Since Rick Rubin quietly reinvented Johnny Cash as a contemporary artist by having him sing works by alternative rock acts over an acoustic guitar on 1994's American Recordings, this has become a standard practice by pairing veterans with hotshot young producers to spark creativity. Listening to One True Vine, Mavis Staples' 2013 solo disc for ANTI- Records (the edgy heritage artists-oriented subsidiary of punk label Epitaph), it sounds more like Staples schooled this project's producer, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy The focal point of gospel/soul greats The Staple Singers (patriarch/band leader Roebuck "Pops" Staples' ultra-expressive guitar playing aside), Mavis has become the standard-bearer of their sound and legacy, one of the richest in American history. It's no wonder this sounds so perfectly of a piece with anything her family released, especially their more gospel-oriented albums, albeit with some musical settings closer to the secular material that made them Seventies hitmakers. The solidity of her belief is audible, as she somehow manages to find the sanctified message within the most earthly of material. Across One True Vine's length and breadth, Staples applies her idiosyncratic touch to copyrights from Low ("Holy Ghost"), Nick Lowe ("Far Celestial Shore"), Funkadelic ("Can You Get To That"), Pops Staples himself ("I Like The Things About Me"), and three of Tweedy's ("Every Step," "Jesus Wept," and the title track), plus three gospel standards. But the tone's set from the get-go, when Staples tacitly reassembles the Low tune in her own image, with a spare, plucked acoustic guitar and a modest choir backing her husky alto. Her intent with Alan Sparhawk's meditation is unambiguous, despite the refrain. Mavis Staples is not singing about "some holy ghost," she's singing about The Holy Ghost. It's both a gift, and an indicator of the depths of her spirituality. © Tim Stegall/Qobuz

Some might not pick out Britain's Tallis Scholars as an ideal group for performing the music of Arvo Pärt, which has been composed mostly with larger choirs in mind. Eastern European groups seem to bring out its resonant effects, and larger British groups like Polyphony have also had success with it. For those who like Pärt's abstract, holy minimalist style, which seems to create its own world, try out this alternative interpretation. The Tallis Scholars deploy two voices per part in most of the works, resulting in an ensemble of 16 (or 17) for all the pieces except for the slightly smaller and less dense I Am the True Vine (1996). It seems too few, but the singers deliver startlingly edgy purity and, at times, blazing intensity. Sample the two-part Tribute to Caesar (tracks 16 and 17), where the blinding high notes represent not just something new in the world of Pärt interpretation but something new for the Tallis Scholars as well, who never have had to deploy these sounds in Renaissance polyphony or even in the other contemporary music (such as that of John Tavener, close enough to Pärt) that they have recorded. There's a nice selection of Pärt's English-language material here, including the amusing which was the son of…, commissioned by an Icelandic venue and playing on the patronymic (and matronymic) structure of Icelandic names. Gimell's engineering, at the Chapel of Merton College, is ideal. This is not definitive Pärt, but it is fascinating and often enough thrilling. © TiVo

The arrival of this recording of Drone Mass—some seven years after its premiere performance and four years after Jóhann Jóhannsson's death—somewhat blurs the definition of what a "posthumous" release looks like for a contemporary classical composer.  Jóhannsson's work is seldom decoupled from his playing of it, featuring him as the primary performer, but does not perform on this recording though he did at its premiere and several other performances. Additionally, the composition itself was commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), who are performing it here (and who also performed it with Jóhannsson), making this release—originally recorded in 2019—a discographically unique one. It is also, more importantly, a musically intriguing one. As with much of Jóhannsson's work—whether for classical ensembles, film scores, or electronic experimentation—the pieces are both tense and elegiac, toying with form and structure to evoke both a well-defined soundscape and a dynamic emotional response. Rather than digging into a postmodern take on chamber music or ambient electronics, here, Jóhannsson is putting to work the vocal skills of a large ensemble (the eight-piece Theatre of Voices) to deliver his hymn-like interpretations of the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, writings which were discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in the mid-20th century. Unintelligible to modern ears but deeply evocative nonetheless, the vocal polyphony on display is immersive and haunting. Early on in the recording, the "Triptych in Mass" sets the tone with its absolutely dizzying combination of voices, dissonance, and drone, leaving the listener both breathless and anxious. Other segments—"The Last Foul Wind I Ever Knew" and the two-part "Divine Objects"—are similarly intense. By the time "The Low Drone of Circulating Blood, Diminishes With Time" initiates the closing four-part sequence of the piece, Jóhannsson has shown that he is clearly disinterested in easy beauty or background ambience and is, instead, pursuing a thoughtful, dynamic, and intent music that rewards a listener's focus and engagement. It's a forceful and unforgiving piece that posits an exciting shift in direction from the composer that, sadly, appears to have not gotten any further exploration. Nonetheless, as a document of one of his final works, Drone Mass is an exciting and exhilarating statement. ©Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

The arrival of this recording of Drone Mass—some seven years after its premiere performance and four years after Jóhann Jóhannsson's death—somewhat blurs the definition of what a "posthumous" release looks like for a contemporary classical composer.  Jóhannsson's work is seldom decoupled from his playing of it, featuring him as the primary performer, but does not perform on this recording though he did at its premiere and several other performances. Additionally, the composition itself was commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), who are performing it here (and who also performed it with Jóhannsson), making this release—originally recorded in 2019—a discographically unique one. It is also, more importantly, a musically intriguing one. As with much of Jóhannsson's work—whether for classical ensembles, film scores, or electronic experimentation—the pieces are both tense and elegiac, toying with form and structure to evoke both a well-defined soundscape and a dynamic emotional response. Rather than digging into a postmodern take on chamber music or ambient electronics, here, Jóhannsson is putting to work the vocal skills of a large ensemble (the eight-piece Theatre of Voices) to deliver his hymn-like interpretations of the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, writings which were discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in the mid-20th century. Unintelligible to modern ears but deeply evocative nonetheless, the vocal polyphony on display is immersive and haunting. Early on in the recording, the "Triptych in Mass" sets the tone with its absolutely dizzying combination of voices, dissonance, and drone, leaving the listener both breathless and anxious. Other segments—"The Last Foul Wind I Ever Knew" and the two-part "Divine Objects"—are similarly intense. By the time "The Low Drone of Circulating Blood, Diminishes With Time" initiates the closing four-part sequence of the piece, Jóhannsson has shown that he is clearly disinterested in easy beauty or background ambience and is, instead, pursuing a thoughtful, dynamic, and intent music that rewards a listener's focus and engagement. It's a forceful and unforgiving piece that posits an exciting shift in direction from the composer that, sadly, appears to have not gotten any further exploration. Nonetheless, as a document of one of his final works, Drone Mass is an exciting and exhilarating statement. ©Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

The idea is interesting on the face of it: the Duke of Ferrara, at his court in the late 16th century, maintained a "concerto segreto," secret concerts of three singers who also accompanied themselves on instruments. The three singers of La Néréide have performed a program based on this repertory, reproducing the original circumstances as far as possible. It is perhaps a trifle less effective on a recording, where they employ other instrumentalists for accompaniment, but this almost unknown repertory holds plenty of interest in itself. The music on the album is mostly by the melodiously named Luzzasco Luzzaschi, the Duke's court composer, with other works by his contemporary Luca Marenzio and the slightly later Claudio Monteverdi and Francesca Caccini (who makes the cut because her opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola di Alcina, the first opera by a woman, contains an excerpt calls "Le tre sirene"). This was progressive music for the time, including some of the sharp dissonances better known in the writing of Carlo Gesualdo and also the emerging texture in which melody was accompanied by a continuo. Thus, La Néréide captures the swirl of influences out of which early opera emerged, framing them in a vivid scene that will be unfamiliar, like the music in general, to most listeners. The three women have a strong sense of ensemble, and the engineering from the small Notre-Dame-des-Centeilles chapel suggests the music's original surroundings. A really interesting release for those fascinated by the late Renaissance. © James Manheim /TiVo

With the John Eliot Gardiner "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" series, as issued on Soli Deo Gloria, all recorded during a live tour and gradually parsed out in packages practically identical in appearance, one can be forgiven for some confusion regarding this series. Although this is Bach Cantatas, Vol. 2, and was recorded in Paris and Zurich in the summer of 2000, the two-disc set is the 24th issue in the series and was not released until the spring of 2010, patiently waiting almost a full decade for its turn in the release sequence. The Paris performance on the first disc features Bach's cantatas for the Second Sunday After Trinity (BWVs 2, 10, and 76) along with Heinrich Schütz's motet "Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes," which shares the same melody as Bach's source for BWV 76. The second, Zurich performance includes Bach's cantatas for the Third Sunday After Trinity, BWV 21 and 135, only, so the program is filled out with a performance of the Triple Concerto in A minor, BWV 1044. Soloists include Stephen Varcoe and Daniel Taylor in Paris and Katharine Fuge in Zurich; oddly, the instrumental soloists in BWV 1044 are not singled out in the package notes, though they are more than likely section leaders from within the English Baroque Soloists. Though top billed, the Monteverdi Choir is heard only intermittently of course, but enough to reserve its rightful place as the star of the show, apart from Gardiner himself.These performances are to some extent conditioned by the vagaries of live recording; the sound in Paris' Basilique Saint-Denis is good but not awesome, whereas in Zurich's Fraumünster Kirche the sound is clearer and has a bit more presence. An important part of the basic concept of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage was that each concert be given in a different European landmark. Alto Daniel Taylor is not having a particularly good night in Paris, but that's not too much of a distraction; overall the soloists, both instrumental and vocal, acquit themselves well although it's a little hard to hear the harpsichord in the Triple Concerto. All of the performances are crisp and professional, and there is something of a traditional aspect to them; Gardiner clearly prefers a romantic approach in the handling of the chorus and the band is a little bigger than a typical, one-or-two-to-a-part period instrument ensemble. If a listener is already investing in this series, then Soli Deo Gloria's Bach Cantatas, Vol. 2, should more or less deliver what the others in the same series put forth. However, if the listener is only looking for a recording of one or even all of these pieces, weighing one's relative options might not be a fruitless task.© TiVo

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The third album from Rohff, La Fierté des Nôtres, finds the French rapper delivering two discs of hip-hop bravado and earning a gold record for his troubles, selling over 250,000 copies in France and further establishing himself as one of France’s rap stars.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo