New music

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This article was published 10/11/2022 (1090 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP/ROCK

VVonder

Now and Again (Independent)

First things first: the double-v in VVonder is a W (just like Alvvays) and it’s the name of the latest project from Winnipeg musical polymath Micah Braun. A quadruple-threat as a singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, Braun has been part of the Winnipeg scene since he was a precocious teen (in Jicah, the Nods, Colour Revolution and countless other variations). His music has always reflected passions for upbeat indie rock and melodic psychedelia (of the sort favoured by late-period Beatles or, say, E.L.O.) and Now and Again is the perfect distillation of both — 11 beautiful songs that show off Braun’s fabulous voice, expressive musicality and deceptively wry lyrics.

In recent months, VVonder has become a four-piece live band featuring Braun, keyboardist Nate Jacobucci, bassist Joey Penner and drummer Steve Martens, but the material here was recorded and mixed during the pandemic by Braun and co-producer Matt Filopoulos, with Dan Bertnick providing drum tracks.

Braun wastes no time with first track Bye Bye Baby, blending a Pavement-ish opening with a singalong, power-pop chorus which belies the death throes of the song’s relationship. Interlude to Madness gets heavier, blending hallucinatory lyrics of isolation and anxiety with punchy, crunching guitar, keys and drums. The squalling guitar, glockenspiel and sweet harmonies of Nothing Matters somehow match its lyrical air of indifference, and Degenerates is an ironically spry ditty about druggie slackers, featuring soaring harmonies and echoey, distant counter-harmonies.

There’s little Braun doesn’t try on Now and Again — Let a Lil’ Love is an antidote to misanthropy with an audacious a cappella bridge, while Good Old’ Fashioned Way lays the album’s best vocal over a magnificent Wurlitzer organ swirl.

This record’s centrepiece, though, must be Hurt So Much, a mid-tempo, organ-and-electric-piano ballad that would fit nicely into the Randy Newman canon (he’s even name-checked). The sentiment of its exquisite falsetto refrain — “Why does everything hurt so much?” — echoes throughout Now and Again. ★★★★ out of 5

STREAM THESE: Bye Bye Baby, Hurt So Much, Good Ol’ Fashioned Way

— John Kendle

POP/ROCK

Arctic Monkeys

The Car (Domino Records)

Open the door and step into the epic film reel of the Arctic Monkey’s dreamy journey, The Car — it’s quirky, expansive and deeply soulful.

The British alternative rock group is two decades into its career and has forged an oxymoronic edgy path forward in a self-assured, cinematic behemoth of a seventh album.

The Car shouldn’t work but it does and it’s magic. It’s reminiscent of ’70s neo-soul/funk but incorporates a grand orchestra that builds into a conflicting burst of release throughout the album. It feels like uneven textures clashing against each other. Still, it allows itself to be playful and ridiculous, primarily owing to lead singer Alex Turner’s impeccable vocals and earnest but sardonic lyrics.

The opening track, There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, introduces the album’s romantic and grand production with an upbeat but coy Arctic Monkeys sound. The four-minute ballad builds like a movie soundtrack while Turner sings, “So if you wanna walk me to the car/You oughta know I’ll have a heavy heart. So can we please be absolutely sure/That there’s a mirrorball?”

The lead single, Body Paint, is a sultry examination of a lover’s potential infidelity. The song is soaked with longing and sadness as Turner sings, “If you’re thinking of me, I’m probably thinking of you.”

Each song on The Car is deeply romantic and intentionally grand. The heavy strings layered against soaring guitar solos from band member Jamie Cook on Big Ideas push the band’s new sound to unknown limits.

Heavy-hitting songs such as Sculptures of Anything Goes sound like the dark, mysterious Arctic Monkeys that most listeners are most familiar with. But don’t be fooled, the song builds and builds like a grandiose, European noir spy thriller.

Hello You allows the band to have some romantic fun in a lounge-y ballad, as Turner apologizes to a lover: “Hello you/Still dragging out a long goodbye? I ought to apologize/For one of the last times.”

In a perfect conclusion to a larger-than-life album, Perfect Sense closes out The Car with a stunning, harmonic ballad that says goodnight to its listeners like a bedtime story or the peaceful resolution to a film. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Body Paint, Perfect Sense

— Nardos Haile, The Associated Press

JAZZ

Patricia Brennan

More Touch (Pyroclastic Records)

Vibraphone and marimba player Patricia Brennan was born in Mexico before moving to the United States. Her new album (due for official release next week) has a “percussion quartet” — all instruments basically rhythmic — that explores influences from Mexico, specifically the Son Jarocho musical style of the Veracruz area, and Afro-Cuban music.

The percussion quartet features drummer Marcus Gilmore, bassist Kim Cass and percussionist Mauricio Herrera, and the result is wonderfully rhythmic and exploratory music that is much more than simply conventional Latin rhythms.

Brennan takes the vibraphone to a new level of avant-garde with this album. There are electronic effects, very modern harmonies and dissonances with the foundation never lost. The title track, for example, has beautifully melodic moments that maintain the pulse that marks this music. Space for Hour moves through a quarter-hour of adventurous, poly-rhythmic and sometimes pounding music that is constantly exciting.

It has been suggested that Brennan has dragged the vibraphone into the 21st century. Whether or not that is totally true, with this album she has presented a remarkable and very different-sounding quartet that is a delight for both jazz fans and percussion lovers. The rhythms are constantly shifting while electronic effects soar wildly over the beat, as in El Nahualli.

The Woman Who Weeps offers a gentler mood that continues the fascinating blend of acoustic and electronic grooves. Bassist Cass is simply extraordinary in her ensemble playing and solos, as hers is arguably the least “percussive” instrument of the quartet.

Brennan played in percussion ensembles at conservatory in Philadelphia, enhancing her awareness of the concept of creative improvisation within the music of her native country. The result here is a terrific blend of familiar-sounding jazz/cultural riffs with challenging and completely new ideas of how to express them. This is exploratory jazz at its best. ★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Unquiet Respect, Space for Hour

— Keith Black

CLASSICAL

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Paul Hillier

Rachmaninov: Vespers & Complete All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 (Harmonia Mundi)

In this new release by Harmonia Mundi and under the baton of artistic director Paul Hillier, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir performs Rachmaninov’s Vespers, collectively known as All-Night Vigil, Op. 37, a deeply moving work that never fails to stir the soul.

Composed for a cappella choir in 1915, the 15-movement work, comprised of settings of text from the Russian Orthodox all-night vigil ceremony, draws further solemnity from its incorporation of ancient church modes.

The ensemble brings requisite gravitas to each of its sections, in turn grouped together as Vespers (No. 1-6) and Matins, (No. 7-15), ranging from the more contemplative to theatrical. A special nod to basso profundo Vladimir Miller for his bone-rattling vocals heard in Come, Let Us Worship, No. 1, O Gentle Light, No. 4, My Soul Magnifies the Lord, No. 11 and Great Doxology, No. 12, as well as tenor Tiit Kogerman, whose plaintive solo lines similarly resonate with the ages in Come, Let Us Worship.

Other highlights include Hexapsalmos: Glory to God in the Highest, No. 7, including its effective tone painting of “bells;” Nunc dimittis, No. 5, notably performed at the Russian-born composer’s funeral by his own request; and Hymn of the Resurrection, No. 10, with the well-blended choristers’ voices rising up to heaven itself in this compelling new addition to the choral discography. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Vespers, Great Doxology, No. 12

— Holly Harris