like a much larger ensemble. The seven movements depict places and sensations experienced in the Arctic, where Adams spent some years as an environmental researcher, and they'll be strikingly evocative even for listeners who don't normally cotton to these kinds of textures. The most minimalist music is reserved for the haunting third movement, "The Circle of Suns and Moons," which cannot help but bring a picture of the solstices of the far north to the listener's mind but works equally well as an abstract composition. The four voices intone only intermittently intelligible names of places, plants, birds, weather, and seasons, in Alaskan Native languages, and they have to master non-sung effects that bring quite a bit of difficulty. Synergy Vocals, which has previously specialized in vocal music of Steve Reich, is ideal for this task, and the various engineering layers are cleanly fused by the Cold Blue Music label's Nathaniel Reichman. Those already attuned to Adams' unique world will have been awaiting this release; those new to him are recommended to check it out. © TiVo

One would think that being Ryan Adams would be a pretty good deal at the time of this album's release; he had a major-label deal, critics were in love with him, he got to date Winona Ryder and Alanis Morissette, Elton John went around telling everyone he was a genius, and his record company gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. But to listen to Gold, Adams' first solo album for his big-league sponsors at Lost Highway, one senses that there are about a dozen other musicians Adams would love to be, and nearly all of them were at their peak in the early to mid-'70s. Adams' final album with Whiskeytown, Pneumonia, made it clear that he was moving beyond the scruffy alt-country of his early work, and Gold documents his current fascination with '70s rock. Half the fun of the album is playing "Spot the Influence": "Answering Bell" is a dead ringer for Van Morrison (with fellow Morrison enthusiast Adam Duritz on backing vocals), "Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues" is obviously modeled on the Rolling Stones, "Harder Now That It's Over" sounds like Harvest-period Neil Young, "New York, New York" resembles Stephen Stills in his livelier moments (Stephen's son, Chris Stills, plays on the album), and "Rescue Blues" and "La Cienega Just Smiled" suggest the influence of Adams' pal Elton John. Of course, everyone has their influences, and Adams seems determined to make the most of them on Gold; it's a far more ambitious album than his solo debut, Heartbreaker. The performances are polished, Ethan Johns' production is at once elegant and admirably restrained, Adams is in strong voice throughout, and several of the songs are superb, especially the swaggering but lovelorn "New York, New York," the spare and lovely "When the Stars Go Blue," and the moody closer, "Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd." But while Gold sounds like a major step forward for Adams in terms of technique, it lacks the heart and soul of Heartbreaker or Pneumonia; the album seems to reflect craft rather than passion, and while it's often splendid craft, the fire that made Whiskeytown's best work so special isn't evident much of the time. Gold sounds like an album that could win Ryan Adams a lot of new fans (especially with listeners whose record collections go back a ways), but longtime fans may be a bit put off by the album's richly crafted surfaces and emotionally hollow core.© Mark Deming /TiVo

After publishing Archives-Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967), an imposing box set of Joni Mitchell's recordings, running to 119 mostly unreleased tracks that date from before her first official record, there now comes a collection of well-made, overdue remasterings of her studio albums. As its title suggests, The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) brings together the first four of these: Song to a Seagull (March 1968), Clouds (May 1969), Ladies of the Canyon (April 1970) and Blue (June 1971). The first four and nothing else! That means that we dispense with the usual alternative takes and other unreleased demos that we would usually find on this kind of reissue: the focus here is on the essentials. And what is essential here is a young woman gradually extracting herself from a folk idiom (the Canadian always hated being labelled a folk-singer) and creating her own language. This is an identity that takes shape from Songs to a Seagull onwards. The young Mitchell even entrusted the former Byrd, David Crosby, with the production of this first effort, which she divided into two sides: I Came to the City which looks towards the city, and Out of the City and Down by the Seaside, which turns towards nature. Joni Mitchell develops these themes with her open tuning, her high, clear, mesmerising voice, and a certain melodic richness. A big drawback to Songs to a Seagull is its original mix, which sounds almost shameful. This error was rectified for the 2021 re-release by sound engineer Matt Lee. “The original mix was atrocious. It sounded like it was recorded under a jello bowl, so I fixed it!” With Clouds, Joni Mitchell ploughs a similar furrow, but with greater harmonic and instrumental richness. The themes she addresses on this second album remain transparent enough, from the personal and introspective (I Don't Know Where I Stand) to the tormented and fearful (The Fiddle and the Drum), but the music has become denser.This feeling will intensify with Ladies of the Canyon, a hit which boosted her reputation. This third album saw the singer transform her folk sound with richer lyrics and increasingly subtle arrangements. Joni Mitchell was achieving unprecedented sophistication and becoming a unique star in the orbit of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to whom she was still very much attached. Critics and audiences quickly fell in love with all of these quirks. But in spite of her fame she still yearned for freedom, and to get away from the limelight. So after Ladies of the Canyon was recorded, naturally Joni Mitchell wanted to set out travelling.One year later, Blue came out. Her fourth album on Reprise, it proved a cornerstone of her introspective, stripped-down folk sound. For all its lack of artifice and repetitive ingredients, this was a work of peerless grace and depth. A masterpiece conceived as a private journal set to music, it marked a real turning point in the career of the 28-year-old musician. This remaster offers up a definitive version. And that is just one more reason why The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) are totally in-dis-pen-sa-ble! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Like any Ryan Adams album, Love Is Hell comes with a back-story, one that is carefully calculated to construct the enfant terrible's self-myth. Love Is Hell was intended to be the official follow-up to 2001's Gold -- the album that was not a collection of demos (that was 2002's Demolition), or the recorded-but-shelved albums 48 Hours or The Suicide Handbook, or even his alleged song-by-song cover of the Strokes' Is This It. Longtime Smiths fan that he is, Adams teamed up with John Porter -- the man who produced The Smiths, Meat Is Murder, and part of The Queen Is Dead -- with the intention of creating his own mope-rock album, hence the title Love Is Hell. Americana label that it is, Lost Highway balked at releasing a stylized tribute to Mancunian rainy-day bedsit music and didn't release it, encouraging Adams to record a different album, presumably one more in line with the label's taste. In the press and on the web, our hero spread stories about how the label claimed it was "too depressing" and "dark," thereby cultivating the myth that he's a maverick genius, while the label cheerfully countered with the defense that it just knew that our boy could do better. Eventually, a compromise was arranged: Adams kicked out a new album, the self-descriptive Rock N Roll, while releasing the equally self-descriptive Love Is Hell as two EPs, the first hitting the streets the same day as the "official" album, the second arriving a month later. Five months after that, the full-length Love Is Hell, containing both EPs plus "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home" from Rock N Roll, was released, negating the worth of the individual EPs (which were, after all, merely two halves of one album) and likely irritating legions of fans who bought both EPs.While it took longer than necessary to have the whole bloody affair of Love Is Hell released as its own entity, it's hard not to view it as a companion piece to Rock N Roll, particularly because they're two sides of the same coin. In effect, both Rock N Roll and Love Is Hell are tribute albums, each a conscious aping of a style and sound, both designed to showcase how versatile and masterful Adams is. But since he's a synthesist more than a stylist, Adams, for all his bluster, winds up as a Zelig-styled character, taking on the characteristics of the artists he's emulating -- something that can be sonically pleasurable, but far from being the substantive work of mad genius that he relentlessly sells himself as. If Love Is Hell has the edge over Rock N Roll, it's because it's more carefully considered in its production and writing, and he manages to hide his allusions better than he does on Rock, where every title and chord progression plays like an homage. Here, he shoots for the Smiths and winds up in Jeff Buckley territory tempered with a dash of Radiohead circa The Bends. To claim that it is a dark affair is to criticize its milieu more than its substance, because the songs have the form and feel of brooding, atmospheric mope-rock, not the blood and guts of the music. Adams is fairly adept at crafting that mood -- anybody who's such a fan of rock history should be -- sometimes relying more on a blend of attitude and atmosphere instead of songwriting. Such is the fate of a stylized tribute to a style with specific sonic attributes, but Adams also does come up with a clutch of effective songs: the epic sprawl of "Political Scientist," which captures him at his best Buckley; the title track, which is nearly anthemic with its ringing guitars; the understated "World War 24"; the gently propulsive "This House Is Not for Sale," which would fit nicely between a Julian Cope and Morrissey track on a college radio show from the late '80s. "English Girls Approximately" is an effective Bob Dylan and Paul Westerberg fusion, and the closer, "Hotel Chelsea Nights," is one of his best songs, a mildly anthemic soulful anthem with vague overtones of "Purple Rain." Nevertheless, it's telling that the best song here is a cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall." It's a well-done cover but not much of a reinvention -- Adams uses Noel Gallagher's solo acoustic version of the song as a template, replacing strumming with fingerpicked guitars and altering the phrasing slightly -- which is why the song itself shines through so strongly: it resonates how the other songs are intended to, but don't. While it doesn't fatally hurt Love Is Hell, since it is an effective mood piece, it does undercut it, revealing how Adams delivers the sizzle but not the steak.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Blue Camel is the pinnacle to date of Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil's achievement as a jazzman. In both mood and scope, it can almost be characterized as a new Kind of Blue. Both tense and reflective, it is perfect for listening after midnight. Abou-Khalil brings back Charlie Mariano on alto sax and Kenny Wheeler on flügelhorn and trumpet, and they generally alternate solos with Abou-Khalil himself. Rounding out the roster is Steve Swallow on bass, Milton Cardona on congos, Nabil Khaiat on frame drums, and Ramesh Shotham on South Indian drums and percussion. They form a tight ensemble and play comfortably with each other. The album opens with "Sahara," which contains both one of Abou-Khalil's tunes, a mesmerizing melody that could be either Arabic or jazz, and one of Abou-Khalil's best solos, a well-defined interlude that delightfully features the unique timbre of the oud. "Tsarka" begins with a fast break on the oud that turns out to be one of the two motifs on which everything is built. After it is elaborated for a few bars, the oud comes back with another building block. Then we get some stunning improvisations, especially from Abou-Khalil. "Ziriab" opens with a trumpet solo in which Kenny Wheeler tests the compass of his instrument, backed up with some atmospheric sounds from the udu drum; then Abou-Khalil enters with another great tune for everyone to build on. The title track is nothing but fun. Seductive percussion ushers in Wheeler and Mariano playing in unison for a tune that is somewhere between Duke Ellington and the court of Baghdad. As the percussion bubbles along, Milton Cardona's congos adding a Latin flavor to the proceedings, Abou-Khalil steps up with a very fast and rhythmic, if not very tuneful, solo. Midway through the track, Mariano blisters the paint with a screeching sax workout that bridges the Arabic and the Latin, while remaining all the while pure jazz. Even Steve Swallow gets a chance to feature his bass after which the ensemble brings it together and takes it home. Some of the other tracks are not as good as the ones mentioned above, but they are all listenable and very atmospheric. The aptly named "A Night in the Mountains" is a slow, thoughtful walk, perfect for silent contemplation. The album ends with "Beirut," named for the Lebanese city torn by civil war from which Abou-Khalil had to flee many years ago. The track begins with a quiet oud solo and then builds to something more chaotic and striving. Blue Camel may not be a perfect album, but it demonstrates better than any other that a fusion between jazz and a musical form from another culture is possible and can work to the advantage of both. Plus, it's just great listening.© Kurt Keefner /TiVo

The music of John Luther Adams (not to be confused with John Adams) evokes vast landscapes, not surprising for a composer who lived for some years in rural Alaska. His music, with its open consonances and slow harmonic motion, is sometimes uneasily classified as minimalist, but really, it is sui generis. It doesn't come much more minimal, however, than the works on this album, two of which are for a solo double bass. The opening Three High Places was originally written for a solo violin, and the titular Darkness and Scattered Light is for five double basses, all of which are played by the soloist here, Robert Black. The single-instrument setting isn't typical of Adams, many of whose works are orchestral, but the music here can still be recommended to Adams newcomers, for it boils his language down to its essentials and tunes the ear, so to speak, to its small details. In Three High Places, the double bass is tuned to open fifths and contains no stopped notes; everything the listener hears that is not the principal notes are produced by harmonics. Even with this restriction, the music is reasonably evocative of high places. Darkness and Scattered Light also draws on harmonic and subharmonic series in its evocation of day and night in two places, La Jolla, California, and Fairbanks, Alaska. The Three Nocturnes are based on the subharmonic series and were first performed by Black outdoors in the Utah canyonlands. Essentially, Adams fans will find here what they're used to in the composer's music. What is surprising is that new listeners will also find an intriguing slice of Adams' unique universe. This album earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, generally using just his first name these days, has recorded several albums drawing on rock music. His 2016 release, Blackbird, offered guitar versions of Beatles songs, for example, and given the complexity of those, they weren't much of a stretch from classical repertory. However, Sound of Silence is something else; it ventures into new territory and helps Karadaglić carve out a place in the crowded classical guitar field. The slightly altered song that provides the album's title is here, as are Nights in White Satin from the Moody Blues and the crossover standard Over the Rainbow, the latter arranged by Toru Takemitsu and featuring the shell-like Japanese hang instrument. There are also several works, as usual with Miloš, from the Spanish classical guitar repertory, and one song, Famous Blue Raincoat, by Leonard Cohen. Most of the pop items, though, come from the world of alternative rock, something Miloš' contemporaries have largely not done. This has occurred not just because songs like the Magnetic Fields' The Book of Love have entered the repertory of standards, even in Miloš' native country of Montenegro, but also because they fit what the guitarist is trying to accomplish. They don't have sharp tonic-dominant contrasts, and they reward Miloš' smooth textures and arrangements for a small complement of strings and sometimes a piano or saxophone. Sample Portishead's Sour Times for a good representation. Decca's sound environment, created at Abbey Road Studios, is ideal. This is crossover guitar music, and the pieces in the main have similar textures and tempos. If that's what you're looking for, you'll find Sound of Silence fresh and engaging.© James Manheim /TiVo

For twenty years electric guitarist Terje Rypdal (and ECM producer Manfred Eicher) have helped define the most sensual, moody, alluring aspects of European jazz and new music. And while Rypdal, the improvising guitarist, may structure his solos and chamber-like accompaniments in the manner of a jazz or classical composer, there's a lyric, rock edge to his guitar playing that will transport anyone who has ever contemplated the vocal cry of a Fender Stratocaster driven into distortion.But then Rypdal brings many styles of music to bear on his modern conception. From his earliest days with Jan Garbarek in George Russell's Sextet, Rypdal displayed a feel for the modal interplay of Russell and Miles Davis, and the tortured lyrical cry of Clapton and Hendrix. With the Nordic psychedelia of WHAT COMES AFTER and the chamber graces of strings and guitar on WHENEVER I SEEM TO BE FAR AWAY, Rypdal forged the template of his art.There is much of the midnight sun and northern lights on IF MOUNTAINS COULD SING, yet it begins with one of Rypdal's sunniest, most rhythmic designs. Imagine The Police or Santana (sans vocals) during one of their extended instrumental jams and you've got "The Return Of Per Ulv," with its gypsy airs built around Rypdal's soaring line. "It's In The Air," with its double-timed drums and its swirling, wintery drone, sets off Rypdal's edgy distortion lead in sharp relief, before giving way to Webern-like strings on "But On The Other Hand." Rypdal, like King Crimson, views 20th Century classicism and rock as mutually compatible, and there is much to enjoy in his music, from the coven's shuffle of "Private Eye" to the whimsical folk dance of "Dancing Without Reindeers."© TiVo

Composer John Luther Adams writes music of environmental inspiration, often of quite a direct sort. One might wonder how it translates to the medium of the string quartet, often thought of as abstract, but the format focuses the mind on the slightly shifting phases and intervals that are the meat of Adams' minimalist style. The first work here, Lines Made by Walking, is explicitly programmatic: it depicts scenes from a hike and thus consists of (musical) lines made by walking. It is, however, as spare in its mode of expression as any other minimalist composition, with falling musical figures in all three movements that flatten out a bit as the hiker reaches a ridgeline in the middle movement. The second work, untouched, has the more abstract movement titles "Rising," "Crossing," and "Falling"; the work explores open string sonorities and harmonics. In its slow evolutions, it is of a piece with Lines Made by Walking, and the listener without guidance might not guess which piece had a specific nature program. The JACK Quartet conveys the monumental quality of Adams' music well, and listeners who enjoy the string quartets of Philip Glass will likely take naturally to this pair. © TiVo

Though banjoists Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn have been playing together since well before they married, it took until 2014 for the pair to record a full duet album together. That self-titled effort was a wild outing full of originals, updated takes on traditional folk songs, and a few compelling covers by composer Béla Bartók. Interestingly, they narrowed the parameters of their music-making for Echo in the Valley. For starters, the entire set comprises originals. And there are no guest musicians -- only two banjos, Washburn's voice, and percussion sounds (feet tapping in the floor or a board). Everything that made the record had to be able to be reproduced in a live setting. It features the pair performing on seven different banjos, ranging from a ukulele banjo to an upright bass banjo, with an emphasis on three-finger and clawhammer styles. The few adaptations of traditional tunes include a stunning version of Clarence Ashley's "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains," alchemically transformed into a ginhouse blues with Washburn's voice soaring above the pair's stinging runs and fills, with Fleck even utilizing a slide to add gutbucket rawness to the tune. This date also marks the first time the duo have recorded their almost standard live medley "Sally in the Garden/Big Country/Molly Put the Kettle On." Lasting nearly eight minutes, it reveals their symbiotic dialogue to be as emotionally resonant as it is musically deft. While the instrumentals are kinetic, creative, and deeply satisfying, it's the vocal tunes that really make the set stand apart. "Take Me to Harlan," with its shuffling percussion sounds, walks a line between swing, blues, and bluegrass, with Washburn enunciating each syllable with feeling, nuance, and clever acumen. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" is a blues delivered as a fuzzed-out, distorted indie rocker with gorgeous vocal syncopation; its subject deals with collective -- as in societal -- exhaustion experienced by media overload. "If I Could Talk to a Younger Me," inspired by their young son, commences almost like a lullaby, but becomes a Flatt & Scruggs-esque paean to wisdom. Washburn's singing allows the words to fall from her mouth like water and Fleck deliberately understates his fingerpicking style as she covers the rhythm and bass notes. Their reading of Sarah Gunning's "Come All You Coal Miners" finds Washburn channeling Hazel Dickens, while the clawhammer modal breakdown underscores the urgency and tragedy in the lyric. Fleck's playing just oozes mountain soul. The closer, "Bloomin' Rose," is a metaphorical narrative about the environment delivered though vehicles of British and Appalachian folk and hymnody. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, it is an arresting close to a compelling, imaginative album that is sometimes daunting for all the simplicity of its approach. Echo in the Valley is organic music-making at its very best. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

The steady, streamlined Easy Tiger was a sure sign that Ryan Adams was attempting to straighten up and play the game, but its quickly released EP follow-up, Follow the Lights, takes this self-conscious sobriety to a whole different level, as it finds Adams writing two songs for the ABC drama October Road, then rearranging three of his own songs to fit the same hazy, mellow vibe of his new tunes, adding the previously unreleased "Blue Hotel" and a cover of Alice in Chains' "Down in a Hole" to the mix. This isn't so much a sell-out as yet another one of Adams' savvy genre exercises -- the only difference is, here he's gunning for the Grey's Anatomy adult-alternative crossover market instead of crafting a tribute to the Smiths or Grateful Dead. Adams pulls it off, possibly because the abbreviated length of the EP is just enough time for him to dwell in one place without being bored, but also because the lazy, low-key vibe emphasizes the empathy between him and his excellent backing band the Cardinals, who add warmth and a ragged humanity to Adams' tunes. Indeed, the dullest moment here is "If I Am a Stranger," where the Cardinals recede to the background, but the rest of the record places the band on equal footing with Adams, giving this a gently ramshackle appeal not all that dissimilar to either the Dead or the Band. The Cardinals help sell the new songs and a less insistent, strident take on "This Is It," but where they really shine is on that wonderful reinvention of "Down in a Hole," turning AIC's dirge into heart-on-the-sleeve country-rock that is arguably Adams' best single recording in recent memory.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo