Pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey recorded their debut, Uneasy, shortly before the pandemic hit the United States, receiving critical acclaim upon its release in 2021. Compassion, the acoustic trio's follow-up, finds the three musicians in top form again. Iyer wrote all of the material except for Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed," Roscoe Mitchell's "Nonaah," and one other track. Sorey is a lauded composer, and Oh's releases as a leader feature her fine compositions, but the pair's extraordinary improvisatory and interpretive skills are what's on display here. The title of "Arch" refers to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the well-known South African anti-apartheid activist. The cut is an example of how inventive this rhythm section can be: Oh's playing is strikingly expressive throughout the range of her instrument, and Sorey's drumming is marked by accents that enliven the music's flow. Iyer can be quietly impressionistic or let loose dense, forceful passages that bear traces of McCoy Tyner. "It Goes" was originally composed to accompany an Eve L. Ewing poem that imagines a warm encounter with Emmett Till had he lived into adulthood rather than being lynched at 14. This wordless version works nicely as a solo piano piece, one with a gentle bounce evocative of Erik Satie.  Compassion closes strongly with its most electric track,  "Free Spirits/Drummer's Song." Penned by the late saxophonist John Stubblefield, it is a catchy, hard-driving slice of post-bop that clearly energized the group. Later, "Drummer's Song," by the late pianist Geri Allen, emerges. The band really blasts off as they dig into Allen's irresistible hook: Sorey's drumming brims with ever-shifting details and a thrilling sense of propulsion, and Iyer's tension-and-release moves are gripping.   © Fred Cisterna/Qobuz

The first album from the young British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is an instant Qobuzissime! When the Chandos stable signs an emerging artist, we already know that their first release will be full of pleasant surprises. Here, the Birmingham-born conductor and an ardent defender of Russian music chooses Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful pages, skilfully avoiding the overplayed The Nutcracker, Eugene Onegin and Sleeping Beauty. It goes without saying they are classics for a reason, but the rest of Tchaikovsky's repertoire is well worth a deeper look. At the head of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alpesh Chauhan dwells at generous length on the more expressive side of the Russian composer, who excelled in the projection of heart-rending pathos. From the Overture and Polonaise from the opera Cherevichki to the fantasy The Tempest and the Francesca da Rimini suite, Chauhan displays a visionary and circumspect intelligence of the different sections of the orchestra and the sudden diegetic changes, always executed with a hallucinating fluidity. Even more fascinating is the perfect legibility of the different timbres, impeccably individualised while they maintain great coherence within the ensemble. One leaves this disc with the feeling they’ve returned from a long journey, and with the conviction that one has witnessed the birth of a tremendous conductor. Rarely has Tchaikovsky resounded with such a sense of drama or with such inflections of immensity. Alpesh Chauhan will be creating dreams for much time to come. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

This is the definitive Kansas recording and includes their most famous tune, "Dust in the Wind." The band is in peak form and also churned out the single "Point of Know Return," which is still played daily on classic rock stations. While their pop-oriented approach and standard rock guitar sound helped define the classic rock sound of the '70s, careful listening reveals that this band's talent goes beyond colleagues such as Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Boston. Their arrangements and time signatures more accurately reflect the music of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. "Paradox" and "The Spider" are both excellent examples of their progressive approach. Unfortunately, the band always struggled to maintain a healthy balance of progression combined with pop. That made for such awkward moments here as "Portrait (He Knew)" and "Lightning's Hand." Yet despite the minor inconsistencies and a dated sound, their interplay and superior musicianship make this both an essential classic rock and progressive rock recording.© Robert Taylor /TiVo

Kae Tempest always creates music that sounds like some sort of sonic emergency. Fronting the English spoken word scene, the London native has delivered one of their best albums yet, The Line Is a Curve. It’s predominantly produced by Dan Carey, who Tempest worked with on Everybody Down in 2014 and Let Them Eat Chaos in 2016. Curved lines are, as you might expect, the main theme of this record. Kae Tempest explores their quest for meaning with such profound accuracy, bringing together perfectly combined words, clear enunciation and human concepts to forge a beautiful optimism that’s so rare in today’s music. Tempest never falls into the trap of purely offering critique and criticism either, they go further, offering solutions. Their way of thinking about the world really shines on this album. The Line Is a Curve is their first record since they came out as non-binary, and it definitely feels like a reflection on identity and societal expectations, and how they can sometimes prove to be malleable and porous. Just like the album cover, these notions can be undefined, blurred and bent. Kae Tempest invites Lianne La Havas to join them on No Prizes, a track that tackles the pitfalls of these new notions, and even Kevin Abstract from Brockhampton on the single More Pressure, which represents the crazy speed of the world we’re living in. But Kae Tempest never sounds like they’re giving up. Quite the opposite. The find beautiful inspiration in the chaos of the world around us. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

What would happen in you crashed classic club rhythms into classic rock? Pendulum pick up the pieces on their sophomore album, but American debut, In Silico. It's a "Showdown" between late-'60s hard rock and raging techno beats on the set opener, as the band blast the arena with their big, bold sound. "The Tempest," which bookends the set, is filled with ominous clouds, while a metal rain splatters the grooves. Throughout this set Pendulum swings across the rock spectrum. The stomping "Mutiny," for example, clashes glam rock with classic rock -- think "Radar Love" played by the Glitter Band. That could be a single; "Granite" already has been, its dizzy mix of slamming techno beats, incendiary synths, fiery guitar licks, and space rock effects shooting up the U.K. and Australian dance charts. "Granite" has a New Romantic tincture, a style that also tinges "The Other Side"'s funky/hard rock hybrid and "Different," a number that blends jungle beats with psychedelia and prog rock. The latter's rhythm is ripped straight out of Prodigy's hands, as is the one that supports "9000 Miles," where the band board the Caravan and travel from the Canterbury scene to the chill room. Prodigy aren't their only obvious influence, Moby gets his due too, as Pendulum tip their hats to his take on the "James Bond Theme" with the pomp-rocky "Propane Nightmares," another sizzling single. Yet it's the far more subtle "Visions" that's the band's epiphany, where they weave together a sewing box worth of threads from the '70s electronica scene into a sunny tapestry of sound. Long ago synths and guitars were both integral to the rock scene, eventually they parted company, then found themselves at odds. Pendulum is determined to heal that breach and bring the warring parties back together, looking to the past for support, while striding boldly into the future.© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo

The legendary British composer will always be most identified with his breakthrough long-play composition "Tubular Bells" and the way it was used to illuminate fear in The Exorcist. The happy truth is that since then he's amassed an incredible catalog of over 20 albums featuring just about every instrumental form but jazz: pop, classical, new age, world music, computer game, film soundtrack, etc. The title of his 2008 45-minute classical-influenced opus Music of the Spheres is a reference to the prolific and eclectic composer's feeling that all music should aim to represent the spiritual or otherworldly elements of life -- something beyond the mundane and everyday. He accomplishes that via the sheer hypnotic beauty of the gentler passages and the percussive drama of others, both of which characterize the multi-movement opening track, "Harbinger," which lives up to its title as a preview of the overwhelming, ethereal joys to come. Mike Oldfield is a highly accomplished film composer and it would be easy to imagine gorgeous, sweeping pieces like "Animus" and "Silhouette" behind pastoral romantic scenes, and action-packed, percussively dense expressions like "The Tempest" building some heavy suspense for some nail-biting plot. Completely recorded by an orchestra at Abbey Road studios and featuring Oldfield himself on guitar, Music of the Spheres -- which features guest performances by world-renowned young soprano (and Decca labelmate) Hayley Westenra and classical piano phenom Lang Lang -- is huge in scope yet at heart simple and emotionally direct on a purely melodic level. While the piece was entirely conceived, produced, and written by Oldfield, he turned to popular modern classical composer Karl Jenkins to translate his ideas into traditional classical notations arranged for orchestra -- a great departure from the artist's usual array of studio-only wizardry. Jenkins, who once played oboe on a live BBC recording of "Tubular Bells" in 1975, gets a co-production credit, and with good reason. Oldfield scored his music via a computer program called Logic, while Jenkins used Sibelius to create the musical notation. Oldfield recorded an elaborate demo using orchestral samples, then handed it over so that Jenkins could add the human touch by re-recording it by an orchestra of classical musicians. It's a rich, heartfelt collaboration that breaks new ground for both men. Oldfield had no trouble declaring that he was almost moved to tears while listening to Music of the Spheres come alive at Abbey Road. It's a primitive spiritual and emotional response that every listener would later relate to.© Jonathan Widran /TiVo