Fusion, transcendence: it's what he's always done. At 74, Carlos Santana is still as curious as ever, and his 26th studio album brings together all his current interests, with an unabashedly popularising aim. With this record, the Mexican-born guitarist wanted to "return to radio". And this album has all the ingredients to make its mark on the airwaves in the coming months. First of all, he relaunched his duet with Rob Thomas, which had won a Grammy for Smooth at the time of Supernatural, Santana's 1999 comeback album. And the very groovy track Move looks set to do it again. The cover of Manu Dibango's Soul Fiesta (taken from 1972’s Africadelic), here becomes Santana Celebration, an intro in the form of a percussion and wah-wah jam, is also a noteworthy track.Santana then wanders between Latin music (Rumbalero with Asdru Sierra from the Californian band Ozomatli), pop passages (Break, Breathing Underwater, She's Fire) and high-quality guest appearances, starting with Joy, with country singer Chris Stapleton coming in for a well-oiled reggae/blues double-act, and a cover of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale featuring Steve Winwood. But the highlight of the album is the encounter with Kirk Hammett, the guitarist of Metallica (+ Mark Osegueda, the singer in Death Angels) on America for Sale, six minutes of rage with a totally unbridled finale featuring these two guitar heroes. Note also that Blessings & Miracles contains Chick Corea's very final recording, on Angel Choir / All Together. The legendary American pianist, who died in February 2021, had sent over a keyboard part, which Santana embellished with his guitar, creating an excellent jazz-rock track, rounded out by the musician’s widow, Gayle Moran Corea, who provided the opening chorus. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

For any art rock band, the fourth album means it's time for a self-styled masterpiece -- if you need proof, look at Selling England by the Pound or Fragile. So, with Kansas, the most determinedly arty of all American art rock bands, they composed and recorded Leftoverture, an impenetrable conundrum of significance that's capped off by nothing less than a five-part suite, appropriately titled "Magnum Opus," and featuring such promising movement titles as "Father Padilla Meets the Perfect Gnat" and "Release the Beavers." Of course, there's no telling whether this closing opus relates to the opener, "Carry On Wayward Son," the greatest single Kansas ever cut -- a song that manages to be pompous, powerful, ridiculous, and catchy all at once. That they never manage to rival it anywhere on this record is as much a testament to their crippling ambition as their lack of skills. And it's unfair to say Kansas are unskilled, since they are certainly instrumentally proficient and they can craft songs or, rather, compositions that appear rather ambitious. Except these compositions aren't particularly complex, rhythmically or harmonically, and are in their own way as ambling as boogie rock, which still feels to be their foundation. It's not really fair to attack Kansas for a concept album with an impenetrable concept -- it's possible to listen to Lamb Lies Down on Broadway hundreds of times and not know what the hell Rael is up to -- but there's neither hooks nor true grandiosity here to make it interesting. That said, this still may be Kansas' most consistent set, outside of Point of Know Return. Take that for what you will.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A little less than two years after the release of A Head Full of Dreams, Coldplay have brought out these five tracks, presented as an interlude - a kind of companion EP for their last studio album. Chris Martin's band are clearly at a crossroads. Having grown into a kind of millennial U2, Coldplay are hopping between their original DNA, the evolution of the sounds of their times, and a strong propensity for turning out crowd-pleasers. And all this without, clearly, losing their soul. That is surely what drove them to work again with the great Brian Eno (who produced Mylo Xyloto in 2011 and Viva la Vida in 2008) on the song A L I E N S, which is the central piece of Kaleidoscope. On this track, the English band are returning to their roots. The basis of a very contemporary pop music which is at once adventurous and firmly based in a musical consensus. This is a pop which is wrapped up in magical and intriguing sounds that are clearly came from Eno. On All I Can Think About is You, which opens hostilities brilliantly, Coldplay are at their most charming, their most intriguing even, in the form of this hypnotic ballad. As for Miracles (Someone Special), they provide us with a new and perfect mix of pop and R&B, with the help of Atlanta rapper Big Sean. In short, Coldplay are mastering every new genre that they venture out into... A Head Full of Dreams was a particularly snappy, exultant record, colourful and celebratory. "It's our seventh thing,", Chris Martin told the BBC, "and the way we look at it, it's like the last Harry Potter book or something like that. Not to say that there might not be another thing one day, but this is the completion of something." The Kaleidoscope EP shows us the Coldplay of tomorrow while they keep one eye fixed on the past... © CM/Qobuz

Technically speaking, Red Octopus was the first album credited to Jefferson Starship, though practically the same lineup made Dragon Fly, credited to Grace Slick/Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship. The difference, however, was crucial: Marty Balin was once again a fully integrated bandmember, writing or co-writing five of the ten tracks. And there can be little doubt that it was Balin's irresistible ballad "Miracles," the biggest hit single in the Jefferson Whatever catalog, that propelled Red Octopus to the top of the charts, the only Jefferson album to chart that high and the best-selling album in their collective lives. This must have been sweet vindication for Balin, who founded Jefferson Airplane but then drifted away from the group as it veered away from his musical vision. Now, the collective was incorporating his taste without quite integrating it -- "Miracles," with its strings and sax solo by nonband member Irv Cox, was hardly a characteristic Airplane/Starship track. But then, neither exactly was Papa John Creach's showcase, "Git Fiddler," or bassist Pete Sears' instrumental "Sandalphon," which sounded like something from an early Procol Harum album. Slick has three strong songs, among them the second single "Play on Love." Like Dragon Fly, Red Octopus reflected a multiplicity of musical tastes; there were ten credited songwriters, seven of whom were in the band. If there is any consistency in this material, it is in subject matter (love songs). The album is more ballad-heavy and melodic than the Airplane albums, which made it more accessible to the broader audience it reached, though "Sweeter Than Honey" is as tough a rocker as the band ever played.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Double album Untitled (Black Is) capped off a 13-month period in which Sault also released 5 and 7. The rush of creativity is all the more astonishing when factoring that core members Dean "Inflo" Josiah Cover and Cleopatra "Cleo Sol" Nikolic also created the latter's Rose in the Dark, and the former, amid other work, co-produced the U.K. Top Ten entry Kiwanuka. Black pride and resistance fueled some of the most powerful songs on the first two Sault albums, so when this third one landed on Juneteenth 2020, amid worldwide protests against police brutality, it came as no surprise that those themes had bubbled to the fore. As a consequence, Untitled (Black Is) comes across as an urgent outpouring of grief, anger, affirmation, and consolation, and at the same time, it stretches Sault's stylistic range to an extent where virtually anything seems possible for their future. In the present, Inflo and Cleo Sol are joined again by Kid Sister as an extra lyricist and voice (heard most often in the numerous poetic interludes), and they're markedly augmented by keyboardist and fellow co-writer Kadeem Clarke, among other unattributed instrumentation and vocals. The quality control isn't quite as tight. Some songs meander long after making their point. A greater position of the sequence, however, is filled with indestructible art that consoles, challenges, and invigorates with gospel, doo wop, highlife, psychedelicized garage rock, dub, and post-punk funk all filtered with uncommon aptitude through vintage outsider soul. Highlights are abundant. "Wildfires," guided by a slinking bassline and a tender vocal, is a downcast but fearless rejection of "white lives spreading lies" and murderous police. "Sorry Ain't Enough" is something like a strung-out private-press soul oddity set aglow with a defiant and irresistible hook. "Bow," featuring Michael Kiwanuka, is a searing celebration of Africa and freedom, trailed by a strong bulletin delivered by Laurette Josiah. Stashed deep in the second half and yet nowhere near the end, "Eternal Life" is a spellbinding boom-clap anthem, an assertion of faith and solidarity, with an escalating synthesizer pattern as crucial as the mix of voices. The song is actually central to the album and would have made for an all-time great epilogue.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

This double CD is a performance of and tribute to the work of iconoclastic composer/songwriter/poet Annette Peacock. Ms. Peacock is a marginal figure, largely because of her own stubborn muse. She has, nonetheless, proved to be indispensable to the development of the music of both her ex-husbands, bassist Gary Peacock and pianist Paul Bley (both of whom, along with trumpeter Franz Koglmann, recorded another collection of her tunes called Annette on the Hat Art label in 1992). What makes this music so special is the pianism of Marilyn Crispell, usually associated with fiery improvisations and raucous solo and trio dates, with the music of Anthony Braxton. Peacock and Motian have played in restrained, quiet, mysterious bands for years, either with Paul Bley, John Surman, Bill Frisell, or any number of other ECM stalwarts. This situation, which places Ms. Crispell in the role of the "singing voice" -- a place Ms. Peacock normally retains for herself on some of these tunes, and indeed does show up on in "Dreams (If Time Weren't)" on the end of disc one for a haunting and beautiful performance -- offers a different hierarchy of colors in her compositional field. Performed as a suite of instrumental poems, not of the tonal variety as in classical music, but as in the syntactical and flowing variety found in literature, this collection does two things: it establishes the deep world of Ms. Peacock's often shadowy but nonetheless imposing and impressive lyricism that transcends all musical genres, and offers a dynamic shift not only for the material, but for Ms. Crispell, whose lyrical side listeners have seldom, if ever, heard before on record. From the title track, which opens the suite to the gorgeous blue/gray chordal voicings on "Open to Love" and "Albert's Love Theme," to accompanying Ms. Peacock on her vocal performance, Crispell moves through subtle changes in harmonic mode and interval with almost reverent stillness. Through side one the listener is in disbelief at the intimate interplay between the trio; Gary Peacock's almost-singing basslines caress the cymbal and brush work of Motian, who turns the bass drum into a soft, warm pad for cuing Crispell. By the beginning of disc two, these tunes serve as a framework for an entirely new kind of improvisation for the trio: one in which language has already been written (the compositions), but whose dialects need to be resolved through patience, trial, and in some cases, wonderful, poignant error. The rich melodic framework in Ms. Peacock's music and its deceptive simplicity offer the musicians here a great opportunity to plumb the depths of that lyricism as they do on "You've Left Me" and "Blood," and find in it a wellspring of tenderness. When the reprise of the title tracks comes around to end the set, it's not like nothing ever was, it's more like nothing will ever be the same, as this fine music and these musicians have gone through a quiet transformation in the process of interpretation. They have done Ms. Peacock proud.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Although they haven't made a record together for many years, from the first notes of the Clientele's 2017 album, Music for the Age of Miracles, it's like they never went away. The band's albums have such a burnished, timeless feel that hearing a new one after so long is like putting on a favorite sweater on the first chilly night of fall. The same lovely, strolling melodies, Alasdair MacLean's companionable vocals, the expansive sweep of the arrangements; it's all there and as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. The difference this time is that before writing songs for the record, MacLean reconnected with old friend Anthony Harmer, who has a mastery of several non-Western stringed instruments. Together, the two worked out the songs and basic arrangements, then bassist James Hornsey and drummer Mark Keen came aboard, more string players were contacted, and Lupe Núñez-Fernández, MacLean's partner in his other band, Amor de Días, joined to provide vocals. It all comes together perfectly as expected, yet there are some surprising factors at play. Harmer's skill at playing santur (an Iranian version of a dulcimer) and saz adds some interesting texture around the edges and plays off nicely against MacLean's trademark guitar arpeggios. The array of stringed instruments allows MacLean to move away from that style a little bit, sometimes forsaking it entirely, like on the disco-informed "Everything You See Tonight Is Different from Itself," where harpist Mary Lattimore is in charge of providing the glimmering arpeggios. The bulked-up yet still almost painfully lovely arrangements would be nice on their own, but they really shine when paired with some of MacLean's prettiest melodies and sweetest words of a long career dishing out both. The songs have an inner warmth that can't be contained by speakers. Tracks like "Everyone You Meet" and "The Neighbor" are like tiny balls of autumn sunshine held in the palm of his hand, "Falling Asleep" and "The Age of Miracles" are like the last warm breeze before the leaves start falling, and it all feels like classic, heartwarming Clientele. Add in Harmer's string mastery and the expanded, sometimes epic arrangements, and it's like classic Clientele plus. Tweaking the formula could have been a disaster, but Harmer fits into the band's setting like he was there all along, and his additions are beautiful and highly complementary. The wait between albums may have seemed interminable, but the return is both a relief and a true pleasure. The times are always right for music as healing and calm as the Clientele's; the times surrounding the release of this wonderfully peaceful and uplifting album need it even more -- and, thankfully, the band has responded with some of its best work ever. © Tim Sendra /TiVo

After completing the Both Ways Open Jaws tour, the Dø looked for a new creative path. Finding inspiration in the abstract electronics of Fuck Buttons and Kanye West's Yeezus, they emerged with Shake Shook Shaken, a set of songs trading kitchen sink experimentalism for sharp-edged electropop. It's a transformation for the better -- even though Mouthful and Both Ways Open Jaws had plenty of eclectic charms, the clearly defined aesthetic here allows them to concentrate on making pop that's addictively weird and catchy. The brightly bittersweet opener "Keep Your Lips Sealed" and the buzzing "Going Through Walls" recall the tart, hooky songs the Knife wrote before Silent Shout, while "Despair, Hangover & Ecstacy"'s sugar-coated melodrama calls to mind La Roux. The Dø's songwriting takes just as big a step forward as their sound, tackling the uncertainty of emotional fault lines and unwelcome but necessary change with vivid imagery and melodies. Olivia Merilahti's higher, slightly pained register suits turbulent songs such as "A Mess Like This," where she sings "You were the worst idea I ever had" with equal amounts of frustration and affection, and "Miracles (Back in Time)," an elliptical recounting of heartache with sentiments that pierce like arrows. Things get even more complicated on "Lick My Wounds," which teeters between joyous and bittersweet so often that it erases the line between them, while "Anita, No!" disguises its plea for closure in a pun. Though the album loses a little focus after its near-flawless first half, Shake Shook Shaken is the Dø's finest work yet and a pointed and poignant document of change and its aftermath. © Heather Phares /TiVo