Khruangbin's  A LA SALA is billed as a return to basics. Made with minimal overdubs and in only the company of the band's longtime engineer Steve Christensen, the mostly-instrumental trio's fourth record is a quieter, more introspective affair. The measured first track "Fifteen Fifty-Three," which starts with crickets and ends with birds chirping, sets the tone for an album where several tunes include ambient or found sounds. In the sweet and gentle flow of "May Ninth," bassist Laura Lee Ochoa quietly sings, "Oh what a dream to me/ Memory burned and gone/ A multicolored grey/ Waiting for May to come/ Happy for the rain." Her whispers can be heard in several tracks including "Pon Pón," a classic example of the instinctual way that the trio mind meld into a groove—here spiced with a dash of West African bounce.Khruangbin have routinely sought out vocal collaborators (like fellow Texan Leon Bridges) but have now mastered the art of adding ghostly, often near wordless  background vocals.  Lee purrs in the sinuous "Todaviá Viva," a funk jam paced by drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson's rim shots and high hat.  "Hold Me Up (Thank You)" is firmly in the pocket from the opening notes, with Speer darting in and a more assertive Lee singing simple lyrics that conclude with, "Thank your father, thank your mother/Hold me up." With his instantly recognizable guitar tone always submerged in reverb, Mark Speer continues to refine his playing, trending more towards the jazz improvisations while also being able to savor shorter, less challenging moments like in "Caja de la Sala."  He stretches a solo into a song in the dance track "A Love International."  A LA SALA (a phrase Lee used as a child to summon her family into the same place) closes on the slow, reflective "Les Petits Gris," set to a repeated keyboard phrase before it dissolves into the sound of crickets in full thrall.  Khruangbin continue to find new ways to make instrumental-centered music consequential. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Clocking in at over an hour for the Fourth, and almost an hour for the Eleventh or "1905", these are the two longest and fullest of Shostakovich's symphonies. What's remarkable is that the Fourth, finished in 1936, was only performed in 1961 – eleven years after the performance of the Eleventh in 1957! It was in 1936 that the poor composer felt a bullet whistle by him, following an infamous article in Pravda, dictated by Stalin: "Chaos in Place of Music", which torpedoed the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: the work was carefully locked away, only to be brought back out once the dictator was dead, buried and comprehensively decomposed. You can see where the composer was coming from! The tone of this Fourth hasn't the slightest hint of optimism, We hear dark Mahlerian accents, desperate flights and tortured harmonies: not exactly the music of a bright tomorrow. The Eleventh, structured according to a "political" programme, celebrating the revolutionaries of 1905 and the tragic events of Bloody Sunday – when the Russian army fired on a crowd, killing 96 according to official sources and several thousand according to others – with a much more optimistic tone, although we know what optimism means in the world of Shostakovich. The two symphonies were recorded at public concerts, in autumn 2017 and spring 2018 respectively by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their conductor Andris Nelsons. © SM/Qobuz

Robert Wyatt continues to follow his singular musical path with the lovely Shleep, delivering another album of considerable quirky charm and understated beauty; a less melancholy affair than much of his recent work, the record is informed by a hazy, dreamlike quality perfectly in keeping with the elements of subconsciousness implicit in the title.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

This release marks the recording debut of the small vocal group Resurgam, and it is quite a distinctive item among the English Renaissance releases of early 2024 (it was recorded the previous year, in observation of the 400th anniversary of Weelkes' death). There are plenty of Irish choral releases that emulate the English cathedral sound, but this is not one of them. Resurgam's longtime director, Mark Duley, has a confident feel in leading the group. Resurgam's mixed-gender singers (one to a part, but this may work in Weelkes' intricate textures even for those who don't prefer this kind of performance) have a bright, sharp sound that is ideally complemented by the brass of the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, and by the noisy but brilliant hand bellows-operated organ of Ilani Smishkewych Kosovske. Even those with large collections of English Renaissance choral music will find this sound fresh; it diverges both from pristine English cathedral sounds and lush American ones. Another draw is the music itself; Weelkes is better known as a madrigalist, but the neglect of his choral music seems to go all the way back to his own time and the accusations of being a "common drunkard" that were leveled against him. Few of his sacred works were published. The charge may or may not have been valid, and physical album buyers will get a good discussion of Weelkes' career. In any event, Weelkes forged a distinctively rich style in the Anglican anthem and in service music, and this is an unusually good match for Resurgam's talents. The group is backed up by the Resonus Classics label with clear sound from the Holy Trinity Church, Minchinhampton, Stroud, UK. One hopes to hear more from the new-to-recordings Resurgam.© James Manheim /TiVo

Bassist Buster Williams and his quartet perform six of his originals plus two standards on Griot Libertè. Williams' songs range from the modal "Nomads" and the medium-tempo blues "Related to One" (which includes some complex transitions) to the lyrical ballad "The Triumphant Dance of the Butterfly" and the swinging "Joined at the Hip," which has George Colligan's best solo of the set. Williams takes plenty of solos but is also generous in featuring vibraphonist Stefon Harris and pianist Colligan with drummer Lenny White being stimulating in support. There are times (particularly during "Related to One") when the group sounds a bit like the Modern Jazz Quartet, but other selections find the musicians showing more individuality. They are very much in tune with each other and, although not a touring group, sound as if they play together very regularly. Excellent modern mainstream jazz. © Scott Yanow /TiVo

By most accounts, Deep Purple's 1993 European tour was quite a memorable one, not so much for the musical performances, but because it was in the middle of this tour that founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left the band for good -- marking the last time the group's classic Mk II lineup ever toured together. With the band supporting the appropriately titled The Battle Rages On... at the time, there are a few latter-day Purple songs included, but to the delight of many fans, the vast majority of 2007's Live in Stuttgart 1993 is comprised of classics. It doesn't sound like the group was resting on its laurels during this advanced stage of its career, either -- as evidenced by a simply ferocious reading of "Speed King," as well as other highlights like the set-opening "Highway Star" and "Knocking at Your Back Door." There may have been some tension behind the scenes at this time, but on the concert stage, Deep Purple were definitely still a functioning unit, as evidenced throughout Live in Stuttgart 1993.© Greg Prato /TiVo

Beyond any question, Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra's performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 is impressive. The clarity of the strings, lucidity of the winds, the unity of the brass, the precision of the percussion, the cogency of the ensemble: all this is stunning. Beyond any question, the sound of PentaTone's super audio recording is imposing. The violence of the attacks, the brilliance of the colors, the strength of the sonorities, the power of the rhythms, the sheer physical mass and weight of the orchestra: all this is staggering. The pertinent questions with Shostakovich's Eleventh, however, are not "how impressive is the performance" and "how imposing is the recording," but "how honest is the performance" and "how real is the recording?" Nominally dedicated to the memory of the victims of the 1905 workers' revolution brutally crushed by the Czar's cavalry, Shostakovich composed his Eleventh Symphony in 1957, the year after the Hungarian revolution had been brutally crushed by the Russian army, and his work is an overwhelming indictment of oppressive governments past, present, and future. An honest performance makes us know this and a real recording makes us feel this. So, as impressive and imposing as Pletnev and the RNO's 2005 performance recorded live in Brussels is, it cannot compare with Yevgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic's 1967 performance recorded live in Prague. Mravinsky and the Leningrad had been playing Shostakovich since they premiered his Fifth Symphony 30 years earlier, and while Pletnev's is an impressive musical achievement, Mravinsky's is the testimony of musicians who suffered under a murderously oppressive government and survived to tell the truth in their playing. PentaTone's live in Brussels sound is imposing, but Supraphon's live in Prague sound, while raw and hard, is the aural evidence of musicians who knew full well what would happen if the increasingly independent Prague government went too far, what, in fact, did happen less than a year later when the Russian army entered Prague and overthrew the government. Pletnev and the RNO on PentaTone is a brilliant performance. Mravinsky and the Leningrad on Supraphon is of a truth that cannot be suppressed. © TiVo

For their ninth album, Procol Harum turned to production by the veteran songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, who had written the first single ("Poison Ivy") by Procol predecessor band, the Paramounts. Though the band is in top form (especially drummer B.J. Wilson) and despite a strong start (with the exquisite "Pandora's Box," a U.K. hit), the album largely runs out of steam by side two. Too much of the Brooker and Reid material is competent rather than exciting. Likewise, Procol fails to render memorable versions of two cover songs, Leiber and Stoller's "I Keep Forgetting" or the Beatles' "Eight Days A Week." Most of this album's best material can be found on the Chrysalis Years collection. [Grand Hotel and Procol's Ninth were later re-released as Cornerstone, a budget double album.]© James A. Gardner /TiVo

Should it be said that Roy Harris is as great a composer as he was once thought to be, that his Symphony No. 3 is the best work in the form by an American, that his great works are bright and joyous and luminously scored, that he more than Hanson or Diamond or even Copland, he deserves to be called the greatest of the great American symphonists?Of course not: all anyone can really do is listen to the music. And, as this 1998 recording of Harris' Eighth and Ninth symphonies coupled with his Memories of a Child's Sunday by David Allen Miller and the Albany Symphony proves, if people listen to the music, Harris is indeed as great a composer as he was once thought to be. His Memories of a Child's Sunday are charming, but his symphonies are astounding and exalted. The Eighth is a single-movement, rapturous hymn to Saint Francis of Assai and the Ninth, his purely orchestral conflation of the "Declaration of Independence" and The Leaves of Grass, is a furiously patriotic hymn to America.Of course the only way to listen to the Eighth and Ninth is to listen to this disc because Miller and the Albany's recording is the only one there is. And it is as stupendous as the music. Their Child's Sunday is delightful, but the symphonies are expertly argued and astonishingly well played. Albany's sound is as good as the best digital recordings being made in 1998, which is very good indeed. Listen to this disc and hear some of the greatest American music from the twentieth century in a performance and a recording fully worthy of the music.© TiVo

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