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Following a year that saw both a collaborative album with mandolinist David Grisman and a live album from the Ryman Auditorium, Australian acoustic guitar hero Tommy Emmanuel returns to his Music City muse with Accomplice One, a duets album with a strong Nashvillian flavor. Coming in at a rather lengthy 16 tracks, one gets the feeling that many of these sessions yielded more fruit than could fit on one disc, leaving the door open for future explorations and inspired pairings. Emmanuel's sparring partners here range from similarly virtuosic instrumentalists like nimble blues-rock guitarist J.D. Simo and ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro to country singer/songwriters like Suzy Bogguss and Rodney Crowell. Warmly captured in various studios in and around Nashville, Accomplice One offers a fairly wide swath of what Emmanuel and his friends have to offer, from the tasteful-but-sprightly Celtic airs and reels of the Clive Carroll collaboration "Keepin' It Real" to a surprisingly tender take on Madonna's "Borderline" with singer Amanda Shires. A mostly acoustic rootsy feel ties the whole affair together as Emmanuel offers himself up as co-vocalist to Mark Knopfler on the backporch blues of "You Don't Want to Get You One of Those" and to Jason Isbell on Doc Watson's "Deep River Blues." As relaxed and affable as these vocal duets are, it's still the fireworks that get the biggest response and Emmanuel is smart enough to toss a pair of red-hot instrumentals near the front in the J.D. Simo and Charlie Cushman standout "Wheelin' and Dealin'" and the David Grisman and Bryan Sutton bluegrass blazer "C-jam Blues."© Timothy Monger /TiVo

Bridge's Complete Crumb Edition reaches Volume 20 with the first complete recording of the great American composer's recently completed Metamorphoses cycle. These "20 Fantasy Pieces after Celebrated Paintings" are Crumb's "Pictures at an Exhibition"- aural interpretations of famous paintings from our recent past including works by Picasso, van Gogh, Chagall, and Dali. Critic David Hurwitz writes: "Bridge's decision to embark on a complete edition of George Crumb's music remains one of the most significant recording projects currently in progress, as well as one of the most artistically successful". © Bridge Records

Tales of rabble-rousing heroes, iconoclastic poltergeists, living legends – in 2021, Eckart Runge and Jacques Ammon celebrate their quarter-century as a duo and the release of their debut album by Berlin Classics. "Revolutionary Icons" is a bold, border-breaching album concept full of energy-packed music by Classical crossover craftsman Ludwig van Beethoven coupled with rock-pop-jazz icons – and at the same time, testimony to teamwork by two inquisitive and insatiable music explorers. The tracklisting reads as if you were twiddling the knobs of the car radio and hopping back and forth between a classical station and rock radio. The duo launch their expedition with consummate master Beethoven and his Cello Sonata No. 4, Op. 102 No. 1. “At first hearing impossible to understand”, wrote a puzzled contemporary after the 1815 premiere. The work is revolutionary in its formal layout, strict on counterpoint. After decades of engaging with Beethoven (in part as a member of the world-famous Artemis Quartet, of which he was the co-founder) Eckart Runge here sets out together with Jacques Ammon in search of bridges to recent music history and finds what he is looking for in familiar names such as Amy Winehouse on her big hit Back to Black, Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie’s Warszawa, the Be-bop Tango from Frank Zappa and finally Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing by Stevie Wonder. All these counterparts are united by their commanding position within their genre, their readiness to break down barriers and indeed their legendary status and influence upon following generations of male and female musicians. The settings of the songs for the combination of cello and piano were made in collaboration with the well known composer and arranger Wolf Kerschek. The prime consideration was to go beyond mere transposition of the works and to shed new light on them by exploiting the sonic potential of the instruments and the artistic capabilities of the two musicians. That applies no less to the works that forge links to the 19th century between the hits of the 20th: Beethoven’s previously discussed Cello Sonata No. 4 and the arrangements of his song Adelaide, the third movement of his Piano Sonata Op. 110 and the Cavatina from his String Quartet Op. 130. The duo of Runge & Ammon arose from a shared passion for chamber-musical incursions into the territory of jazz, tango, rock music, and music for theatre and film. Along with their concept-guided programme planning and their intense emotional involvement, the two are known for their informative and entertaining moderation, delighting audiences and making ambitious topics accessible. Duo Runge & Ammon sees its artistic credo realized inter alia in social commitment. The two musicians give regular benefit concerts and get directly involved in such organizations as Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland, Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now, youth orchestra projects in South America and Mit-Mach-Musik ("all-join-in" music), a Berlin integration project for refugee children. © Berlin Classics

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Originally intended as a rarities collection to tide fans over until she completed the follow-up to From the Choirgirl Hotel, the double-disc To Venus and Back mutated into something entirely different as Tori Amos worked on it. She experienced a sudden creative burst, writing 11 new songs. In light of these new tunes, she decided to devote the first disc of the collection to the fresh material, with the second dedicated to live material recorded during 1998. As such, it provides an interesting contrast. With Choirgirl, she decided to add muscle to her music by working with a full band, which naturally transformed her fragile, intimate songwriting into something weightier, or at least heavier. That much is evident from the live album, Still Orbiting, which puts many old favorites in a new light. The first disc, titled Venus Orbiting, proves that Amos is better in a more intimate setting. Ironically, the album was recorded with her touring band, but the arrangements aren't as showy as the live reworkings, and her songwriting is a bit more straightforward. That's not to say that she has changed direction or ironed out all her quirks -- her lyrics remain almost impenetrably cryptic, her songs follow elastic, unpredictable structures -- but she has returned to her strengths: namely, concentrating on ethereal, dream-like song-poems. She's still expanding her music, but she's letting it breathe naturally, resulting in her best, most cohesive record since Under the Pink. It's a bit of a shame that it's married to the live album, since that gives the impression that both discs are for hardcore fans. That's not the case at all -- Venus Orbiting will likely win back fans that have strayed from the fold in the past few years.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Released within months of Jim Jones' On My Way to Church, the second volume of the Diplomats' Diplomatic Immunity, and another flurry of mixtapes, Cam'ron's fourth album ("Previously written in 2001," as announced in the intro) is evenly divided between strong and weak tracks. This lack of quality control will both provide ammo for Diplomat haters and frustrate Diplomat supporters, even if there's a durable 45-minute album in here somewhere. The backing track of "Girls," a feather-light translation of Cyndi Lauper's "Just Wanna Have Fun," belongs on a teen pop record -- it's such a folly that it makes you wonder if somebody dared Cam'ron to release it. "Harlem Streets" fares only a little better, with the theme from "Hill Street Blues" used to distracting and detracting effect -- perhaps the cues should've taken from Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "Ill Street Blues" instead. On the other side, a pair of soul-steeped productions from Kanye West ("Down and Out," built on William Bell's "Strung Out") and the West-inspired Pop & Versatile ("Soap Opera," using Smokey Robinson's "Merry-Go-Round") help prop the album back up, and Heatmakerz's rallying "More Gangsta Music" features some of Juelz Santana's infectious youthful energy. Though it has been two years since Cam'ron's last solo album, there's so much Diplomat-affiliated material stuffing the racks that even the most devoted followers must be on the verge of overdosing on the crew's bewildering, nonsensical rhymes. "Cause I feed you well/Every sneaker, hell/You eat Louis, sh*t Gucci, breathe Chanel/Karl Lagerfeld, acting like Gargamel" wins the prize on this release. Inconsistencies and gratuitous running time be damned, a lot of rap fans will be happy just to have another Cam'ron album to devour. Fellow Diplomats JR Writer, Jim Jones, and Freeky Zekey make appearances, along with Twista and Jaheim.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

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