Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Columbia Records 19439811582
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Last year, Bruce Springsteen released Western Stars, and it was unlike anything he’d done before. The album was inspired by the Southern California pop records of the late ’60s and early ’70s, and it seemed to free Springsteen to let the music flow more easily than it had for most of his albums since The Rising (2002). Western Stars felt like the work of a musician who had rediscovered the joy of making music.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Because Music 6508400
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Of all the recordings I’ve reviewed over the last few years, I’ve returned to the 2018 Christine and the Queens album Chris most often. Christine and the Queens is Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier, a French singer-songwriter, dancer, and producer. The songs on Chris are well written, intelligently arranged, and powerfully performed. I probably should have given it at least a four-star rating, and I’m not alone in holding it in high regard. The Guardian named it album of the year for 2018 and Time picked “Girlfriend,” a single from Chris, as the year’s best single.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Womanly Hips Music 50481CD
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
With her new album, Trouble and Strife, Joan Osborne joins the growing number of her musical peers who have been moved to address current events. This album doesn’t display the unbridled anger that drives some protest records. Instead, Osborne gives us glimpses of people whose stories help to make her points. Osborne’s first collection of new songs since Love and Hate (2014) is also ear-catching, with engaging melodies and solid hooks.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Cooking Vinyl COOKCD762
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
I approached Made of Rain, the first album released by the Psychedelic Furs since 1991’s World Outside, with the expectation of reliving a time when I had a full head of hair and was enjoying the synth-heavy, processed-guitar pop of the late ’80s and early ’90s. In other words, when MTV still showed music videos. Expecting that kind of nostalgia from the Furs isn’t really fair, and the good news is that the album itself avoids being a faint echo of past glories.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Blue Note Records B003216902
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
In July, during the fourth month of the pandemic, a video showed up in my Facebook feed. It was a live performance by guitarist Bill Frisell’s current trio, with Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums. They were outside on the porch of a house in Brooklyn, wearing face masks and playing, appropriately, the great Bacharach and David tune “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” Folks from the neighborhood were sitting on lawn chairs, enjoying the chance, rare these days, to hear live music.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
BMG 538603562
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
In 2016, producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys gave the Pretenders’ Alone a good dose of the original group’s energy, and it turned out to be the Pretenders’ strongest album in a long time. Hate for Sale, their newest, features their touring lineup of guitarist James Walbourne, bassist Nick Wilkinson, original drummer Martin Chambers, and original lead singer Chrissie Hynde on guitar and harmonica. The result is even stronger than Alone, with a cohesive group identity. Producer Stephen Street (Blur, Cranberrys, Smiths) lets loud guitars rule, but also points up other talents of this band.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
A&M/Intervention IR-SCD4
Format: SACD/CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
By March 1984, when Joe Jackson released his seventh album, Body and Soul, he’d already moved beyond punk and new wave. His fifth album, Night and Day (1982), and his score for the film Mike’s Murder (1983), had taken in other styles, indicating Jackson’s musical restlessness. Like those on Night and Day, the songs on Body and Soul defy easy categorization, but Jackson hinted at his jazz influences with the album’s cover art, which faithfully re-creates the cover of Sonny Rollins’s Vol. 2, photographed by Francis Wolff and designed by Harold Feinstein, and released on Blue Note in 1957.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Blue Note B003198202
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
GoGo Penguin’s last release, Ocean in a Drop: Music for Film (2019), was a five-track EP of music the trio wrote to accompany recent screenings of director Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (1982). Philip Glass had composed the original film score, and it was while listening to the EP that I finally heard a connection between Glass and GoGo Penguin -- the group’s use of repetitive melodies that change subtly and shift in emphasis owes something to Glass. Still, GoGo Penguin’s rhythmic elasticity and grasp of everything from jazz to various pop genres set them apart. Glass is just one of their many influences.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
Columbia 19439780982
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
When Bob Dylan released “Murder Most Foul” as a single in April, he called it “an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting” -- which sounded as if it was something he’d had in the can a while and had decided to release for the heck of it. I bought it as a high-resolution single, and I wasn’t alone. The song was Bob Dylan’s first No.1 on Billboard’s singles chart.
- Details
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Featured Releases
ECM 2679 (083 6036)
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Although John Scofield has appeared on ECM releases before -- as a co-leader, with Larry Goldings and Jack DeJohnette, of Trio Beyond on Saudades (2006); and as a sideman on three albums by bassist Marc Johnson -- Swallow Tales is his first outing as a leader for the label. Bassist Steve Swallow has appeared on ECM and its subsidiary labels Watt and XtraWatt many times, both as leader and sideman, and this album is Scofield’s tribute to his early teacher and mentor. It’s appropriate that Swallow Tales, comprising nine tunes by Swallow, is released on his home label.
- EOB: "Earth"
- Other Lives: "For Their Love"
- Fiona Apple: "Fetch the Bolt Cutters"
- Nap Eyes: "Snapshot of a Beginner"
- Roger Eno and Brian Eno: "Mixing Colours"
- James Taylor: "American Standard"
- Avishai Cohen: "Big Vicious"
- The Grip Weeds: "Giant on the Beach: Anniversary Edition (Remixed and Expanded)"
- En Attendant Ana: "Juillet"
- Beck: "Hyperspace"
- Leonard Cohen: "Thanks for the Dance"
- Gene Clark: "No Other"
- The Who: "Who"
- GoGo Penguin: "Ocean in a Drop: Music for Film"
- James Brown: "Live at Home with His Bad Self"
- Wilco: "Ode to Joy"
- Brittany Howard: "Jaime"
- Enrico Rava and Joe Lovano: "Roma"
- The Flaming Lips: "King’s Mouth: Music and Songs"
- Elephant9: "Psychedelic Backfire I"
- Various Artists: "Woodstock -- Back to the Garden: 50th Anniversary Experience"
- Philip Bailey: "Love Will Find a Way"
- Santana: "Africa Speaks"
- Bruce Springsteen: "Western Stars"
- The Waterboys: "Where the Action Is"
- John Paul White: "The Hurting Kind"
- Norah Jones: "Begin Again"
- Dominic Miller: "Absinthe"
- Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon: "Solstice"
- Joe Jackson: "Fool"
- Guided by Voices: "Zeppelin Over China"
- Bob Mould: "Sunshine Rock"
- Andrew Cyrille: "Lebroba"
- The Good, the Bad & the Queen: "Merrie Land"
- Marianne Faithfull: "Negative Capability"
- The 1975: "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships"
- Neneh Cherry: "Broken Politics"
- Elvis Costello: "Look Now" (Deluxe Edition)
- Mark Knopfler: "Down the Road Wherever"
- Paul Simon: "In the Blue Light"
- Christine and the Queens: "Chris"
- Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg: "Third Journey"
- Death Cab for Cutie: "Thank You for Today"
- Tord Gustavsen Trio: "The Other Side"
- The Jayhawks: "Back Roads and Abandoned Motels"
- Charles Lloyd & the Marvels + Lucinda Williams: "Vanished Gardens"
- David Bowie: "Welcome to the Blackout (Live London '78)"
- Ry Cooder: "The Prodigal Son"
- Grant Green: "Funk in France: From Paris to Antibes (1969-1970)" and "Slick! Live at Oil Can Harry's"
- Venetian Snares & Daniel Lanois: "Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois"
- The Who: "Live at the Fillmore East 1968"
- Belle and Sebastian: "How to Solve Our Human Problems"
- The Breeders: "All Nerve"
- MGMT: "Little Dark Age"
- Grant-Lee Phillips: "Widdershins"
- The James Hunter Six: "Whatever It Takes"
- Dr. Lonnie Smith: "All in My Mind"
- Bob Dylan: "The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979-1981"
- Chris Stapleton: "From a Room: Volume 2"
- Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: "Who Built the Moon?"
- The Rolling Stones: "On Air"
- Gord Downie: "Introduce Yerself"
- Django Bates' Belovèd: The Study of Touch
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor: "Luciferian Towers"
- Beck: "Colors"
- Gary Peacock: "Tangents"
- Steve Winwood: "Greatest Hits Live"
- Alphonse Mouzon: "In Search of a Dream"
- Arcade Fire: "Everything Now"
- Paul Weller: "A Kind Revolution"
- Chuck Berry: "Chuck"
- Frank Sinatra: "The Frank Sinatra Collection -- The Timex Shows Vols. 1 and 2"
- Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan: "Small Town"
- Procol Harum: "Novum"
- Ray Davies: "Americana"
- Aimee Mann: "Mental Illness"
- Bob Dylan: "Triplicate"
- Son Volt: "Notes of Blue"
- Cloud Nothings: "Life Without Sound"
- Max Richter: "Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works"
- Japandroids: "Near to the Wild Heart of Life"
- Flaming Lips: "Oczy Mlody"
- Bonnie Raitt: "Dig in Deep"
- The Monty Alexander Trio: "Montreux Alexander: The Monty Alexander Trio LIVE! at the Montreux Festival"
- Harvey Mandel: "Snake Pit"
- Big Audio Dynamite: "This Is Big Audio Dynamite"
- Pretenders: "Alone"
- Jimi Hendrix: "Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show 12/31/1969"
- Wilco: "Schmilco"
- Daniel Lanois/Rocco DeLuca: "Goodbye to Language"
- Amos Lee: "Spirit"
- Peter Erskine Trio: "As It Was"
- Jeff Beck: "Loud Hailer"
- The Posies: "Solid States"
- Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle: "Colvin & Earle: Deluxe Edition"
- The Tragically Hip: "Man Machine Poem"
- Eric Clapton: "I Still Do"
- My Morning Jacket: "It Still Moves (Deluxe Reissue)"
- Musiq Soulchild: "Life on Earth"
- Santana: "IV"
- Jeff Buckley: "You and I"
- Peter Frampton: "Acoustic Classics"
- Dr. Lonnie Smith: "Evolution"
- The I Don't Cares: "Wild Stab"
- Elvis Costello: "Detour: Live at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, featuring Larkin Poe"
- Taste: "What's Going On: Live at the Isle of Wight"
- Tom Jones: "Long Lost Suitcase"
- Bobby Hutcherson: "Happenings"
- Them: "The Complete Them 1964-1967"
- The Robert Cray Band: "4 Nights of 40 Years Live"
- Blue Rodeo: "Live at Massey Hall"
- Joe Jackson: "Fast Forward"
- David Gilmour: "Rattle That Lock"
- Gene Ammons: "Boss Tenor"
- Wilco: "Star Wars"
- Cannonball Adderley: "Somethin' Else"
- Tame Impala: "Currents"
- Leon Bridges: "Coming Home"
- Rickie Lee Jones: "The Other Side of Desire"
- James Taylor: "Before This World"
- My Morning Jacket: "The Waterfall"
- Canned Heat with John Lee Hooker: "Carnegie Hall 1971"
- Dizzy Gillespie: "Live at Ronnie Scott's, Volume 1"
- Mark Knopfler: "Tracker"
- Van Morrison: "Duets: Re-working the Catalogue"
- Justin Kauflin: "Dedication"
- Bob Dylan: "Shadows in the Night"
- Steve Gadd Band: "70 Strong"
- King Crimson: "Live at the Orpheum: Los Angeles 2014"
- Various Artists: "The Blues & Salvation"
- Smashing Pumpkins: "Monuments to an Elegy"
- Jeff Beck: "Live in Tokyo"
- Eric Johnson and Mike Stern: "Eclectic"
- Eric Clapton: "Planes, Trains and Eric"
- Leonard Cohen: "Popular Problems"
- Adam Cohen: "We Go Home"
- Chick Corea Trio: "Trilogy"
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: "Hypnotic Eye"
- Sheryl Bailey: "A Meeting of Minds"
- ZZ Top: "Live at Montreux 2013"
- Chrissie Hynde: "Stockholm"
- "Common Ground: Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy"
- The Rippingtons: "Fountain of Youth"
- Alice Cooper: "Super Duper Alice Cooper"
- The Black Keys: "Turn Blue"
- The Robert Cray Band: "In My Soul"
- Gord Downie and the Sadies: "Gord Downie, the Sadies, and the Conquering Sun"
- Neil Finn: "Dizzy Heights"
- The Hold Steady: "Teeth Dreams"
- Neneh Cherry: "Blank Project"
- Beck: "Morning Phase"
- The Sadies: "Internal Sounds"
- Rickie Lee Jones: "Rickie Lee Jones"
- Judy Wexler: "What I See"
- Archie Shepp and Attica Blues Orchestra Live: "I Hear the Sound"
- Billie Joe + Norah: "Foreverly"
- Nick Lowe: "Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family"
- Elvis Costello and the Roots: "Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs"
- Allen Toussaint: "Songbook"
- Moby: "Innocents"
- Bob Dylan: "Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) -- The Bootleg Series Vol.10"
- Joe Barbieri: "Chet Lives!"
- Steve Gadd Band: "Gadditude"
- Smith Westerns: "Soft Will"
- Kanye West: "Yeezus"
- Vampire Weekend: "Modern Vampires of the City"
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: "Specter at the Feast"
- Daft Punk: "Random Access Memories"
- Elias Haslanger: "Church on Monday"
- Michael Feinstein: "Change of Heart: The Songs of André Previn"
- David Bowie: "The Next Day"
- Hiromi/The Trio Project: "Move"
- Atoms for Peace: "Amok"
- Patricia Barber: "Smash"
- Yo La Tengo: "Fade"
- Orchestre National de Jazz: "Piazzolla!"
- Lifehouse: "Almería"
- War Poets: "Dulce et Decorum Est"
- Luka Bloom: "This New Morning"
- Poncho Sanchez and His Latin Jazz Band: "Live in Hollywood"
- David Chesky: "Dr. Chesky’s Sensational Fantastic and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!"
- Father's Children: "Father's Children"
- The xx: "Coexist"
- The Gaddabouts: "Look Out Now!"
- Easy Star All-Stars: "Easy Star’s Thrillah"
- Return to Forever IV: "The Mothership Returns"
- Mike Stern: "All Over the Place"
- Sam Cooke: "The Best of Sam Cooke"
- Esperanza Spalding: "Radio Music Society"
- Ahmad Jamal: "Blue Moon: The New York Session"
- Leonard Cohen: "Old Ideas"
- Pink Floyd: "Wish You Were Here"
- Jeff Campbell: "Stop and Go"
- Miles Davis: "Miles! Live at Montreux: The Definitive Miles Davis at Montreux DVD Collection 1973-1991"
- Ray Charles: "Live in France 1961"
- Coldplay: "Mylo Xyloto"
- The Hollies: "Look Through Any Window 1963-1975"
- Doug Munro and La Pompe Attack: "A Very Gypsy Christmas"
- Chris Bauer: "In a Yuletide Groove: Harmonica Jazz for the Holidays"
- Paul Motian: "The Windmills of Your Mind"
- Three to Close 2011
- Josh Nelson: "Discoveries"
- Patricia Barber: "Café Blue"
- Mindy Canter: "Fluteus Maximus"
- Steve Cropper: "Dedicated"
- Andrea Wolper: "Parallel Lives"
- The Left Banke: "Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina"
- Cooler Days
- Peter Erskine, Bob Mintzer, Darek Oles, and Alan Pasqua: "Standards 2 -- Movie Music"
- Zach Williams and the Reformation: "A Southern Offering"
- The Mike Eldred Trio: "61 and 49"
- Aimée Allen: "Winters & Mays"
- Maeve Gilchrist: "Song of Delight"
- Spectacle: Elvis Costello with . . . (Season 2)
- Summer Sounds
- Hiromi: "Voice"
- Ben Waters: "Boogie 4 Stu -- A Tribute to Ian Stewart"
- Nat "King" Cole: "After Midnight"
- Paul Simon: "So Beautiful or So What"
- Eliane Elias: "Light My Fire"
- Esperanza Spalding: "Chamber Music Society"
- Something New
- Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band: "That’s How We Roll"
- “Stan Kenton: Artistry in Rhythm”
- David LaFleur: "Them Bones . . ."
- Gregg Allman: "Low Country Blues"
- Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: "Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!"
- The Underground
- Jeff Beck: "Rock’n’Roll Party Honoring Les Paul"
- Jovino Santos Neto: "Veja O Som"
- The O’Farrill Brothers: "Giant Peach"
- Michael William Gilbert: "I Can See From Here"
- Selmer Saxharmonic: "Flying Saxophone Circus"
- Andy Farber and His Orchestra: "This Could Be the Start of Something Big"
- Eli Degibri: "Israeli Song"
- Jazz Shortlist
- Joey DeFrancesco, Robi Botos, Vito Rezza, and Phil Dwyer: "One Take, Volume Four"
- Treasa Levasseur: "Low Fidelity"
- Spin: "Believe"
- Michael McDonald: "This Christmas -- Live in Chicago"
- Berlin Voices: "About Christmas"
- Mike Mainieri / Marnix Busstra Quartet: "Trinary Motion / Live in Europe"
- Latin Flavor
- Marcos Amorim Trio: "Portraits"
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “Classic Albums: Damn the Torpedoes”
- David Bixler & Arturo O’Farrill: “The Auction Project”
- Miles Davis: “Someday My Prince Will Come”
- Frank Sinatra: “Sinatra at the Sands”
- John Mellencamp: "No Better Than This"
- Sons and Brothers
- Otis Taylor: "Clovis People, Vol 3"
- Steve Cropper & Felix Cavaliere: "Midnight Flyer"
- New Latin Quarter Presents: "The Jazz and Blues Collection, Volume 1"
- The Grip Weeds: "Strange Change Machine"
- Lawrence Lebo: "Don’t Call Her Larry, Volume 3: American Roots"
- The Rolling Stones: "Exile on Main Street: Deluxe Edition"
- The Nomad's Song
- Ray Charles: "Genius + Soul = Jazz (Expanded Edition)"
- Sebastian Sternal Trio: "Paris"
- Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim: "Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings"
- William Orbit: "My Oracle Lives Uptown"
- Catherine Russell: "Inside This Heart of Mine"
- Dusty Springfield, Small Faces, Herman’s Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers: "British Invasion"
- Freedy Johnston: "Rain on the City"
- "The Hot Spot" (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- David Olney: "Dutchman’s Curve"
- Jason and the Scorchers: "Halcyon Times"
- The Music Will Find You
- Lin McPhillips: "My Shining Hour"
