This is certainly not the only collection of popular Christmas carols from one of Britain's venerable collegiate choirs, and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted then as now by Stephen Cleobury, has even issued one in the past, containing many of the carols sung here. Are there distinctive strengths? Absolutely. One is the mostly fresh set of arrangements, by Cleobury and others, that enliven the material with chromaticism, often in a slightly humorous way. And then there's the presence of a couple of new hymns, one of which, Bob Chilcott's The Shepherd's Carol, just might turn into a permanent addition to the repertory. (Both that and a carol by Rutter were commissioned by the choir.) But above the individual attractions looms the solid quality of the recording. Cleobury gets from the choristers an ideal balance of purity, conviction, musical sensitivity, and a bit of gutsiness, and the whole program brings a feeling of newness to the most familiar musical materials of all. Those in search of a Christmas carol recording from one of Britain's top collegiate choirs can buy with confidence here.© TiVo

Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder have both made careers out of covering classic tunes from the canons of early blues, gospel, jazz, country, and soul music. As septuagenarians they can fall into these modes by instinct alone.  Here these two living encyclopedias of American music (and former bandmates in the Rising Sons, a short-lived Los Angeles blues rock band circa 1965) have recorded a loose and fun jam session, revisiting classics from the catalogs of Reverend Gary Davis and the epic blues partnership of Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry. Rather than straight covers though, Cooder and Mahal—in the studio together for the first time since 1968—put their decades of experience to work, with both singing on most tunes and adding spontaneous drums and percussion from Cooder's son, Joachim, throughout. Although this is a mostly acoustic guitar and voice affair, Ry Cooder adds electric guitar parts to several tunes including the opener "My Baby Done Changed the Lock on the Door" and an oddly reverberant and round-toned, "Packing Up Getting Ready To Go." Recorded by Martin Pradler at Temple of Leaves in Altadena, CA. and Wireland in Chatsworth, CA, the only flaw in this project is that is was recorded as Mahal says, "old school" in less-than-ideal conditions "in the front parlor of a fine n' vintage welcoming old home!" This results in a recording quality which is often distant and unbalanced. The McGhee/Terry classic, "Pick a Bale of Cotton" ("jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton") gets a snappy, gently rocking' take while "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" (written by McGhee's brother, Stick) with Cooder on slide guitar and Mahal singing and playing harmonica gets appropriately funky and low down. Mahal does his best barrelhouse piano imitation on "Deep Sea Diver." This set's best-known tune, "The Midnight Special" gets a group singalong led by Mahal's harmonica. The closer, Mississippi John Hurt's "I Shall Not Be Moved" is a just-right finale to an easygoing set where ambition is sidelined in favor of heartfelt results. It's all what Mahal calls "Big! Big! Big fun … loose 'n' tight, crazy 'bout the/that rhythm, 'cause it's ragged but right!" An album cover design reminiscent of original bare bones blues albums of the late '50s/early '60s completes this salute to disappearing but still vital American roots music. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

In the six years between And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees and Orphée, Jóhann Jóhannsson became a celebrated film composer, earning back-to-back Oscar nominations for his life-affirming score for The Theory of Everything and his ominous, rough-edged music for Sicario. During this time, Jóhannsson continued to work on personal projects including this, his Deustche Grammophon debut. In its own way, Orphée is also a little like a soundtrack: the composer drew inspiration from the story of Orpheus' ill-fated attempt to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld, building on Ovid and Jean Cocteau's versions of the tale in his meditations on death, rebirth, and creativity. The Orpheus myth reflected Jóhannsson's life while he worked on the album: his move from Copenhagen to Berlin marked the closing of one chapter in his life and the start of a new one. Like And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees, Orphée is both more intimate than some of his larger works, and immediately recognizable as Jóhannsson's. On "Flight from the City," a gentle but insistent piano motif rises and falls like breath, while strings deepen its sweet ache; layers of counterpoint inspire bittersweet wonder on "The Drowned World"; "Orphic Hymn" showcases the composer's flair for choral pieces, with Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices performing lines from Ovid's text in Renaissance style; and "Fragment II" offers a brief burst of his grander scale with its ever-widening sea of drones and strings. This piece features Orphée's main motif, an ascending harmonic pattern that also appears on the ghostly "A Song for Europa," which introduces the staticky, numbers station-like recordings that flicker through the album, adding another layer of distance and mystery. Orphée's studies in change give equal time time to mourning and hope, whether on the spine-tingling "A Pile of Dust" or the way "A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder" and "By the Roes, and by the Hinds of the Field" dance between joy and sorrow. Similarly, Jóhannsson makes the album's chiaroscuro qualities explicit on "De Luce et Umbra," where a shadowy, almost subliminal pulse adds tension to the skyward strings, and on the Emily Dickinson-inspired diptych "Good Morning, Midnight" and "Good Night, Day," where subtle transitions evoke standing between ends and beginnings. On Orphée, Jóhannsson expresses the need to let some things and people go to let new ones in with remarkable nuance, as well as the affecting beauty fans have come to know and love.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Musicians often toy with the idea of somehow playing a different instrument. After 30 years of writing songs, making records, and relentlessly touring, Raul Malo, leader of The Mavericks and possessor of one the finest voices in all popular music, has here decided to try something else: to make an all-instrumental guitar record. With a well-known fondness for and deep knowledge of the entire spectrum of American pop music, Malo homes in on guitar-centric forms like surf guitar and Latin flourishes. Recorded by Malo at home as well as at Nashville's Blackbird Studio, a key part of the story of the pointedly titled Say Less is his son Dino's participation as keyboard player, drummer, and co-producer. The younger Malo has been forging his own musical career lately and ably supports the proceedings. While this project has a more relaxed vibe than the ambitious journey of most Mavericks albums, the most successful track is "Cosa's Cumbia" which gets into a Latin groove with trumpet from Lorenzo Molina, vocals from Lissette Diaz and handclaps from Maverick's media director Alejandro Menendez Vega. The rest of the Mavericks—guitarist Eddie Perez, drummer Paul Deakin and keyboardist Jerry Dale McFadden—thankfully join in on three tracks: the lively, jump blues of "Peach Blossom Blues," the boogie beat of "Tsu-Ching," and "Havana's Midnight," where Malo indulges his passion for the wavering tone of tremolo guitar. As a guitarist, Malo is passable though clearly this is more of a hobby than a profession. He picks his way along, preferring to spend airtime on long, textured reverb  instead of attempting to display any actual chops. Say Less is listenable, but a luxury all the same—a vanity project for sure.  Perhaps the Mavs needed to clear their heads to recharge their creative juices, and to give the fans the desire to hear Malo's voice once again. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Given the title of its sixth release, it's fair to wonder if Mastodon is hinting at 2011's The Hunter or its back catalog. Many of the tracks on Once More 'Round the Sun dig into the band's seemingly inexhaustible bag of monstrous riffs and wonderfully fractured motifs. That said, as a collective, they unapologetically explore the more polished and accessible songwriting and performing craft found on The Hunter. This set marks a fork in the road where Mastodon evolves once more, to cross over from metal's angular, sludgy power to adrenaline-fueled, hook-laden, hard rock. The album was produced by Nick Raskulinecz, best known for his work with Foo Fighters and Rush. The sound Mastodon pursues here draws inspiration from the '70s, without remotely being an exercise in nostalgia. There is one notable exception; it's deliberate and obvious: "The High Road" boasts unapologizing Thin Lizzy worship, albeit ambitiously updated. (Who better?) Its verse/riff structure weds Lynott's rhythmic sensibility to Mastodon's dynamic aggression. The anthemic chorus melody and harmonies, and twinned lead guitar roar, were trademarked by Lizzy's Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham long ago. "Chimes at Midnight" is intense, fueled by a mammoth chugging riff. It lets the "drop D" freak flag fly, with a near-shouted vocal, harmonic chorus, and spacy six-string interludes. "The Motherload," with its swaggering guitar heroics, is a wound-out yet nearly hummable prog melody, with a relentless bass and snare attack. "Aunt Lisa," with its knotty guitar intro, contains processed vocals, a series of rising and falling key changes, and the Coathangers guesting -- cheerleader style -- in a chanted vocal chorus à la Faith No More's "Be Aggressive!" There are also some substantive guitar pyrotechnics in the extended solos in "Halloween" and "Ember City," which, due to their imagination and focus, add dimension to them as songs. "Diamond in the Witch House" is a sprawling, nearly eight-minute closing jam. Neurosis' Scott Kelly and his menacing growl guest as it lumbers, trudges, and lurches ever forward (longtime fans will likely dig this). Once More 'Round the Sun furthers what Mastodon began on The Hunter: expanding their music past metal's rigid borders -- toward an integrative sound that doesn't leave metal out.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

The music that Bohren makes has fallen under the heavy metal/doom rubric, but this is both inaccurate and unfair to the band and its music. While the former members of hardcore legends 7 Inch Boots, Chronical Diarrhoea, and Macabre Farmhouse may have once played fast and heavy, on Sunset Mission they completely drop the metal overtones that appeared on Gore Motel and stand resolutely in the late-night jazz-noir camp. The cover of the album shows night descending on the wet streets of a residential/industrial landscape. The music included within is for a couple of hours later, when there is only darkness and the breath of a saxophone to keep you company. Reminiscent of Trevor Jones (Angel Heart) or Angelo Badalamenti's soundtrack work (especially for Mulholland Drive), Bohren & der Club of Gore rely on understated Fender Rhodes, piano, double bass, gentle brush work on drums, and a lilting tenor saxophone. Sounding like a long suite collectively improvised and not a collection of individually composed songs, Sunset Mission showcases the contributions of each member equally. Morten Gass' stunning keyboard work is balanced by Christoph Closer's emotional tenor sax. Underlining each track are Thorsten Benning's subtle kit work and the slow-motion groove of Robin Rodenberg's double bass. And while it is easy to fall into hyperbole when describing Bohren's music, they themselves are masters of the restraint necessary for this type of jazz to work and be compelling. This is slow, dark, and especially lush jazz, perfect for a booth at the back of a narcoleptic lounge, with a cigarette slowly burning down past the filter, watching secret lies being passed between one-night lovers. © James Mason /TiVo

Captured live over three evenings in late November 2003 at New York's Jazz Standard, saxophonist Frank Morgan continues to illuminate the Charlie Parker style of bebop he's been playing since the mid-'50s. Morgan is one of the survivors who grew up in that era and has been plagued by drug abuse and stretches in prison for the majority of his life. Fortunately, Morgan's playing in 2003 remains untouched by his personal habits. These eight tracks are a nice combination of ballads including "Georgia on My Mind" and "'Round Midnight" with raucous versions of Coltrane's "Impressions" and the Charlie Parker vehicle "Cherokee." Morgan is featured on alto saxophone throughout, accompanied by an excellent trio of jazz stalwarts who have frequently collaborated over the years: George Cables on piano, Curtis Lundy on bass, and Billy Hart on drums. These musicians work collective wonders and consistently inspire Morgan, making this set highly recommended. © Al Campbell /TiVo

At 71, Horace Andy has never sounded better. His collaboration with Adrian Sherwood (founder of the legendary English label On-U Sound, known for its numerous collisions between electronica and reggae since the beginning of the 80s) has been running for two albums and is arguably the best decision he’s made since Massive Attack. Sherwood, a big fan, had been dreaming of this collaboration for years and has produced a ‘sound system’ take on the album Midnight Rocker, released in spring 2022.The English wizard, who resurrected Lee Perry with the excellent albums Rainford and Heavy Rain in 2019, extracts the very essence of Horace Andy's discography, forty years on from Skylarking for Studio One in 1972. Sherwood had him re-sing some of those classics—like ‘Mr Bassie’, cooked up here by the artist Daddy Freddy (‘More Bassy’)—and he then applied On-U Sound’s trademark ‘deep’ processing, creating long, cosmic instrumental tracks.Daddy Freddy returns on ‘Midnight Scorchers’, on which Horace Andy covers his Massive Attack track ‘Safe from Harm’. The cello and melodica are as fascinating as ever on ‘Sleepy’s Night Cap’ (a remix of ‘Rock to Sleep’). ‘Feverish’—the brilliant dubby version of ‘Fever’, one of his first hits for Coxsone—is also fantastic, as is the junglist version of ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’. A success from start to finish. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

During the spring and summer of 1956, trumpeter Kenny Dorham recorded two studio albums with his Jazz Prophets, a small hard bop band involving tenor saxophonist J.R. Monterose and a rhythm section of pianist Dick Katz, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Arthur Edgehill. On May 31 of that year, Dorham's group performed live at the Café Bohemia with Bobby Timmons at the piano and guitarist Kenny Burrell sitting in on all but the first of four sets. Originally engineered by Rudy Van Gelder and remastered by him in 2001, Blue Note's 2002 double-disc "Complete" Dorham Café Bohemia edition combines every usable track taped during this exceptionally fine evening of live jazz. The word "understated" has sometimes been used to describe the music played by Dorham's band on this night in 1956; this is only appropriate if Dorham is compared with intense individuals like Fats Navarro or Dizzy Gillespie. Dorham's jazz was perhaps more intimate and accessible precisely because his horn had an earthier tone, almost like that of a cornet. Sometimes compared with Ted Curson, Richard Williams or Freddie Hubbard, Dorham sounded a lot like the profoundly gifted and vastly underappreciated Johnny Coles, particularly during ballads like "Autumn in New York" and "Round Midnight." There are also intimations of Miles Davis, Nat Adderley and even young Don Cherry. This music is designed for relaxing and grooving out. It will greatly assist anyone who is traveling by night or trying to make it through to the end of another day.© arwulf arwulf /TiVo

Two decades after his untimely death at the age of 50, Joe Strummer is still synonymous with the Clash, a band that notoriously dissolved in 1986 leaving behind one of rock's most influential legacies. During the years that followed their demise, Strummer's output was an uneven, if interesting hodgepodge of one-off projects, soundtrack contributions, production gigs, and the lone 1989 solo album Earthquake Weather. Often considered his wilderness years, this period was the primary subject of 2018's Joe Strummer 001, a surprisingly generous box set that also paid homage to his formative pre-Clash years. While the Clash may have been "the only band that matters," Strummer's final band, the Mescaleros, were pretty damned great. A sequel to the aforementioned collection, Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years makes the case that at the time of his death, he was making some of the most vibrant music of his career. In the late '90s, a newly invigorated Strummer had fallen in with a younger crowd that included acid house producer Richard Norris. The lawless nature of Britain's rave culture meshed with Strummer's own ideals and a project began to take shape that fused the roving campfire scene he'd been promoting with the spirit of the electronic underground. Although Norris' involvement faded out, a proper crew of young, like-minded rogues soon coalesced, feeding Strummer's inherent need for union and off-the-cuff collaboration. Unlike Earthquake Weather, 1999's Rock Art and the X-Ray Style -- credited to Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros -- revived the searching rebel spirit and spontaneity that was so integral to his best work with the Clash. Adding to this was a renewed commitment to multicultural sounds and the adoption of contemporary production techniques to further spur his interest. Follow-up album Global a Go-Go was an even wilder dive into world music with a sharp folky edge that yielded one of Strummer's best latter-day songs, the rousing "Johnny Appleseed." Writing with renewed purpose and playing with youthful vigor, he was about three-quarters of the way through the third Mescaleros album when a heart attack suddenly ended his life in December 2002. Core bandmates Martin Slattery and Scott Shields were left to finish the album from the existing sessions. Far from being a posthumously assembled curiosity, Streetcore is, in fact, magnificent, a fiery and cohesive collection widely considered to be Strummer's best work since London Calling. In hindsight, going out in such a blaze of glory seems an almost inevitable outcome for one of rock's greatest firebrands and his legacy has only benefited in the years hence. Joe Strummer 002 is worth its weight simply for containing remastered versions of all three Mescaleros albums, but the copious liner notes, ephemera, and bonus disc of demos and rarities make it essential.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

Two Highways is the first album Alison Krauss recorded with her excellent backing band, Union Station, and, appropriately, it demonstrates that she could lead a band through a number of bluegrass standards, as well as several more contemporary numbers. Of course, her instrumental solo continue to be the most impressive thing about her music on Two Highways, but her duets with guitarists Jeff White demonstrate that her vocals are beginning to come into their own.© Thom Owens /TiVo

There are numerous recordings of Christmas carols by British collegiate choirs. There are quite a few by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and there are even two with the title Carols from King's, necessitating the unwieldy "2020 Collection" parenthesis: which moreover is inaccurate. The album is a live recording, not a collection, and it was made in 2019. All of this said this is a distinctive holiday recording that should have legs beyond its release in the 2020 Christmas season. The live recording, from a 2019 BBC television broadcast, sets the album apart in itself, and it's exceptionally well done, capturing the energetic immediacy of the young choristers. Most distinctive is the program, which is unusually contemporary by the standards of releases of this kind. Familiar carols are present, but often in fresh arrangements, and there are contemporary pieces that fit nicely into the program. These include Philip Moore's The Angel Gabriel, newly commissioned by the choir; Elizabeth Maconchy's There Is No Rose of Such Virtue, a fascinating take on old melodic material; and John Rutter's Candlelight Carol. For listeners in search of a holiday recording just a bit out of the mainstream, this will fill the bill well. © TiVo

As one of the French Touch movement’s forgotten heroes, Demon is perhaps the artist that best brought about the movement’s essence, a reimagining of house and American disco. Such is exactly what is offered from the 15 tracks of this debut album released in 1999. The album was soon eclipsed by the hit You Are My High, released several months later alongside the lip-oriented video worked into reissues. Struck by the release of Homework by Daft Punk in 1997, Jérémie Mondon would come to closely adopt their formula and demonstrate a fine coherence. The album may well act as a guidebook for anyone wanting to recreate French Touch in decades to come. The title track Midnight Funk, with Alex Gopher is the perfect amalgamation of his made-in-Chicago downtempo house beat, a soul vocal sample (Randy Crawford on the intro to Street Life - who would dare do this today?), funk guitar and refined bass. Other archetypes follow: Lil ‘Fuck with Etienne de Crécy is more hip-hop in nature, Now That I Have You is more downtempo with wah-wah pedals and an aquatic beat, while My City (Demon’s Theme), Heartbreaker and Lost Highway are of a more jazzy vein. Such tracks would have doubtlessly turned the heads of Fred P and Jus-Ed, the godfathers of the New-York deep house scene in the 2010s. And while Demon has never known a career quite as thriving as his contemporaries, you will not find any justification for this in this highly underrated album. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz