Rare-groove duo Thievery Corporation may fall under the general classification of electronica, but their album Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi, like much of their music, is such a confluence of subgenres that techno fans might not find what they're looking for in it. This record is electronic in that nearly everything heard on it has been tweaked in the studio, but almost all of the actual synth sounds on Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi lie in the background. What carry each song are recordings of actual instruments, either live or sampled, mixed to create the arc of the specific track. Add a smattering of vocal samples, and the result is the love-child of Massive Attack and Mondo Grosso, a trip-hoppy, acid jazz mutant that will make you want to dance, have sex, or lounge by the pool (if you're not left walking in confused circles, trying to figure out which one). That seems to be the CD's only real weakness: the seams that bind the various influences involved in the music can be a bit ragged, leading to some songs that come off as awkward, rather than eclectic. The amalgamations throughout most of the disc are quite effective, however. The track "Scene at the Open Air Market," for instance, sounds like the melody is played on a xylophone, before switching to perhaps an accordion, eventually coming to sound like a mixture of lounge music, rhumba, and Eastern European folk -- but sexy. The samples of a man yelling reggae-style shout-outs during "2001 Spliff Odyssey," however, are mostly just distracting from the ultra-smooth groove, and can feel like interruptions. In the end, assuming that almost everyone who picks up Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi is a fan of trip-hop, acid jazz, club/dance, or electronica, then it is essentially a record for everybody. Its only real fault is that occasionally, it edges on being a record for nobody.© Cammila Albertson /TiVo

Little River Band scored their highest-charting single with 1978's Sleeper Catcher release, thanks to the gallant sway of "Reminiscing," which went all the way to number three and stayed in the Top 40 for 14 weeks. Vocalist Glenn Shorrock gives Sleeper Catcher the perfect MOR sound, draping the tracks with his cool, breezy style that is much more apparent and effectual here than on the band's earlier efforts. The album itself gained platinum status, reaching the number 16 spot while scoring another Top Ten hit with the romantic, middle-aged allure of "Lady," one of the group's finest ballads. "Sanity's Side," "Light of Day," and "So Many Paths" have the group fitting in nicely with the late-'70s pop/rock sound, and the opening "Shut Down Turn Off" is the best of the non-released tracks with its appealing yet conventional flow. The album was the last for bass player George McArdle before he left the band to fulfill his religious beliefs. Sleeper Catcher and 1979's First Under the Wire became Little River Band's most successful releases, both with Shorrock as lead singer, who was replaced later by John Farnham in 1983, only to return to the band in the late '80s. Like Sleeper Catcher, First Under the Wire put out two Top Ten singles of the same variety, scoring with "Lonesome Loser" and "Cool Change."© Mike DeGagne /TiVo

This exciting session consists of the 1959 edition of The Miles Davis Sextet minus its leader, though it was later reissued as Cannonball & Coltrane, as there was evidence that both men had considerable input into the date. A brisk "Limehouse Blues" features great exchanges between the saxophonists, while Adderley's soulful "Wabash" is more easygoing. This newly remastered CD is a distinct improvement over the earlier retitled reissue.© Ken Dryden /TiVo

The Swedish kings of gloom and doom return with perhaps their mst balanced outing yet. Two years after Discouraged Ones marked a turn from the dark metallic mayhem of earlier records uch as Dance of December Souls and Brave Murder Day, it was 2000's Tonight's Decision and 2001's Last Fair Deal Gone Down that carved out the uniqueness in their sound. Here are equal parts dark gothic pop, crushing heavy rock, textured keyboards, lithe pop melodies, beautifully crafted songs with unique dynamics and sculpted sonic environments to surround them, and bleak, even morose subject matter. While it's true that fans of the band's earliest material may not return to the fold with Viva Emptiness, those who have arrived since Discouraged Ones will be even more enthralled. The major difference between Viva Emptiness and its immediate predecessors is that the band has brought a more rockist edge to even out the textural soundscapes. This one is definitely heavier -- check out the bone-crushing intro on "Will I Arrive" or the bridge on the refrains on the album-opener "Ghost of the Sun." Vocalist Jonas Renkse's delivery is clear and deeply expressive of the band's atmospheric music and stays well within its tenor range. Guitarists Anders Nyström and Fred Norrman complement each other well in that both are well-versed in swirling, shaded enormous guitar sounds and neither overplay; they join together to create a warm, fuzzed-out wall of noise that is equal parts devastatingly edgy yet warm and full of melodic invention. (This is gorgeously displayed on "Burn the Remembrance" and "Complicity.") The rhythm section of Daniel Liljekvist on drums and Mattias Norrman on bass is fatter and meatier than any in heavy metal -- the stuttered stop-and-start of "Walking By a Wire" offers a rounded foundation that gives up none of its thudding power in an otherwise angular yet restrained tune. The other thing that sets Katatonia apart from all of its peers with the possible exception of Liverpudlian quartet Anathema is the band's lyrics. Virtually every track here will have the listener entering into a dialogue with Renske as he offers observations on everything from questioning the right to continued existence to revenge to determination to grief to alienation to political and social dystopian catastrophes, and even to glimmers of hope in the wasteland. Viva Emptiness is a dynamically jarring and intellectually demanding yet musically accessible journey to the dark side and back, full of glorious riffs, complex harmonic sensibilities, and a vulnerable yet ultimately powerful brute force.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Now well into their fourth decade as both the originators and the last-standing torchbearers of the original wave of Seattle grunge bands, Mudhoney is still snarling and crunching their way through the rolling apocalypse that we call modern life. And while their garage-rock roots are showing more and more, and their tempos have consistently slowed down over the years, the band is no less punk in their approach. Mark Arm's half-cynical, half-vituperative lyrical approach is still as playful ("Cry Me An Atmospheric River") as it is political ("Flush the Fascists"), but what's most interesting about Mudhoney circa 2023 is how their comfort with their musical style has enabled them to be endlessly adventurous within it. There is no band around making music that sounds like Mudhoney, with their combination of a crushing-but-swinging rhythm section and prickly, twangy, slightly sludgy guitar lines. This singularity—along with the band's beautiful and complete lack of concern for what anyone thinks about what they do—has given Mudhoney considerable latitude to experiment within their own sound, making Plastic Eternity a marvelously varied album. There are, to be sure, plenty of forceful, punk-adjacent jams here: "Move Under" is a 4/4 fuzztone beast and the misinformation-slamming "Here Comes the Flood" sounds like it could be a My Brother the Cow leftover. Yet the album also finds the band flirting with psych-tinged classic rock formalism ("One or Two") and vocoder-glitchy pogo-punk ("Plasticity"), while two alliteratively titled numbers come back-to-back with downtempo weirdness that's groove-y and spacey ("Flush the Fascists") and grinding and dirge-like ("Cascades of Crap"). Near the end of the set, with the rollicking "Little Dogs" gleefully evoking the Stooges, a little bit of early Mudhoney comes shining through, but for the most part, Plastic Eternity is the sound of a band who has fully evolved into its own, weird and wonderful thing. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

The double album Sleeper contains a previously unreleased live concert by Keith Jarrett's European quartet from the '70s, recorded at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza on April 16, 1979. Together with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen, Jarrett performs seven of his own compositions: "Personal Mountains," "Innocence," "So Tender," "Oasis," "Chant of the Soil," "Prism," and "New Dance" -- the latter song being the shortest here at seven minutes, while "Oasis" clocks in at over 28 minutes! As a companion piece to the live albums Nude Ants and Personal Mountains (both recorded the same year, even though the latter album was only released in 1989), Sleeper offers another noteworthy document of the creative interplay between these four musicians.© Christian Genzel /TiVo

The double album Sleeper contains a previously unreleased live concert by Keith Jarrett's European quartet from the '70s, recorded at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza on April 16, 1979. Together with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen, Jarrett performs seven of his own compositions: "Personal Mountains," "Innocence," "So Tender," "Oasis," "Chant of the Soil," "Prism," and "New Dance" -- the latter song being the shortest here at seven minutes, while "Oasis" clocks in at over 28 minutes! As a companion piece to the live albums Nude Ants and Personal Mountains (both recorded the same year, even though the latter album was only released in 1989), Sleeper offers another noteworthy document of the creative interplay between these four musicians.© Christian Genzel /TiVo

"Taken together, 'Gravity' and 'Fade' demonstrate the range and the boundaries of SHOALS, a modernized but familiar variety of the heavy-lidded strains of R&B and vibey rock that serve as the working definition of 'indie' on most Spotify playlists."© TiVo