As both an accomplished collaborator and a striking solo artist, Nils Lofgren is too talented to fit into any easy category.  He began as a classical accordionist at age five, but switched to guitar later in his youth, formed the rock band Grin, and played on Neil Young's After the Goldrush. While Lofgren has also been an on-and-off member of Crazy Horse since the early '70s, he's best known for his tenure as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band—joining in 1984 for the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Those years with Bruce are audible in a version of the Springsteen original, "Back in Your Arms," which comes complete with backing from the Howard Gospel Choir. Another mass of voices beefs up the jumpiness of "We Better Find It," a tune with musical echoes of the 1980s. "Ain't the Truth Enough," another Bruce-like number, opens the album with the emotional reach that marks the E Streeter's best work.  Charged with a thumping beat and low-end menace, "Only Ticket Out" is the doleful tale of a tortured man who "Blacked out cold in an alley/ Full of NyQuil and stale dope." Later "Won't Cry No More," which chugs along with a steady groove, is dedicated to the late Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts. In "Nothin's Easy (For Amy)," Lofgren pays tribute to his titular wife who's listed as co-producer on the album: "As I walk the hurt in this world/ People searchin' with no clue/ I take comfort in one truth/ Nothin's easy 'cept you." "Dream Killer," bathed in 1980's styled reverb, showcases Lofgren's still-supple voice and continued ability to hit the high notes in each chorus. Although the lyrics he sings are sappy—"Queen of mercy heal us with your love/ Cleanse this wasted world"—he lets loose with the album's vocal highlight on the closer, "Angel Blues." Calling a musician "a pro" is high praise and few deserve that compliment more than Nils Lofgren. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Across the pink-clouded groove of "Angel," Little Simz cuts a cautionary tale of music industry greed and lessons learned during her rapid ascent within it. Released barely a year after her Mercury Prize-winner, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, No Thank You is another tightly focused effort that plays out on a slightly smaller scale, but with equally satisfying results. It's the London rapper's third straight collaboration with producer Inflo (Sault, Michael Kiwanuka) who once again proves to be the perfect foil to her compact and confident rhymes. While there are remnants of Introvert's cinematic grandeur -- the dramatic brass and strings of "Silhouette" and "No Merci" -- No Thank You is ultimately a more stripped down affair, leaving plenty of room for Simz's astute, rapid-fire incantations on mental health and societal frustration. Rarely has she sounded as sharp as on the thrilling "X" or the taut "Heart on Fire," two standouts among many. Amid the anger and disappointment there is also a celebratory bent, especially on "Gorilla," a master class in witty bravado with an impossibly cool horn blast fanfare and funky upright bass line. Like her two previous records with Inflo, the music feels fresh and organic, favoring natural drums sounds and classical instrumentation peppered with tasteful modern elements. On the more minimalist end, the drumless "Broken" explores collective trauma as Simz raps against a repeated choral mantra of "feel you're broken and you don't exist, when you feel broken and you cannot fix it." Likewise, the album's closer, "Control," is essentially an introspective piano ballad that plays like a soulful coda to this incredible trio of albums she has somehow conjured out of a tumultuous four year period. That Little Simz was able to deliver such a crafty set so soon after the career-making Introvert is impressive enough, but No Thank You stands out for its own merits.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

This fourth album from Kali Uchis proves two things: first of all, this climber of the pop charts doesn’t owe her stature to music conceived for social media as some of her pop star counterparts do. There is strategy behind it, of course, but the music seems to come first. Second of all, it’s the singer’s capacity to shine in Spanish, which she favours more and more, going as far as allowing it to inhabit the majority of the comforting Orquídeas, revealing behind the lightheartedness of ambient pop a hidden but ironclad determination.She can switch between, or rather very skillfully combine, the sensuality of a track like Pensamientos Intrusivos and more pronounced reggaeton influences like on Muñekita. In fact, Kali Uchis performs a sort of synthesis of markedly South-American aspirations, even Nigerian at times, as proven by the melodic elements of Diosa or Perdiste, but also summons the orchestral imaginary of Cuba on Te Mata, the surprising single that coincides with the album’s last track, Dame Beso // Muévete. Mexico and its modernised accordions appear on this final song, closing the loop of an album that effectively tells the story of the Latin diaspora in the United States.  © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

California singer/songwriter Stephen Sanchez landed an unlikely hit in 2021 with "Until I Found You," a lovelorn ballad cloaked in vintage reverb and 1950s nostalgia. An echo from the original era of the teen idol, it fused the early pop pathos of Paul Anka with glowing Everly Brothers harmonies and climbed its way onto charts around the globe. On his debut album, Angel Face, Sanchez reverse engineers a loose concept album around his hit, keeping up the guise of his adopted musical era. Through songs like the soulful "Evangeline" and the torchy "Be More" he sketches out a narrative involving a '50s troubadour in love with the femme fatale girlfriend of a mob boss. The results are sonically pleasing, and Sanchez's voice rises to the occasion, moving effortlessly between the raucous Jerry Lee Lewis rock & roll of "Shake" and the softer Roy Orbison croon of "Caught in a Blue." At times, though, Angel Face feels a bit like a revue or jukebox musical, faithfully re-creating an idyllic musical era through the rosy lens of the present. And because he is on a major label, the production, courtesy of Ian Fitchuk (Kasey Musgraves, Gus Dapperton), also keeps one foot in modern pop, an aesthetic compromise that in a way breaks the spell. Ultimately, it's the singles that keep Angel Face interesting, an ironic twist, given that the period he fetishizes most certainly favored singles over LPs. So, in a sense, he has hit his mark squarely.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

Chris Brown's 11th full-length, 11:11 followed Breezy by just over a year. It's more concise and a little more romantic, as promised with the tender ballad "Summer Too Hot" and airy Afrobeats track "Sensational," the album's preview singles. Although its title relates to numerology, the set doesn't range farther than Brown's standard lyrical concerns of lust, love, wealth and self-assertion. Brown smartly spotlights Maeta on the fine slow jam "Best Ever," and elsewhere is joined by the likes of Future, Byron Messia, and Fridayy, the latter two of whom join respectively on house- and dancehall-oriented tracks.© TiVo Staff /TiVo

It’s not always necessary to bring out the grand speeches, the massive arrangements, and the elaborate grooves in order to secure one’s place in the heritage of soul music. Without much more than an enormous amount of talent, Cleo Sol succeeds at bewitching the world around her with the undeniable, palpable sensitivity that emanates from her serene and unpretentious voice. It seems as if she is playing and singing live, with minimal backing: bass, guitar, drums, and piano make up the overwhelming majority of the elements to her music, sinking Gold into an intimate dimension where the art of enchanting loops reigns supreme. Everything is beautiful. From the chilling track “In Your Own Home” and its haunting choruses, to the voice-and-piano track “Only Love Can Wait,” she seems incapable of making anything even remotely unappealing. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz 

Landing, notably, on the legendary Sun Records, the 15th solo album from the ex-Mott the Hoople frontman features a plethora of guest appearances from rock luminaries including Slash, Jeff Beck, Todd Rundgren, and Jeff Tweedy. The record's genesis lay in a series of COVID-19 demos recorded in Connecticut with Hunter's frequent collaborative partner Andy York. The album's Dylanesque lead single, "Bed of Roses," features Ringo Starr as well as the Heartbreakers' guitarist Mike Campbell.© James Wilkinson /TiVo

Beverly Glenn-Copeland's return celebrates the breadth of his decades of songwriting. "La Vita" and Primal Prayer were deep listens, to be sure, but they were also fun and creative releases meant to, at least somewhat, dance the tough times away. Keyboard Fantasies, a lush instrumental/ambient record, hit more on the core value in Glenn-Copeland's work: healing. As with all instrumental records, though, the milieu laid in the hands of the listener. The early folk work did what good folk does—tell reflective stories with minimal accompaniment.The Ones Ahead is a middle-ground between the early records and the aforementioned synth/ambient jams. The three tracks opening the record pay homage to important figures in Copeland's life: a gleaming tribute to Africa ("Africa Calling"), a love poem to his partner ("Harbour (Song for Elizabeth)"), and a stirring and deeply affecting take on the love surrounding him ("Love Takes All"). The trio offers a glimpse of the album as a whole: a living, vacillating work that preaches from mountains and informs from valleys.It's not that any other albums were incomplete without style differentiations, it's just that this record is truly all-encompassing. Following "Love Takes All," a song that draws a distinctly sad-yet-triumphant tone, is "People of the Loon" with large, hard-hitting retro synth sounds. The synths dim into the background as a small chorus of singers join Copeland to build to a whirlwind crescendo. "People…" earmarks a move toward the height of Copeland's vocal capacity. His background in gospel and opera shines before the "The Ones Ahead" slides back into low-toned poetics. And so it goes. The ebb and flow feels like a retrospective despite being wholly new material. That said, this album does not rehash; it leaps forward musically. Lyrically, Copeland deals with our responsibilities as caretakers, never chiding but certainly not hiding his belief that we need to embrace love and respect as we move forward on our collective human journey. Love and life itself are interchangeable here, and our treatment of our fellow humans relies on that fact. In that regard, it may not seem like much has changed for Copeland but keen listeners and longtime fans will hear it: The Ones Ahead reflects on a life lived in love lessons. There is little mystery to his words and music these days, the childlike wonder ceding to calls for action. © Jeff Laughlin/Qobuz

In 1992, Warner Bros. figured that lightning could strike twice at a time when oodles of (mostly horribly bad) funk-metal acts were following in Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' footsteps. They sent the former into the studio, where they went in, recorded, and released a bizarro masterpiece. Mike Patton's work in Mr. Bungle proved just how strange and inspired he could get given the opportunity, and with that try-anything-once spirit now brought to his similarly minded colleagues in his more famous act, nothing was ignored. "Land of Sunshine" starts things off in a similar enough vein to The Real Thing, but Patton's vocal role-playing comes out as smarter and more accomplished, with the lyrics trashing a totally smug bastard with pure inspired mockery. From there, Angel Dust steps up the meta-metal of earlier days with the expected puree of other influences, further touched by an almost cinematic sense of storming atmosphere. The fact that the album ends with a cover of John Barry's "Midnight Cowboy" suits the mood perfectly, but the stretched-out, tense moments on "Caffeine" and the soaring charge of "Everything's Ruined" makes for other good examples. A Kronos Quartet sample even crops up on the frazzled sprawl of "Malpractice." Other sampling and studio treatments come to the fore throughout, not in a specifically hip-hop/techno-oriented way, but more as strange cutups and additional quirks, such as the distorted voices on "Smaller and Smaller." The band's sense of humor crops up more than once -- there's the hilarious portrayal of prepubescent angst on "Kindergarten," made all the more entertaining by the music's straightforward approach, or the beyond-stereotypical white trash cornpone narration of "RV," all while the music breezily swings along. Patton's voice is stronger and downright smooth at many points throughout, the musicians collectively still know their stuff, and the result is twisted entertainment at its finest.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

This is a most unusual Ella Fitzgerald recording. Recorded around the time when she performed some of these songs for the film Let No Man Write My Epitaph, the masterful singer is heard in duets with pianist Paul Smith interpreting 13 songs (even "I Cried for You," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," and "Who's Sorry Now?") at slow expressive tempos. Listeners who feel that Ella Fitzgerald was mostly a scat singer who had trouble giving the proper emotional intensity to lyrics will be surprised by this sensitive and often-haunting set.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Michael Trotter, Jr. and Tanya Trotter—aka The War and Treaty—harmonize, yes, but it's not about trying to sound as one. Instead, this married couple from Michigan (now taking Nashville by storm) let their powerhouse voices do their own thing, snaking, entwining and supporting, but never blending into the background. Their major-label debut opens with a jolt: "Lover's Game" is a freight train, a thunderstorm, horses running wild. An incineration of Southern rock, country and blues that effortlessly evokes Ike & Tina. It's also a hoot: "Margarita, hot chicken, strawberry wine/ Looking for your lovin' to be mine, all mine." But there are lots of more traditional spiritual moments here, too, with talk about earthbound angels and living well now to earn a good afterlife. They have plenty to be grateful for. In 2017, Michael—who served in Iraq, as a soldier in the U.S. Army's 6th Infantry Regiment—was so weighed down by PTSD that he thought about ending his own life. Tanya, and their music, saved him. Now, they are celebrating the fruits of hard work, touring with the likes of Chris Stapleton, collaborating with Brandi Carlile and Elvis Costello, and winning devoted followers and accolades. Of the dusky ballad "Ain't No Harmin' Me" Michael has said, "[it] reminds us that no matter what troubles are waiting around the corner … the power of love will pull us through. We wrote this together as a personal testament to ourselves … we aren't afraid to face the hard times knowing we have the other by our side." His voice is so rich, with the slightest five o'clock shadow of huskiness, on "Blank Page," which blends gospel organ from Philip Towns and Joe Walsh-esque soulfulness. "You're a blank page/ Hoping for a love story," he croons before putting every cell in his body into the next line: "I let my blood be my ink/ So, you know that this song is from me." "Yesterday's Burn" is simple, old-school Charley Pride country. "The Best That I Have" is smooth '80s-inspired adult-listening R&B soul (and gives Michael a chance to show off his chill-inducing falsetto). The Southern rock gospel number "Have You A Heart" stirs the spirit in a way that few have done since Ray Charles. And while the duo insist that their success has been "Dumb Luck," it's so much more than just that. "High times, late nights/ Staring into starry eyes/ High heels, big deals/ Rock me like a wagon wheel," Tanya sings on that song. "I served mankind, jail time/ Belly full of humble pie," Michael replies. And if this one isn't a hit at country radio, something's seriously wrong. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

On her follow-up to 2018's star-studded, genre-blurring Isolation, Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis unapologetically arrives as a top-tier urbano stylist. Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ whose title translates as "Without Fear (Of Love and Other Demons) ∞", is a radical next step. Rather than criss-cross neo-soul, EDM, and Latin pop, Uchis seeks to redefine the "classic." Here she works with more Latin trap and reggaeton-centered producers including Tainy and Manuel Lara, and Leeds-based pop visionary Josh Crocker. In another assertion of her hard won identity, she sings almost exclusively in Spanish. (Her label strongly advised against releasing it, fearing Anglos would not embrace a foreign language recording and didn't promote it.) Uchis is fearless in stretching her sound past funky breaks, slippery R&B, and spaced-out jazz tropes to offer bracing evolutionary conceptions of reggaeton, cumbia, and boleros, seamlessly juxtaposing them with her own brand of Latin pop and soul. While there are a number of fine collaborations here, including the futurist Afro-Latin soul of "Fue Mejor" with PartyNextDoor (Jahron Anthony Brathwaite), the spiky trap of "Aqui Yo Mando!" with Rico Nasty, and the trap groove of "La Luz" with Jhay Cortez, the best jams are reinventions of vintage boleros such as opener "La Luna Enamorada," a tune that dates back to the 1940s but was a 1964 hit for Cuban rockers Los Zafiros. She slows down the tempo, allows Crocker to thread incantatory beats and Beach Boys-style four-part harmonies into the mix, and follows the melody and form without deviation. "Vaya con Dios" -- an original, not the classic Mexican song -- is rendered with sampled strings, a low-tuned rubbery bassline, and reverbed guitars amid smoky hip-hop beats. When she reaches for her falsetto, she soars. "Que Te Pedi" is a classic Cuban bolero composed by Fernando Lopez Mulens and Gabriel Luna De la Fuente. Introduced by the sound of a radio dial slipping across stations, its stately horns, congas, and bassline frame her most dramatic, passionate singing on the album. "De Nadie" is a seductive Latin soul tune with alternating breaks and hip-hop beats, while self-composed closer "Angel Sin Cielo" is almost psychedelic as it drifts and hovers dramatically with bossa-styled acoustic guitars and her stretched and altered vocal pitches that bring her soprano down to tenor range and jazz phrasing. Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ marks the spot where Uchis comes into her own, not only as a true song stylist but also as an innovator.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark had lain waiting for some years before John Prime succumbed to Covd-19 and joined them in April 2020 at the age of 73. The great songwriter and storyteller (who is little-known on this side of the pond but is somewhat of an idolized cult figure back home in the States) began his career as a protégé to Kris Kristofferson and recorded seven albums with Atlantic and Asylum between 1971 and 1980. All are remastered in this collection: John Prine (1971), Diamonds in the Rough (1972), Sweet Revenge (1973), Common Sense (1975), Bruised Orange (1978), Pink Cadillac (1979) and Storm Windows (1980). To understand the scale of Prine’s influence, two quotes from musicians from two different generation among thousands who flooded to social media to upon the announcement of his death. Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver: “A simple majority of who I am as a person, let alone a musician, is because of John Prine.”. Bruce Springsteen: “John and I were “new Dylans” together in the early 70s and he was never anything but the loveliest guy in the world. A true national treasure and a songwriter for the ages.” These seven albums (especially the first four), prove that John Prine was one of the great portraitists of his generation. While his dark sense of humour prevented him from sounding soppy, he nevertheless had a knack for touching hearts with empathy and humility. With Prine, anti-establishment was never low on the agenda as he fused wit and emotion with rarely seen talent… © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

U.K. chanteuse Dido uses her undisputed pop vocal smarts to enchant the listener from the outset of her solo debut No Angel. Captivating songs laced with electronica, trip-hop, and rock combine effortlessly with the singer/songwriter's sultry vocals to create a fresh-sounding, vibrant release. Tracks like "Don't Think of Me," "All You Want," and "Thank You," are strong and powerful but never overwhelming. There are also some more ambient-type cuts, such as "My Lover's Gone" and "Here with Me," where swirling, airy sound textures envelop the song. Throughout No Angel, Dido's melting vocals enfold the listener. Disarming cuts like "Honestly OK," "My Life," and "I'm No Angel," are immediately engaging. The album also includes a bonus track, "Take My Hand."© TiVo