“This is an exploration of pain, passion and perseverance,” is how Sprints present their debut album. After having developed their decidedly British garage-punk under Nice Swan Recording with the EPs A Modern Job and Manifesto, released in 2021, the young quartet from Dublin has moved onto the Berlin-based indie label City Slang (Calexico, Hauschka, Gold Panda, Tindersticks, as well as Anna Von Hausswolff) for Letter To Self. Produced by expert of noise texture and bassist of Gilla Band, Daniel Fox, and recorded in just 12 days in Anjou, this dazzling record of 11 garage tracks doesn’t hold back, seeking catharsis over subtlety.“Music became an outlet for emotion, and a way for me to understand myself and society,” reveals Karla Chubb, the group’s ringleader, whose shattering voice has been backed by Colm O’Reilly’s guitar, Jack Callan’s drums, and Sam McCann’s bass, since the middle of the 2010s. Thunderous kick (“Ticking”) and plenty of saturation (“Cathedral”), rises in power until the point of implosion, almost giving a taste of the 90s (“A Wreck (A Mess)”). Adding efficient riffing (“Up and Comer”) and post-punk bass (“Literary Mind”), this high-tension record unfolds like a continuous flow of avalanches. If you’re looking for some respite, we recommend you wait for the last minute, where the guitar notes gently flow over softer, spoken vocals into silence. Qobuzissime! © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

The twelfth album from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Unlimited Love, is notable for several reasons: Next year, the band will have been around for 40 years; it's their first since 2009 with on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante; and they've returned to producer Rick Rubin, who helmed their 1991 commercial breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The old gang sounds like they're having more fun than ever. "Aquatic Mouth Dance" is at once undeniably RHCP and also like nothing they've done before: With a breezy R&B chorus and a vibrant wash of brass, it's almost an Earth, Wind & Fire song; it's also Flea at his finest, delivering super-funky bass that shows why he's gone from being seen as a party doofus to earning real respect. A wild tribute to 1980s LA nightlife, the song name-drops John Doe, the Misfits, Billy Zoom, "the old Starwood" and the long-closed Cathay club where the band got its start, and even offers a self-referential wink to an old album: "Spilling beer is a good fountain/ Like the milk from a mother's tit." The band is also in a nostalgic mood on loose-limbed "Poster Child," a wah-inflected wordplay buffet: "Melle Mel and Richard Hell/ Were dancing at the Taco Bell/ When someone heard a rebel yell … Lizzy looking mighty thin/ The Thompsons had another twin … Steve Miller and Duran Duran/ A joker dancing in the sand." With its "ayo-ayo" chorus, "One Way Traffic" already feels like classic RHCP, as Anthony Kiedis laments his friends getting older and settling down: "Now they read them catalogs." (His escape? Driving down the PCH, music turned up, to a killer surf spot.) There are heavy moments—"These Are the Ways" is pure grunge; "Here Ever After" feels ominous; and "The Heavy Wing" lives up to its name with eye-watering guitar—and dreamy ones that showcase Frusciante's fluid touch (ballad "Not the One," the Steely Dan chill of "Let 'Em Cry," the slip-and-slide R&B of "She's a Lover"). There's even a song that does both, as "Whatchu Thinkin'" flies from pretty, slightly psyched-out melody to blissed-out jam. The band is also, after all these years, still able to evolve and surprise. "Bastards of Light" gets almost country before it crests in a grunge breakdown; "White Braids & Pillow Chair" is a slice of experimental weirdness, weaving in bits of gospel and rumbling Western scores. (The verdict is still out on Kiedis' Hiberno-meets-pirate affectation on the stomper "Black Summer.") This is much, much more than a legacy band turning out the same old stuff. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Formed in Alaska but currently residing in Portland, OR, this quintet, led by guitarist/vocalist John Gourley, espouses brainiac indie rock eclecticism that's focused on bending pop grooves, electronica and hip-hop to their will. It's a state of mind that makes their music wildly diverse and everywhere and anywhere at once. Despite their smarter-than-thou attitude—which demands much from listeners—this is also a band that knows how to write insanely catchy hooks. The minute-long opening track, "Heavy Games II (feat. Jeff Bhasker)" opens with simple acoustic piano backed with voices. The brief lyrics come to a quick conclusion: "Heavy games can't take this back/ Cause the present has a past/ Now I'm fucked up forever." In anthemic second track, "Grim Generation," brass accents highlight the choir vocals, an impressive groove and a vocal processor that makes Gourley's falsetto flutter.  The digital magic crests in big beat "Thunderdome [W.T.A.]" as more high voices sing, "You know you want it/ If you leave somebody you love" before guest rapper Black Thought rhymes.  They take a shot at creating another anthem like their 2017 hit, "Feel It Still," with the big "Summer of Luv," a slow groove collaboration with New Zealand's Unknown Mortal Orchestra that by its end becomes a sticky sweet pop single. Recorded at a number of different studios and produced by Jeff Bhasker, the sound of Chris Black Changed My Life (named for a friend of the band who died in 2019), is processed and groomed to a fine edge. While the hooks slow and then disappear in later tracks with guests Edgar Winter and Paul Williams, Gourley and his mates are astute aggregators of different musical styles—all of which focus on vocals and have interest in filling a dance floor. After a halo of voices raised in mock praise winnows down to silence, Paul Williams ends the album by saying, "And before you see that whole forest fire you see this massive cloud of smoke/ And it's cinematic, it's just biblical/ In the end does it just become entertainment/ Wow that's a fantastic looking fire that's about to sweep through me." Uh … heavy. Clever at blending diverse influences and very self-aware, this is a quintet with ideas and ambition to burn. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Live album or studio album? Woman Worldwide falls right between the two; it’s the synthesis of a huge one-year tour and the meticulous work by the French duo. It all began with their third album Woman, released in 2016, which gave rise to the creation of one of the most impressive live shows the following year. However, Xavier De Rosnay and Gaspard Augé have not just revisited Woman, they have also drawn from their previous two albums (Cross and Audio Video Disco) to create this supercharged mash-up. But for this duo, simply releasing an album isn’t enough. Their label Ed Banger adds that "After a year of testing, performing, refining and recording on the road, they returned to the studio in Paris to give their songs the finish that live performance doesn't always allow.” At first glance, the result seems enormous: you are quickly lead through ten years of Justice with a power that has never been reached before by the French duo. It shakes, it lifts, it explodes. But when you listen to the remix again, the mixing and arrangement work is so thorough that you can understand why one of the most talented electronic duets on the planet have chosen to present this work as a studio album. Our only regret is that no exclusive tracks have been included; it could have alleviated the pain of waiting until the next record. © Sylvain Di Cristo / Qobuz

Stylish nostalgia is the pan et beurre of a lot of French dance music, including -- for better and worse -- Justice's third album. Arriving five years after Audio, Video, Disco, Woman is built on layers of fondly remembered vintage funk and disco, pre-EDM French Touch, and Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay's own work. The duo lead with the most broadly appealing side of their music: with its choral vocals and popping bass, "Safe and Sound" sounds like a slowed-down version of "D.A.N.C.E." with a hint of roller disco, while the gleaming synths and chugging rhythms of "Alakazam!" and "Fire" keep going like perpetual-motion party machines. Individually, these tracks are a lot of fun, but taken together, they give the impression that the pop whimsy and prog metal tangents of Cross and Audio, Video, Disco are strengths Justice preferred to leave in the past. Just when it seems Woman is consistent to a fault, Augé and de Rosnay bring some of that weirdness back to their music without derailing their grooves. The luxe vocals on the aptly named "Chorus" lend some oddball '70s sci-fi majesty to its gritty beat (and the final track, "Close Call," adds to the impression that Woman is secretly the soundtrack to a space fantasia). Meanwhile, "Heavy Metal"'s frantic counterpoint has as much in common with Audio, Video, Disco's metal fixations as it does with kitschy classical pop. "Randy," which features vocals from longtime contributor Morgan Phalen, blends chugging guitars and strings courtesy of the London Contemporary Orchestra into one of the album's finest examples of genre-mashing; similarly, the breezy "Love S.O.S." proves the duo's range remains. Even if Woman sometimes sounds more like two EPs than a cohesive set of songs, it's still an enjoyable album -- especially when Justice use their flair for looking back creatively.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Time, mercifully, has not softened Fiona Apple's edges. Her long-awaited fifth album is exciting, nervy and seemingly on the verge of collapse. Apple lets it bleed without running over the edge. On "I Want You to Love Me," her voice is Mama Cass strong; she holds notes to the point that they become something else. "Shameika" and "Cosmonauts" are sonic tornadoes, while the title track is madness with its rushed vocals, chanted chorus ("Fetch the bolt cutters/I've been in here too long"), percussive manic typing, and a barking dog. Apple's humor remains wickedly sharp. "Under The Table" is laugh out loud funny, about a dreaded dinner party: "Kick me under the table all you want, I won't shut up." Over a bed of baroque or even circus sideshow piano, she tries on Lizzo-worthy sass for "Rack of His" ("Check out that rack of his! / Look at that row of guitar necks"). Occasionally, it's all breathtaking: "For Her" snaps from playground chants fueled by #MeToo fury to a soaring swell of "Good morning! You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in." As powerful as anything she's ever made. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Wilco's first three albums each had a distinct personality of their own as the band (and their leader, Jeff Tweedy) were quite literally figuring out what they were going to be as they went along: 1995's A.M. was a direct extension of the music Tweedy and his bandmates were making in Uncle Tupelo, 1996's Being There was a wildly diverse dive into a number of new musical possibilities, and 1999's Summerteeth was the point where Tweedy's collaboration with keyboardist Jay Bennett came to dominate their sound and personality. With 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco hit another turning point, where the Tweedy-Bennett partnership at once reached its peak and came crashing down. The departure of drummer Ken Coomer in the earliest stages of the recording and the more artful and exploratory approach of new percussionist Glenn Kotche certainly made a difference, as did the decision to record the LP at Wilco's own rehearsal space, giving them the time and the latitude to experiment with different sounds and approaches at length. As the sessions went on, the emotionally difficult undertow of Summerteeth became a more obvious presence in these songs, and the music took on a beauty and personality that was the work of a band torn between anxiety, hope, and a powerful belief in the emotional force of music. While the very public controversy in which Warner Bros. rejected the album, making it a cause célèbre in the media, certainly helped Yankee Hotel Foxtrot gain a hearing among people who previously didn't follow the band, this would have been a major creative triumph for Wilco regardless of how it appeared. Tweedy's songs are strikingly open-hearted and revealing, whether he's wrestling with anxieties ("Ashes of American Flags"), celebrating the sheer pleasure of music ("Heavy Metal Drummer"), or baring his heart and soul to the world ("Reservations"). And the arrangements and production make this a unique and powerful listening experience, with layers of sonic atmosphere coloring the melodies and complementing the outstanding performances from the band. More than one rag declared that Wilco was "the American Radiohead" in the wake of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but the album was a powerfully original, deeply revealing work that was beholden to no one and erased all doubt that Wilco were one of the best and most imaginative groups of their time.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Great artistic transformations are by nature traumatic, but rarely has a single musical statement been the source of more controversy and change than Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, now remastered and reissued for its 20th anniversary. Anyone who's seen the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart witnessed the project's two creative engines, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett, driving themselves mad in the process. Arguably, Wilco's best work were products of the Tweedy-Bennett partnership. Bennett, who came off as unduly obsessive and off kilter in the film, was fired from the band after the album's completion (and sadly died in 2009 from an accidental overdose at age 45); original drummer Ken Coomer was also let go during the recording process. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot also stands as yet another instance where Jim O'Rourke, who eventually mixed the album, continued to build his considerable reputation as a musical influencer. The turmoil continued after the album was finished when Warner Music Group-owned Reprise Records, which had undergone staff changes after a merger with AOL, didn't hear the album's commercial potential, and refused to release it. This led to a lengthy battle during which the band streamed the album for free on its website, gained control of the master tapes, and after a bidding war signed with another WMG label, Nonesuch Records, where the band remains to this day.  (As a final complication, the album's cover features a photo of Chicago's Marina City— two corn cobbed-shaped high-rise buildings—and had an original release date of September 11, 2001.) Artistically, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot marks the moment where Wilco left its Uncle Tupelo alt-country past behind and stepped deep into bold sonic exploration. Although Tweedy has always made it clear that he considers it a "pop album," he's also said, "I was learning about contrasts. A lot of the songs on Yankee aren't particularly abstract. But they benefit from being in a disorienting landscape of language … I needed to find some experimental music with a bigger heart. That's what I was looking for my whole life."In a telling sign that it's something special, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still sounds fresh, an artistic evergreen. While the lyrics veered off into nonsensical land, the music, in songs like the "I'm the Man Who Loves You," "War on War" and ever sublime, "Jesus, Etc." are tuneful in timeless ways, untethered to any genre or current of popular music. It's ageless art rock that stands to this day as the band's most lasting work. The original mix has been refreshed by famed engineer Bob Ludwig without any major changes. The tracks that appear under the heading of Unified Theory of Everything are taken from the mountain of tape (much of it ADATs) that the band recorded for the album. At their most revealing, Wilco show the expansive vision of experimentation they brought to the project and the struggle to translate that in the studio. While "Jesus, Etc." is nearly the same as the released take, this version of "Kamera" is slower and has a big buzzy guitar at its center.  The "Stravinsky mix" of "Ashes of American Flags" opens with flutes.  None is more telling however than "Remember to Remember," which later became "Hummingbird" on 2004's A Ghost is Born. It's much heavier than the original version, the mix based around an insistent drumbeat, wavering keyboards, and an electric guitar part. The live show from 2002 at The Pageant in St. Louis, which benefits from generally good sound, shows the band bouncing back, playing stripped down versions of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tunes and getting a handle on playing the material without the multi-talented Bennett. There was a time back before the band became the extraordinary collection of virtuoso musicians it is today, when Tweedy was still hungry, desperate even, for success. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the sound of a band reaching and finding something unforgettable. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

On the second album by Pittsburgh noise-pop band feeble little horse, singer Lydia Slocum is trying to figure out other people—and herself—but the answers are hard to tune into. And that ambiguity sounds great. Layers of hiss and static brilliantly stand in for confusion and frustration on songs like fuzzed-out opener "Freak," about an unrequited crush on a star college athlete ("How can you be satisfied/ She's 5'1" and you're 6'5"," Lydia Slocum sings, questioning the laws of attraction). "Steamroller" is dreamy shoegaze through a blown-out amp, at once a work of pretty melodies and guitar crunch from Sebastian Kinsler and Ryan Walchonski. "Steamroller/ You fuck like you're eating," Slocum sings like an indictment. "Throw in the towel/ I'm tired of baking." She has said it's about shame and her "most embarrassing song to sing." "Heaven" goes from pretty and sweet—Slocum's vocals dropping down to a momentary whisper on "I sleep and go to heaven"—before the whole thing warps and melts. "Sweet" combines My Bloody Valentine grandiosity and Wolf Alice power, with male-female vocals (both hushed, but Slocum taking on a more hypnotic role) offering sonic duality that's mirrored by the song completely dropping out, then blasting back to life. "Paces" is poppy and joyous, airy "Station" serves up slippery guitar squelch almost like a seagull's cry, and "Slide" ambles on a loose acoustic guitar jangle before enveloping the listener in a big hug of churning noise. The masterpiece here is "Pocket," a wild pastiche of styles, voices and emotion inspired by, Slocum has said, "being single and not knowing what to do with myself. I got in the habit of showing someone affection and I liked it but then that ended and I just had all these kisses and hugs burning a hole in my pocket!" That leads to a maddening loop of a nursery-rhyme chant: "Do you wanna be in my pocket?" which goes on and on before being stopped by static that sounds like a radio station being changed. Then there's a completely unexpected rap breakdown and round-robin layers of vocals, comparing the ghost of a past love to being like "a dead man is fucking me"—until the station changes again, to a screamo version of "Do you wanna be in my pocket?!" And even when Slocum finds uneasy answers, she cynically tries to make the best of it. "I found you all rusted and leaky/ Took him apart and I found nobody/ But when I dent you, I end up bruised," she sings on "Tin Man"—all brooding bass, blistering Sonic Youth guitar and a critique of victimhood. "Tin man hurts/ So I shine him clean." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Big Thief songwriter and frontwoman Adrianne Lenker's aesthetic falls somewhere between rough edged Appalachian Mountain music filtered through an urban Brooklyn sensibility, and something further out, more individualized, and in the end, not completely expressible. While stanzas like "When I say celestial/ I mean extraterrestrial/ I mean accepting the alien you've rejected in your own heart/ When I say heart I mean finish/The last one there is a potato knish/ Baking too long in the sun of spud infinity" might make you smile, her lyrics often seem like they're only scratching the surface of what she's thinking and feeling. Her voice, which can shade into a Hazel Dickens kind of portentousness, often strains to reach a place that only she can visualize. But the overall effect is a rigorous, engaged, and inviting musical experience. Recorded in four locations—Topanga Canyon, Upstate New York, Colorado, and Tucson, Arizona—there's nevertheless a cohesion thanks to Lenker's singing. "Red Moon," with guest Matt Davidson of Twain on fiddle and harmony vocals, is the band at their most Americana-esque. The album's sweetest melody is found on "No Reason" with Buck Meek on twelve-string guitar and guest Richard Hardy on flute. The only misstep is "Love Love Love," where Lenker's voice wobbles and nearly breaks in spots. At times the foursome (rounded out by bassist Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia) do get noisier, as in "Little Things," where Meek's electric guitar chimes and reverb gives Lenker's voice extra force; guitar effects and electronics add a textured bass thump to "Flower of Blood." You may wonder if this double album would have been tighter and less indulgent condensed into a single, but Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You justifies its length, staying steady until the goodtime honky-tonk closer, "Blue Lightning." © Robert Baird/Qobuz

One of the most interesting, thought-provoking bands around right now, Young Fathers borrows a little bit from a lot of genres—hip-hop, mbaqanga, alt-pop, noise pop, punk, gospel, to name a few—for something that is truly avant. It's not worldbeat so much as out of this world. The Mercury Prize-winning Edinburgh trio has described their fourth album, Heavy Heavy, as being both about the "smooth granite of bass that supports the sound" and the "natural progression of boys to grown men and the inevitable toll of living, a joyous burden." That message is delivered fully formed on "Geronimo," which somehow manages to simultaneously invoke the mischievous power of early TV on the Radio and U2 circa Zooropa. "Breathe in like a lion/ Breathe out like a lamb. Got the feeling that I'm caught in a bind/ Being a son, brother, uncle, father figure/ I gotta survive and provide." Massive "I Saw" sneers the verses ("A bad seed/ A rotten apple/ Take out the rubbish/ Buried in between justice/ Holier than thou") before the calm but determined chorus slips in: "I saw what I saw/ I keep on walking the line." The band—which once got kicked off a music festival for supporting the anti-Palestinian-oppression BDS movement—has described the song as a metaphor for "a big bully with shite down their leg, still swaggering … the stench of [a] long-dead empire, trudging along … " The lyrics also offer a pragmatic panacea to jingoism: what sounds like children chanting "Brush your teeth/ Wash your face/ Run away." "Drum" is a breathless dismantling and reconstruction of hip-hop, an immersive swirl coming at you from all angles with alternating on-and off-time kick drum. "Tell Somebody" is like some ethereal choir hymn, complete with a god-light moment, that's either repetitious or meditative depending on your point of view. Captivating "Ululation" builds around the celebratory female howl of the title and blends Arabic cheer with New Orleans' carefree, high-humidity joy—two cultures that find the full-circle beauty in death. And as for that granite bass? It sounds like a sonar on the jubilant "Rice" and agitated "Sink or Swim," which adds a third option to an old adage: "You either sink or swim or do nothing." Closer "Be Your Lady" is like three different songs—piano soul, tribal metal thump and spaced-out funk— in a seamless relay that might make Frank Ocean jealous. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Released without fanfare on Christmas Day 2022, All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks) documents Zach Bryan's final show of 2022, a concert held at the fabled Red Rocks venue in Colorado in early November. Winter came without warning that day: the temperature plummeted into the 20s as a blizzard blew in, forcing the Bryan brigade to cut their opening acts loose and trim their own set so they could send the crowd home before conditions got too dangerous. He had a recording crew on hand, planning to preserve this tour closer regardless of the weather, so he wound up with a document of this most unusual show. The band certainly plays with a sense of urgency that's palpable even on the slow tunes; they're racing toward the finish line, trying to keep everybody's spirits up in the cold. Even if you didn't know this backstory, you'd figure out that it's freezing thanks to Bryan's incessant on-stage patter, where he's constantly mentioning the cold and worming a variation of "How Ya Doin' Red Rocks" into what feels to be every other song -- an affectation that's excusable given the circumstance. The nervous energy also translates to a performance that's livelier and more robust than Bryan's sprawling American Heartbreak, lending color and muscle to songs that could seem like sketches in the studio.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Jethro Tull's 11th studio album, Heavy Horses, is one of their prettier records, a veritable celebration of English folk music chock-full of gorgeous melodies, briskly played acoustic guitars and mandolins, and Ian Anderson's flute lilting in the background, backed by the group in top form. This record is a fairly close cousin to 1977's Songs From the Wood, except that its songs are decidedly more passionate, sung with a rough, robust energy that much of Tull's work since Thick as a Brick had been missing, and surpassing even Aqualung in its lustiness. "No Lullaby" is the signature heavy riff song, a concert version of which opened Bursting Out: Jethro Tull Live. Anderson sings it -- and everything else here -- as though they might be the last lines he ever gets to voice, with tremendous intensity. The band plays hard behind him throughout, with lead guitarist Martin Barre (most notably on "Weathercock") and bassist John Glascock showing up very well throughout. Anderson's production and Robin Black's engineering catch their every nuance without sacrificing the delicacy of his acoustic guitar and mandolin playing. "Acres Wild," "Rover," "One Brown Mouse," "Weathercock," and "Moths," the latter featuring some of David Palmer's most tasteful orchestral arrangements, are among the loveliest songs in the group's entire repertory. Curved Air's Darryl Way plays violin solo on the title track -- a tribute to England's vanishing shire horses, which doesn't really take off until Way's instrument comes in on the break, with a marked tempo change -- and on "Acres Wild."© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Rising from the darkness of the Canadian rave scene at the start of the 2010s, Grimes quickly made her way up the ladder of success. Her synthetic hit Vanessa allowed her to amass a fanbase that was obsessed with her post-teenage voice and elfish look, and at the end of the 2010s, Pitchfork named Oblivion (written following a sexual assault and taken from her 2012 album Vision) the second-best song of the entire decade. It’s this kind of distinction that reminds us that she is an artist that knows exactly how to transcribe emotions into songs, and not just the girlfriend of multi-billionaire Elon Musk. Miss Anthropocene sees Grimes morph into a climate supervillain, a ‘goddess of plastic’ that’s here to take some of the heat off climate change. Musically, Grimes has not drastically changed, with a signature synth-pop sound that borrows from rock on My Name Is Dark, drum’n’bass on the excellent 4ÆM or trip-hop on So Heavy (I Fell Through the Earth), which reminds you of Massive Attack or Transglobal Underground. Well inspired, Grimes continues to hit the mark. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

While most of the discussions of Frank Zappa have to do with his satirical and off-color lyrics, the fact remains that he was one of the finest and most underappreciated guitarists around. This collection places the spotlight squarely on Zappa's mastery of the guitar. Recorded for the most part in 1979 and 1980 (with a few tracks dating as far back as 1977), Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar is simply a collection of guitar solos. Even though most of the tracks were just edited out of their original song context, they fare well as stand-alone pieces, as Zappa was an ever-inventive player. Take, for example, the three versions of "Shut Up." These tracks were simply the guitar solos from "Inca Roads," but thanks to Zappa's ability for "instant composition," each version has its own complete story to tell, without ever being redundant. Other highlights are the reggae-tinged "Treacherous Cretins" and the beautiful "Pink Napkins." In addition to the electric guitar mangling contained on Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, there are a couple of rare tracks that feature Zappa on acoustic guitar in a trio with Warren Cuccurullo on acoustic rhythm guitar and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. In fact, special mention goes to Colaiuta for his polyrhythmic daring all over this album. All bandmembers play great throughout, but Colaiuta's playing is mind blowing. The album closes with another oddity: a gorgeous duet between Zappa on electric bouzouki and Jean-Luc Ponty on baritone violin. This is an album that should be heard by anyone who's into guitar playing. Highly recommended. © Sean Westergaard /TiVo

Before Big Thief became indie-folk-rock fans’ favourite band, their singer Adrianne Lenker released three solo albums: Stages of the Sun (2006), Hours Were the Birds (2014) and Abysskiss (2018). This time around, the folk fairy does even more with even less. Alone with her acoustic guitar, she recorded this double album (available separately under the simple titles Songs and Instrumentals) in a cabin in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. You can hear the wood crackling. Birds and insects as well. And even her fingers sliding around on her strings. With every second, the real world slips away a little more. And her fragile voice is like a magnet that pulls you into every melody... She explores classic themes like loneliness, break-up and regret with a hypnotising, stripped-back sound that brings the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Judee Sill, Elliott Smith and Joni Mitchell (obvious influences for the Big Thief singer). Adrianne Lenker often uses repetition, like on the moving song Come where you can hear the rain outside. Sometimes, it’s space that she focuses on (My Angel). Each song is soft and intimate. The two long instrumental pieces (21 and 16 minutes) that make up the second part require more attention but prove to be totally in line with the songs on the first record. You’re left stunned by just how refined both albums are. A sublime work that will easily stand the test of time. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz