Peter Cincotti's 2009 release East of Angel Town is the vocalist/pianist's first album since his 2004 sophomore effort, On the Moon. That album found the onetime neo-crooner moving from jazz standards to more contemporary pop-oriented original material. East of Angel Town finds Cincotti having fully made the crossover move, and fittingly the album features production by crossover Svengali David Foster as well as Humberto Gatica and Jochem van der Saag. Foster has helmed similar efforts from such genre-bending artists as vocalists Josh Groban and Michael Bublé. That said, neither of those artists has ever gone quite as far toward the pop/rock vein as Cincotti does here. Still displaying a knack for jazz and blues-inflected melodies, Cincotti nevertheless dives headlong into the rock world. Tracks such as the sharp-tongued and urbane leadoff title track, with its hard-edged guitar backgrounds and lyrics detailing the superficial lives of N.Y.C. scenesters, bring to mind the theatrical '70s singer/songwriter pop of both Rupert Holmes and Steely Dan. In fact, Steely Dan seem to be the biggest touchstone for Cincotti here. Which isn't to say he rips off them off -- on the contrary, as the production on Angel Town is so thoroughly modern, you'd never mistake it for classic Steely Dan. Nonetheless, Cincotti's mix of jazz, blues, and crisply drawn singer/songwriter lyrics clearly draws much inspiration from Steely Dan and other eclectic artists of the '70s and '80s, including Elton John and Billy Joel. Keeping in that tradition, it's not just the rockers, but primarily Cincotti's ballads that really stick in your ears, with both "Lay Your Body Down (Goodbye Philadelphia)" and "Cinderella Beautiful" delivering a warm, melancholy afterglow vibe. Similarly, "Man on a Mission" is a perfect soft rock ballad. Taken as a whole, East of Angel Town is a somewhat sprawling and stylistically varied pop album that finds Cincotti meandering all over the creative map. However, in the world of crossover singer/songwriter pop that's actually kind of the goal, and in that sense Cincotti is right on course.© Matt Collar /TiVo

In the year of his 90th birthday (which he would have celebrated on the 23rd of September 2020 had he not died in 2004), Ray Charles is honoured with a new 90-track compilation box set. Just another compilation like all the rest? Yes and no. Ray Charles is undoubtedly one of the most-compiled artists in the history of music. Published by Tangerine, the label that the musician set up at the end of the 50s to keep the rights to his songs, this box set starts out like all the others: with the post-Atlantic hits, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, One Mint Julep, Busted... These are timeless treasures of proto-soul, but there doesn't seem to be much novelty here. The rest is much more interesting, and much rarer: tracks recorded between the second half of the 1960s and the 2000s, many of which were only released on vinyl, never reissued on CD and until now unavailable on digital. This is the first time that Ray Charles' lesser-known years have been given the compilation treatment in this way, and it is a revelation. In the 90s and 2000s, the production of his songs had a synthetic feel, and they did not age too well. These rarer songs are often hidden gems of southern soul, flavoured with country and wrapped in sumptuous symphonic orchestrations. Whether he is singing the Muppets (It's Ain't Easy Being Green) or Gershwin (Summertime, a duet with Cleo Laine), Ray Charles is always deeply moving. Now, the dream is to hear reissues of all these albums in their entirety. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

Released in 2010, this Christmas album by the famous Eurythmics singer is back in 2020 as a remastered version. For an English-speaking pop singer, it is common to offer a "Christmas album" once in their career. But, true to her temperament, Annie Lennox wanted to shake up the often traditional and culturally fixed aspect of this type of project, which she wants to be more open and committed than usual. This 6th solo album therefore offers a cosmopolitan selection of Christmas carols, with classics from Great Britain, but also from Germany and France. It even goes so far as to interpret Il Est Né Le Divin Enfant in the language of Molière. This song also has an African element, with the African Children's Choir and percussion performed by Barry van Zyl. A process that allows us to open up even further towards other horizons. "I hope this recording will offer some comfort and nostalgia, but also an awareness in the eyes of political leaders, religious leaders and the world: we have to face the question of how many mores Christmases we have left on this ravaged planet," says Annie Lennox. A song like Lullay Lullay is a perfect example of her humanist approach, as the Scottish singer relates the festive Nativity to the tragedy of child soldiers in Africa. This re-release includes the previously unreleased Universal Child, written and composed by Lennox herself. She also plays most of the instruments on the album, leaving the guitars, bass and some keyboards to her colleague Mike Stevens. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Gold & Grey represents the end of Baroness' color-schemed album titles, preceded by Red Album, Blue Record, Yellow & Green, and Purple. The now-Philadelphia-based quartet have been through major changes, from magazine covers and award nominations to a horrific life-threatening bus crash that caused the original rhythm section to leave, and the 2018 departure of founding guitarist Peter Adams, vocalist/guitarist John Baizley remains as the only original member. Bassist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson were on board for Purple, but new guitarist/backing vocalist Gina Gleason (Santana, Smashing Pumpkins) makes her studio debut with Baroness here. While not quite the sprawling double-length exercise that Yellow & Green was, the Dave Fridmann-produced Gold & Grey, with its wildly diverse 17 tracks, is only ten minutes shorter, and is as labyrinthine as it is sprawling in ambition. Baroness have freely indulged in experimental songwriting, arranging, and studio experimentation before, but not to the degree displayed here. Everything, from continuously evolving, shapeshifting songwriting to a truly noisy mix and an ever-more-wide-angled juxtaposition of genres and styles, reflects aesthetic adventurousness. While there is metal riffing here -- especially in the set's second half -- it is merely an element in this kaleidoscopic rainbow of sounds, textures, and dynamics. Opener "Front Toward Enemy," with its bass-throbbing heavy fuzz, may recall the band's earliest days, but the gorgeous layered vocal harmonies offset the aggression. "I'm Already Gone" offers the first taste of a real stylistic shift displaying an unmistakable admiration for the Cure's Pornography in its melodic and vocal lines. Some tracks serve as intros/interludes. Baroness have played with them in the past but never to the fully fleshed extent they do here. They range from gentle piano themes in "Sevens" to evocations of noisy, 21st century Krautrock on "Can Obscura." "Tourniquet" opens with a direct nod to Big Star's Third before changing directions toward a midtempo slammer. Loopy, acid-drenched psychedelia emerges on "I'd Do Anything," and "Assault on East Falls." While "Throw Me an Anchor" is an anthemic prog metal jam, "Emmett: Radiating Light," is a halting acoustic number with bells, a processional upright piano, and intricately layered vocal harmonies between Baizley and Gleason that deliver dazzling results. While "Borderlines" nods at Kyuss' desert rock, closer "Pale Suns" crisscrosses near-Baroque vocal harmonies with brooding sludge, King Crimson-esque prog, and squalling post-metal à la mid-period Killing Joke. In lesser hands, this wild, unruly amalgam of musical and playing styles and songwriting would result in a mess -- Baroness themselves couldn't pull it off on Yellow & Green. But here, thanks to maturity, Fridmann's mix, and uncanny sequencing, every song fits seamlessly inside each proceeding one, delivering a mercurial yet satisfying whole that makes Gold & Grey the band's finest outing to date, if not their masterpiece.© Thom Jurek. /TiVo

Behind the long title, a long album: in fact, this is two albums run together. This release brings together the last two works from this singer, writer and musician. Angel’s previous two albums, All Mirrors (2019) and Whole New Mess (2020), were written as one double album, before finally coming out separately (as it happens, Whole New Mess was recorded before All Mirrors, even though it came out later... go figure). Indeed, these two records are twins, with some tracks appearing in different versions on both. This new release sees them reunited at last, accompanied by alternative studio recordings, B-sides, a cover version and some remixes. Angel Olsen has explained that this is her way of bringing a certain period of her life to a close before starting a new chapter. On this work, she is setting forth her own vision of a deconstructed style of folk: the effect is something of a mix of Cat Power and the more lyrical flights of Lana Del Rey (take, for example, (New Love) Cassette or (Summer Song) on Whole New Mess).  Having stepped out beyond her earlier, smaller audience made up of just a "happy few", she is now flirting with a rather more mainstream crowd, as her selection of remixes suggests. The likeable Johnny Jewel, mastermind of the Chromatics, who featured on David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) lends a cool sound and some dancefloor beats to All Mirrors while master of hits Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars) brings a darker hip-hop touch to (New Love) Cassette. Another novelty here is the rather simple cover of the Roxy Music hit, More Than This, which has a whiff of karaoke about it. It may even be a deliberate nod to the version sung by Bill Murray in Sofia Coppola's classic film Lost In Translation. Songs of the Lark and Other Far Memories is a kind of big cake: a sumptuous birthday cake marking Angel Olson's transition out of the smaller circles of indie rock and out into the big wide world. © Yan Céh/Qobuz