A stunning self-reinvention by a band that many had given up for dead, 90125 is the album that introduced a whole new generation of listeners to Yes. Begun as Cinema, a new band by Chris Squire and Alan White, the project grew to include the slick production of Trevor Horn, the new blood (and distinctly '80s guitar sound) of Trevor Rabin, and eventually the trademark vocals of returning founder Jon Anderson. His late entry insured that Rabin and Horn had a heavy influence on the sound. The album also marked the return of prodigal keyboardist Tony Kaye, whose crisp synth work on "Changes" marked the band's definitive break with its art rock roots. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was a huge crossover hit, and its orchestral break has been relentlessly sampled by rappers ever since. The vocal harmonies of "Leave It" and the beautifully sprawling "Hearts" are additional high points, but there's nary a duff track on the album.© Paul Collins /TiVo

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn't follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn't so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. For even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as "Watcher of the Skies," Genesis hasn't sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot: they've married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that's been their calling card since the beginning. This, combined with many overt literary allusions -- the Tolkeinisms of the title of "The Battle of Epping Forest" only being the most apparent -- gives this album a storybook quality. It plays as a collection of short stories, fables, and fairy tales, and it is also a rock record, which naturally makes it quite extraordinary as a collection, but also as a set of individual songs. Genesis has never been as direct as they've been on the fanciful yet hook-driven "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" -- apart from the fluttering flutes in the fade-out, it could easily be mistaken for a glam single -- or as achingly fragile as on "More Fool Me," sung by Phil Collins. It's this delicate balance and how the album showcases the band's narrative force on a small scale as well as large that makes this their arguable high-water mark.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This collection brings together some of the best moments of Ludovico Einaudi's work for film and television. Cinema includes his pieces for the 2021 Oscar- and BAFTA-winning movies Nomadland and The Father, alongside compositions from This Is England, Insidious, and Doctor Foster. The previously unreleased theme to The Water Diviner is also featured.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Depending upon your point of view, Genesis in 1976/1977 was either a band ascending toward its peak commercially, or a group crippled by the departure of a key member, and living on artistic borrowed time. In reality, they were sort of both, and fortunately for the members, their commerciality was more important than their artistic street cred, as their burgeoning record sales and huge audiences on tour during that period attested. Seconds Out caught the band straddling both ends of their history, their second concert album and this time out a double LP. Apart from capitalizing on a successful tour, the album's raison d'etre appears to have been to present the case to critics and longtime fans that post-Peter Gabriel Genesis, with Phil Collins as lead singer, was essentially the same band as Genesis fronted by Peter Gabriel. The original side one songs consisted of repertory from such post-Gabriel albums as Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering, and most of those live versions, including "Squonk," "The Carpet Crawl" (positively ethereal), and "Afterglow," are superior to the original studio renditions of the same songs. Indeed, part of the beauty of this album is the sheer flexibility of the band during this period -- in addition to superb vocals by Collins throughout, the drumming by Chester Thompson is at least a match for Collins' best playing. On that older repertory (which comprised sides two and three of the LP version), the results are more mixed, though still surprisingly enjoyable -- on "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," despite the best efforts of Collins, backed by Michael Rutherford's and Tony Banks's singing, he really can't match the subtlety or expressiveness of Gabriel's singing, though he comes close; he actually fares slightly better on the closing section of "The Musical Box," a piece that requires power as much as subtlety. "Supper's Ready" -- which, sung by Gabriel, missed making it onto 1973's live album -- holds up well, mostly by virtue of the playing; and in fairness, the band even extended itself to including "Cinema Show," which is worth hearing just for Bill Bruford's transcendent drumming, over and above how well everything else works; as this track was never represented with Gabriel, even on the group's boxed set, it's difficult to complain too loudly about any weakness in Collins' singing.© Bruce Eder & William Ruhlmann /TiVo

On their sophomore effort for ECM, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio (pianist Marcin Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, and drummer Michal Miskiewicz -- who are also Polish trumpet maestro Tomasz Stanko's rhythm section) reflect the true sign of their maturity as a group of seasoned jazz musicians and risk-takers. Their debut album, simply called Trio, merely reflected to American and Western European audiences the wealth of talent, vision, and discipline that Polish and Eastern Europe's audiences had known for over a decade. (The group recorded five previous albums in its native country between 1993 and 2004.) They came together in 1991 as teenagers: Wasilewski and Kurkiewicz were only 16 and had already been playing together for a year when they met up with Miskiewicz. In 1993 they began playing behind Stanko, and eventually became his recording group as well. They were first heard on his 2001 album The Soul of Things, as well as his subsequent ECM outings, Suspended Night and Lontano. But all of this is history and history only. It doesn't begin to tell of the magic and mystery found in this beautiful album. There are four Wasilewski compositions in this ten-cut set. They range from the lovely songlike opener, "The First Touch," with its romantic melody that suggests Bill Evans' late "Song for Evan" period, as well as elliptical European improvisers like Bobo Stenson. But it's that inherent sense of dimension and space that is in all the best Polish jazz that makes this is such a stellar tune. The utterly lyrical brush and cymbal work by Miskiewicz and present yet uncluttered bassline of Kurkiewicz allow the full range of Wasilewski's reach from melodic invention to gently ambiguous modal exploration to come to the fore. The group's reading of Ennio Morricone's "Cinema Paradiso" underscores the deep and inseparable relationship between Polish jazz and the cinema that has existed since the collaborations between director Roman Polanski and Stanko's first boss, pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda. The sense of dynamic that the trio goes for on this piece is perhaps less forcefully pronounced than the composer's, but it is almost a reading of its other side, where the brooding aspects of the original give way to something fuller and more picaresque, while allowing its sense of nostalgia and memory free rein inside the narrative of the tune. This is followed by one of the set's true highlights, a killer jazz reading of Prince's "Diamonds and Pearls," led by a tough little three-note bass intro by Kurkiewicz; he proceeds to underscore every note in the melody with a fill. It's difficult to know for the first couple of minutes exactly what the trio is getting at here, but just before the extrapolation of the harmony and its inversion it becomes clear and it gains a more aurally recognizable quality. The tune is soulful and romantic, and contains all of the inherent lyricism that Prince employs in its chord structure, adding just a little of jazz's sense of adventure in the final third of the tune and wrapping it all together into something new. This is a worthy interpretation if there ever was one. Interestingly, the trio tackles some tunes by ECM standard-bearers as well. There are innovative, challenging, and very fresh-sounding versions of Gary Peacock's "Vignette," Carla Bley's "King Korn" (which retains all of its knotty humor and then adds some of its own), and Stanko's gorgeous and enduring "Balladyna"-- the title cut from his own ECM debut back in the 1970s. Three longer Wasilewski compositions -- "The Cat," the title track, and another crack at the relationship between Polish film and jazz in "The Young and the Cinema" -- dominate the second half of the record by giving the band a chance to really stretch and fly. All of these tunes, but particularly the last one, reveal the trio members' ability to swing effortlessly together no matter how complex the music gets as it moves from post-bop to angular impressionistic jazz. The final cut is a muted improvisation that is, if anything, all too brief. This is terrific second effort by a band that, despite the fact that its members have been together for 17 years, is only really coming into its own in the present moment.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

The fourth studio album by the cello duo of Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser, Score takes on favorites of the big and small screens, dating back as far as the '60s for Henry Mancini's "Moon River." Later highlights include a medley of Ramin Djawadi's music for TV's Game of Thrones, still in production at the time of the album's release. 2Cellos are joined here by none other than the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor/arranger Robin Smith, who puts appropriate focus on the duo's own cello arrangements. Other film music covered includes Andrea Morricone's love theme for Cinema Paradiso, Ennio Morricone's "Malèna" from the 2000 film of the same name, John Williams' main theme from Schindler's List, and Vangelis' famous theme from Chariots of Fire. Score became the project's third Billboard classical number one.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Though Two Door Cinema Club's music is resolutely indie at heart, the band released its early singles on the hip, largely electronic imprint Kitsuné. After listening to Tourist History, what the label heard in them becomes clear: Two Door Cinema Club craft immaculate pop that is infectious almost to a fault. On songs like their calling card “Something Good Can Work,” nimble guitars and drums -- both live and programmed -- propel yearning verses and big, hopeful choruses perfect for shouting along to. Alex Trimble’s boyish vocals recall Phoenix’s Thomas Mars and the Postal Service’s Ben Gibbard, and indeed, Two Door Cinema Club is just as adept as those bands are at fusing rock and electronic sounds into a smooth, sleek whole. Whether it’s the laser-like synths that ricochet through “Come Back Home”’s verses or streaking textures on “Do You Want It All?,” this hybrid never feels contrived or overcooked. And unlike some of their contemporaries, a unique urgency runs through Tourist History: even when trying to slow down, as on “Undercover Martyn,” the band gets carried away and the song picks up to Two Door Cinema Club’s usual brisk pace. For most of Tourist History, they stay on the right side of the fine line between consistency and monotony, and as the album unfolds, the band throws some curves into its almost scientifically perfect pop songs. “Cigarettes in the Theatre”’s trumpet solo harks back to the mid-‘80s heyday of sophisti-pop, while “I Can Talk”’s playfully sampled backing vocals show a wit that extends to lyrics like “Eat That Up, It’s Good for You”’s “You would look a little better/Don’t you know/If you just wore less makeup.” While Two Door Cinema Club don't yet have the flawless style or emotional weight of some of their influences, Tourist History just gets catchier and more stylized as it goes on, offering a promising foundation for the band to embellish with even more personality next time.© Heather Phares /TiVo

One of the difficulties facing a composer of movie music is finding the happy middle between the unobtrusive, but dull, and the stirring, but distracting. In a recent BBC survey, some of the composers capable of staking out that elusive territory include the legendary Max Steiner, Bernhard Herrmann, John Barry, John Williams, and the late Ennio Morricone, whose scores for the so-called "spaghetti westerns” brought him fame, though he did not restrict his talents to that genre alone.Violinist, arranger, and conductor Marco Serino worked with Morricone in his latter years creating concert suites from his earlier movie scores, some of them released on Morricone: Cinema Suites for Violin and Orchestra. In this sequel, Cinema Rarities for Violin and String Orchestra, Serino has delved into the late composer's lesser-known scores, including some for pictures never released outside of Italy. The titles were chosen, as the excellent and thorough booklet informs us, for their rarity and "distinctly Italian character.” About half of the arrangements are by Morricone, the rest by Serino.There is no disputing this is gorgeous music and few will fail to note the soaring themes and lush arrangements. The playing by both the soloist and orchestra is superb, polished, and refined. The same lushness, polish, and dolcissimo might prove excessive for some listeners, as it eventually did for this one, who by recording's end, found himself strangely craving the sound of a brass band and the juice of a lemon. © Anthony Fountain/Qobuz

Singer and songwriter Andy Shauf is frequently praised for his skill in drawing his characters and crafting interesting scenarios for them. In that respect, 2023's Norm is very much typical of his work. In nearly every other respect, this finds him bravely exploring new sonic and thematic territory. In the most surprising change, one of the characters playing a key role in Shauf's narrative is God -- if you haven't seen the video for the song "Wasted on You" or read the lyrics sheet where Me" and "You" are often capitalized, you might not have immediately guessed Shauf was singing about the Supreme Being, but once the tunesmith has tipped his hand, the divinity of one of his protagonists is rather obvious. Norm is a song cycle in which four characters are trying to sort out their feelings about others and how they should act on them, and it seems the Lord's indecision about his Only Begotten Son isn't that much different than the title character drawing a blank about how to approach the person they saw at the supermarket. (Shauf's concern about the craft of these songs is such that he credits a story editor in the liner notes.) Musically, the folkie slant of Shauf's melodies has given way to airy performances with R&B and jazz accents, and keyboards often dominate the arrangements instead of guitar. Shauf clearly didn't want to repeat himself, and he hasn't, even though the soft suede of his voice still dominates the tracks, seeming even stronger when his characters are in emotional retreat. One might be tempted to play this story for laughs, and it's commendable this album feels straightforward and sincere, even at its least plausible and possibly blasphemous. If God is a metaphor as much as a spiritual presence in Norm, Shauf thinks his dilemma is as real and as worthy of serious thought as that of the human beings sharing the stage, and it's the strength of the songwriting that makes this audacious premise work. Remember back in the '90s when Joan Osborne wondered out loud about "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?" Maybe she and Andy Shauf should talk about it some time.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Jean-Marc Luisada is a passionate man. Cinema captivates him as much as music and his latest recording allows him to bring together the two worlds that are close to his heart. By taking the name of a famous French television programme by Armand Panigel as the title of his new album (Au Cinéma ce soir), the pianist invites us to share in his love of cinema, inflected with a good dose of nostalgia from the memory of his parents’ love. It would appear that the record is entirely dedicated to their memory.The fourteen films, chosen here by Jean-Marc Luisada for the publisher-bibliophile La Dolce Volta, span a period from 1958 (Les Amants by Louis Malle) to 1979 (Manhattan by Woody Allen). So many films, and so much music remaining true to the images. But what a choice for such a refined and informed film buff! Fellini’s La Dolce Vita rubs shoulders with Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films in the history of cinema, in which the adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony (transcribed for the piano by Alexandre Tharaud) is the recurring theme of Gustav von Aschenbach's impossible quest in the alleys of Venice (which serve to illustrate August von Platen’s poetic verses): "Anyone who has ever contemplated Beauty with his eyes is already doomed to death".Amongst all these films, there is one that has a particular flavour; the disturbing Rendez-vous à Bray that André Delvaux shot in 1971, based on a short story by Julien Gracq. The music of the last piano opuses by Brahms turns the soul inside out like a glove, asking essential questions about absence, silence, and the confusion of feelings. The films evoked in this beautiful album seem to have rubbed off on Jean-Marc Luisada’s interpretations of Nino Rota, Mahler, Mozart (the moving Fantasy in D minor), Brahms, Wagner, and Chopin (who closes the programme with Cris and Chuchotements, the Ingmar Bergman film which ruthlessly examines the difficulty of human relationships). Of course, let’s not forget the dazzling smiles of Scott Joplin and George Gershwin, for whom Luisada gives an exuberant rendition of Rhapsody in Blue. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny have been good friends since the 1970s, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that Beyond the Missouri Sky should be their first duet album together. Both musicians are from small towns in Missouri, which leads Metheny to speculate in the liner notes if this similarity of childhood ambience might have something to do with the two players' obvious love and affinity for each other. Whatever the answer, the result of this logical pairing is a rather somber and moody one. Metheny has a dark tone on his electric guitar, and on Beyond the Missouri Sky, where he plays acoustic, his sound is similarly deep and rounded. Metheny has called Haden one of the greatest improvisers of all time, and although this may be hyperbolic exaggeration from a longtime friend, Haden has at least earned the right to defend the claim. On Beyond the Missouri Sky, his playing is as sensitive and beautiful as always. Although one can understand the vibe that Haden and Metheny were going for, the preponderance of slow and mid-tempo material can wear on the listener. When they eschew the dirge-like tempos, as on the fantastic "The Precious Jewel," the results are just as atmospheric and are, in fact, even more evocative of the Midwestern landscapes that are featured so prominently in the album art. With Metheny setting up a strummy rhythm, Haden plays the stately melody with impeccable tone. This track, one of many, also showcases Metheny overdubbing different guitars to thicken out the sound of the performance. The results are similar, at least in spirit, to Bill Frisell's recordings in the latter half of the 1990s. Although many Metheny and Haden compositions that are featured on this record, it is their readings of older material that are most effective. The Jimmy Webb classic "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" is wonderfully nostalgic, as Metheny uses subtle guitar and synth washes to pad a beautiful duet performance, and the traditional "He's Gone Away" is the greatest lullaby that never was. Overall, Beyond the Missouri Sky is a fine record when the material is happening, but a bit of a chore when it is not. If Haden and Metheny had gone with the more Americana theme throughout, instead of interspersing that rootsy feel with post-bop, it would have been a much stronger record.© Daniel Gioffre /TiVo

"At the beginning of the twentieth century, all roads led to Paris.... violinist Manon Galy and pianist Jorge González Buajasán capture the flavor of that time of renewal and offer a glimpse of the audacity and modernity that characterized French music during those years." The problem with this is that it doesn't describe the contents very well; much of the music is from considerably earlier (Debussy's Beau soir in Jascha Heifetz's evergreen arrangement) or considerably later (Poulenc's Violin Sonata). This cavil aside, Nuits parisiennes is quite a promising debut for this young duo, whose cooperation was honed by a long acquaintance at the Paris Conservatoire. Galy is an insightful player who keeps control over the rapid flow of events in the two rather thorny sonatas at the center of the program. To surround these, the players devise a consistently delightful program that, by turns, shows Galy's way with a tune and offers some more unusual pieces, with the ragtime-y Braziliera from Milhaud's Scaramouche and his rarely heard Cinéma-fantaisie, Op. 58b, both special pleasures. This release announces the presence of an exciting new duo.© James Manheim /TiVo

This release by violinist Renaud Capuçon is of the sort that comes with a disclaimer: although he enjoyed film music, Capuçon says, and even owned two albums of the stuff by Itzhak Perlman, he had "reservations" about recording it as a classical musician. The point of such displays of reluctance is not clear; few these days would contest the value of good film music, French as well as American. Capuçon touches on both, as well as some famous Italian pieces by Ennio Morricone and others. Despite his reluctance, he goes into full crossover mode and does it competently, extracting the maximum amount of sentiment before breaking the mood with more dramatic material and with one vocal interlude from Nolwenn Leroy. He pushes his basic lyrical tone into heavy-vibrato territory, but never goes over the edge, and both the violinist's basic fans and those in search of a French-flavored collection of film music (sample the unusual "Camille" from Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris) are likely to find the results satisfying. Capuçon gets strong support from the Brussels Philharmonic under Stéphane Denève. Highly recommended.© James Manheim /TiVo