The Breeders of Pod and the Breeders of Last Splash seemed like two very different bands, as the astringent indie rock of the band's debut seemed to take a back seat to the highly melodic riff-dealing of their commercial breakthrough. The departure of Slint drummer Britt Walford and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donnelly was certainly a factor, as Jim MacPherson's straightforward drumming has a whole lot to do with the propulsive power of Last Splash. However, Kim Deal's decision to recruit her twin sister Kelley for guitar and vocals is also a big factor. While the Deal sisters' vocal harmonies are justifiably praiseworthy for giving Last Splash some of its most memorable moments (the entirety of "Cannonball," for instance), the quirky muscularity of their deceptively intricate guitar work is the album's secret weapon. The weird combination of multi-tracked and doubled guitar lines (some on acoustic guitars, some on electric guitars, some on distorted acoustic guitars) sounds like effortlessly chunky garage rock, but a close listen to the component parts of a cut like the Blondie-nod of "Flipside" is likely to cause dizziness. This studio intensity is prevalent throughout much of Last Splash, giving it a unique patina that feels as rough and loose as it does meticulously crafted. Much of the album's sonic perfectionism has been variously ascribed to Kim Deal's wish for vengeance after being rudely fired from the Pixies, her escalating drug use, or simply that she's an audiophile spirit trapped in an indie rocker's body. In all likelihood, it was all three things combined with the natural energy that comes from a band working with an exceptional set of material. While "weird Breeders" gets plenty of air time on Last Splash ("Mad Lucas" and "Hag" both could have been Pod outtakes; "Roi" manages to make Led Zeppelin riffs sound like art-rock), the ridiculous quantity of infectious melodies and top-shelf arrangements on the album ("Saints," "Cannonball," "No Aloha," "Divine Hammer" and "Do You Love Me Now?") are evidence of an artist at the peak of her powers who just happens to have a band alongside her that can absolutely deliver on the promise of that material. This 30th anniversary edition benefits from being remastered from the original, long-thought-lost analog tapes (Deal was adamant that the album was recorded in an all-analog chain, so this should be a faithful rendition) as well as two previously unreleased bonus tracks. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

For many years, it was only Manon and Werther that were heard among Massenet's operas, but his reputation appears to be on the rise, and his champion, conductor Laurent Campellone, has recorded a good number of them. Ariane, from 1906, is one of the last to receive its recorded premiere. The Palazzetto Bru Zane label, specializing in obscure French opera, does a typically fine job here; the sound is superb, and the cast of singers, led by the soprano Amina Edris in the lead role, offers several revelations. In his later operas, Massenet often attempted to put a French stamp on the newer styles of the day, and here, it is Wagner who gets this treatment; the opera is built around a set of motifs de rappel (or "reminiscence motifs"), whose parentage in Wagner's leitmotifs is clear. This structure is shoehorned into the durable machinery of French opera. There are big entrance scenes, a pantomime, and plenty of spectacular stage machinery to go with the love triangle plot involving Ariane (Ariadne), Phèdre (Phaedra), and Theseus, who gets to take on the Minotaur in a grand scene with Wagnerian bass trumpet and bass trombone. Massenet's orchestration is impressive throughout. The work does not have the inevitability of truly great art, but it is in no way dull, and anyone with any interest in French opera should hear it for the singers alone; enough of those listeners have already weighed in and put the album on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

This release showed up on classical best-seller charts in the late summer of 2023, perhaps because it represented a genuinely original experiment. Mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d'Oustrac, the small ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, and conductor and theorbist suggest... well, what, exactly? That there is an affinity between French popular song and French and Italian music of the 17th century? Not quite, although there were intriguing connections between popular song, outlined in the booklet, and the very earliest stages of the historical performance movement at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The program is organized into three sections, "Jeunesse," "Les vieux airs," and "Les amours passées," but the 20th century songs and the 17th century pieces mostly don't overlap within these groups; "Les amours passées" are all popular songs. The program makes quite a lurch between an excerpt from Cavalli's L'Egisto and Paul Marinier's D'elle à lui, and the lurch would have been even greater if the popular songs hadn't been chosen to exclude any hints of African-American-influenced song. Léon Fossey's Les canards tyroliens, a kind of yodeling song about ducks, simply doesn't inhabit the same universe as Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna. Perhaps it would be best to say, as the publicity does, that there are "echoes" between the two traditions, and d'Oustrac plainly has enthusiasm for both repertories; her personality is largely enough to carry the listener through. There is definitely a need for programming and performance that mixes classical and popular material, which have never been as far apart as they have been made out to be. This release may not be a definitive solution, but it is an intriguing and listenable attempt. © James Manheim /TiVo

Here, Daniil Trifonov brings us an exciting itinerary that mixes solo piano and concert performances with a challenging programme. Now fully mature, Trifinov intends to demonstrate how the Russian composers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were truly modern. The period is known in Russia as the “Silver Age” and corresponds with modernism’s “fin de siècle”. The Silver Age covers the whole range of fine arts, as well as haute couture, design and - of course - music and ballet.However, most of the programme comes from two composers who developed their modern sound outside of Russia. Stravinsky, who had long been considered a dissident, is now being reclaimed by Russian performers. None of his works (except those written when he was extremely young) were performed at the time in his home country. Having lost the score of his Concerto No. 2 in the turmoil of the 1917 Revolution, Prokofiev later rewrote it in Paris in a completely new style.Scriabin’s signature mystical vision that Daniil Trifonov talks about in the cover notes was not yet present in his Piano Concerto. This composition is a very romantic and rather academic early work written in the wake of Chopin, who was the young Scriabin’s idol.In addition to its great historical interest, this program is noteworthy thanks to Trifonov’s expressive playing in the solo pieces recorded at Princeton University in New Jersey, as well as in the two concertos conducted here by the ardent Valery Gergiev at the head of his St. Petersburg Mariinsky Orchestra. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Thanks to good timing and some great singles, Last Splash turned the Breeders into the alternative rock superstars that Kim Deal's former band Pixies always seemed on the verge of becoming. Yet in some ways, the group's commercial breakthrough was the most unpredictable music they'd made up to that point. Joined by Deal's twin sister, Kelley, the band builds on the Safari EP's polished production, but instead of merely making their sound bigger or more palatable, they play with more styles, textures, and moods than ever before. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's blockbuster single "Cannonball." From the foghorn-like vocals that announce it to Josephine Wiggs' bouncing bassline to its singsong vocals, virtually every part of this mischievously sexy, choppy yet grooving song is a hook. Though it became a symbol of the 1990s alt-rock revolution, it's so light and playful that it still sounded fresh years later. The Breeders extend "Cannonball"'s jumps, twists, and tangents to Last Splash as a whole, balancing irresistible pop with whimsical detours. They take this approach to extremes by teasing listeners with the elliptical shuffling and muttering of "Mad Lucas" before delivering two and a half minutes of flirty pop perfection with "Divine Hammer." More often, the album's patchwork offers a wealth of ideas and feelings. "Hag" and "No Aloha," a startling hybrid of desert island balladry and churning punk-pop, update Pod's surreal feminism, a mood that trickles down to the aching independence of "Invisible Man." Then there's the band's obsession with summer, which ranges from "Flipside"s high-tide surf-pop to "Saints," a sunburnt celebration of a state fair complete with braying riffs and lines like "pony in the air" that reflect Deal's brilliance at abstract yet immediately recognizable imagery. Kim and Kelley's mega-watt charm is one of the main reasons Last Splash holds together as well as it does. "Drivin' on 9" (a cover of a song by fellow Dayton, Ohio band Ed's Redeeming Qualities) provides one of the album's best showcases for the pure charisma of the former's voice, while "I Just Wanna Get Along"'s apocalyptic power pop puts the spotlight on the latter's singing and razor-sharp songwriting. Along with its emphasis on fun, Last Splash is one of the defining albums of early-'90s alternative rock precisely because of its anything-goes mood -- an attitude that the Breeders held on to for the rest of their career.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Enigma burst on the scene in the early '90s with a pretty nifty schtick: dance beats and lush chord washes underpinning such exotica as muttered French sex talk and Gregorian chant, all unified by a bizarre theme somehow related to the Marquis de Sade. The concept was never as original as some people thought (Mark Stewart's "Maffia" had set plainchant to electro-funk as far back as 1984), but it worked nicely, and "Sadeness" (har har) was an international dance club hit. Two albums later, Michael Cretu (the individual who records under the Enigma moniker) doesn't seem to have done much to expand upon his original ideas. The monks are still there, floating in a murky club mix, though this time they're joined by a cool Mongolian ensemble as well. Cretu is singing more, which is unfortunate since his voice is mediocre and his lyrics silly, but the occasional high point does emerge, such as the darkly lovely "The Child in Us." Most of the album, however, is twaddle. Song titles like "Morphing Thru Time," "Beyond the Invisible" and (seriously) "Odyssey of the Mind" will give you a good idea of what to expect -- lots of atmosphere, lots of reverb, lots of sternly intoned lyrics about, er...something or other. What's missing is musical interest. Overall, the cool packaging is the only thing noteworthy about this disappointing effort.© Rick Anderson /TiVo

Download not available

Aeon's 2005 recording of Ibsen's 1867 verse play Peer Gynt, including the incidental music by Edvard Grieg, clocks in at about three and a quarter hours and is the closest thing to a complete performance of the play and incidental music available on CD, but even so, the text was considerably trimmed for that production. For listeners more interested in the music than the play, Aeon has released this disc of the music from that recording. It's advertised as the "unabridged score," but to fit it on a single disc, four numbers had to be omitted. At 75 minutes, it includes substantially more music than the two popular suites, enough to satisfy most listeners looking for a nearly complete performance of Grieg's score. This version uses soloists and chorus according to Grieg's intentions for the incidental music, offering fresh insights into the music for listeners familiar only with the suites. Guillaume Tourniaire leads l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in sensitive and carefully shaped performances of the brief musical episodes. His is a fairly conventional reading of the score, but it is spirited and played with style, and shouldn't disappoint the composer's fans. The addition of the chorus in two of the movements devoted to Peer's adventures in the hall of the Mountain King is especially thrilling, and Le Motet de Genève sings beautifully and vigorously. The vocal soloists are very fine, particularly Inger Dam-Jensen as Solveig. Grieg's use of a Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk instrument similar to a violin, is exceptionally effective, and gives the score a much stronger nationalistic flavor than the music from the suites suggests, and it's played with raw vitality by Vegar Vardal. Aeon's sound is clear and well-balanced, with a good sense of presence.© TiVo