New Music: The Fuse, Lady Gaga, My Morning Jacket, Alain Planes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/03/2025 (561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROCK

The Fuse
At the Palace (A.V.R.A.)

This self-produced album is a year old now, but, since the Winnipeg sextet is playing the Park Theatre on Saturday, now’s a good time to remind people that Jeff Hatcher (vocals/guitars), his brothers Paul (drums) and Don (guitar/pedal steel/keyboards/vocals), their longtime friend Dave Briggs (keyboards/guitar/saxophone/vocals) and relative newcomers Laurie MacKenzie (guitar/vocals) and John Neal (bass) are this city’s foremost keepers of rock ’n’ roll’s original flame.

These veterans were born to the sounds of Sun Records and Buddy Holly, weaned on the British invasion and the Everly Brothers and came of age with the Byrds, late-era Beach Boys, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the breezy sounds of the Laurel Canyon scene.

To this day, they play as if they absorbed all that music by osmosis, and they’ve spent their lives creating an authentic fusion of these influences.

The Fuse’s stripped-back energy was heralded as “new wave” when the band first hit the boards in the 1970s, and respect for their ability to get people onto dance floors soon yielded to admiration for Jeff Hatcher’s songwriting ability.

The Fuse is a part-time project these days, but the Hatchers, Briggs and their friends have never stopped jamming, writing and recording new material in Paul’s basement (a.k.a. The Palace).

This 20-song collection is an exhaustive document of material gathered and refined since the band’s last release, 2015’s Brilliant Sun, and it’s a timeless affirmation of timeless music, full of chiming guitars, stomping beats, swirling organs, rollicking piano, exquisite vocal harmonizing and head-bobbing, deceptively simple singalong songs about life and love and loss and hope. Seek it out — or get a copy at Saturday’s show. ★★★★ out of five

Stream these: Nowhere at All; Against the Dying Light; Thorns in Your Crown

— John Kendle

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POP

Lady Gaga
Mayhem (Streamline)

She hath returned: a new Lady Gaga, like the old Lady Gaga, but a different Lady Gaga.

Mayhem is a satisfying full-length project of big pop material, both a return to her roots and a hard press on the gas pedal.

Her 2008 debut The Fame introduced a new generation to the addictive properties of expertly crafted electropop. The Fame Monster a year later cemented her position as a modern great, a saviour of theatrical pop that once recalled Madonna and now serves as a reminder that big belts are cinema. Then came the genre explorations of Born This Way, Artpop, Joanne (arriving years before pop would go country) and 2020’s Chromatica.

Half a decade later, is the world ready again for her club anthems? Or is Mayhem an attempt to revitalize a big pop sound left behind in the streaming era?

The answer, of course, is up to the listener. Some will hear Abracadabra as life-affirming dance music. Others will press play on Killah and balk at its Gesaffelstein-aided sound. They might read the earworm Disease as a song that too easily recalls the mid-2010s of her heyday, but to do so would strip it of stadium-sized pleasures. It is a great song — a return to a classic Gaga.

The truth is, Gaga has reclaimed her early dark-pop sensibilities and ushered them into her 2025 reality. It manifests in a few ways, most prominently in her delivery. Lady Gaga sounds like she is having fun, from the modular Moog of the ballad fake-out Vanish Into You and the Bad Romance easter egg of Garden of Eden, to the springy synth of Perfect Celebrity.

Mayhem will sound familiar to Gaga listeners, but they will hear an evolved version. It is Gaga staying true to herself, as she has been known to do. ★★★★ out of five

Stream: Abracadabra; Perfect Celebrity

— Maria Sherman, The Associated Press

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ROCK

My Morning Jacket
Is (ATO)

My Morning Jacket likes to hide some of its best music behind unassuming titles.

Twenty years ago, the Louisville-based jam-infused rock band led by Jim James released Z, one of its most heralded records. And now comes Is, its 10th full-length record.

So, is Is any good?

Yes, Is is.

Nearing their third decade as a band, My Morning Jacket’s veterancy shines. They continue to improve on their ability to write melodic and focused psychedelic rock songs, and for that reason, seemingly every track on Is could be a single, a highlight of their live set or a launching pad for improvisation on stage.

For Is, My Morning Jacket handed the producer duties over to Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen) and it paid off. O’Brien doesn’t mess with the sound fans love and expect; instead, he seems to have focused the band in a way that allows it to deliver a unified, 10-song collection.

“Hopefully those songs will be helpful to people and give them some kind of peace as they try to deal with the insanity of the world because that’s what music does for me,” James said in a press release.

That happens at the jump. Opener Out in the Open leads with a catchy guitar riff and the lyrics, “I’m realizing what’s at stake now / I can’t pretend that I’m not scared / But I’ll live while I’m still free.”

On the love song Everyday Magic, James finds transcendence in the mundane. Time Waited another love song, seems destined to become a standard for the band, with its easy-going melody and inventive sample of pedal steel giant Buddy Emmons’ Blue Jade.

My Morning Jacket shifts the weirdness to a higher gear with Squid Ink, a blues-y rocker with a propulsive beat certain to come alive in front of audiences.

From the longtime fan to the newbie, Is delivers with familiar, elevated songs. ★★★★ out of five

Stream: Time Waited; Squid Ink

— Scott Bauer, The Associated Press

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CLASSICAL

Alain Planes
Satie (Harmonia Mundi)

This winsome new releasemarks the centenary of Erik Satie’s death in 1925, with a program of works performed by Alain Planes on a period 1928 “Pleyel” piano. The French artist is also joined by baritone Marc Mauillon for Trois Melodies, and pianist Francois Pinel for Trois Morceaux en forme de poire written for piano four hands.

As one might expect, such iconic works as Three Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes No. 1 to 5, are included, with Planes bringing his sensitive artistry to each of the individual pieces that also display his keen understanding of their idiosyncratic quirks and eccentricities.

Another gem is the three-part Cold Pieces, ‘Airs to Make you Flee,’ not published until 1912 and reflecting Satie’s extreme poverty at the time including being forced to live in an unheated closet in Paris’s Montmartre. The larger suite that brings in Mauillon, Three Pear-Shaped Pieces, comprised of seven movements is another; an ironic response to critics decrying the lack of form in the composer’s music.

Trois Melodies sung by Pinel, offers welcome contrast, as well as a golden opportunity to hear vocal music by the composer who wrote predominantly for the keyboard.

An additional treat is an extensive set of liner notes featuring illustrations by both Satie, as well as Planes, providing further background information as well as a taste of the former’s uniquely colourful world.

Special mention must also be made of shorter solos Je te veux, La Diva de l”empire, and lastly, the lilting, lyrical Valse-Ballet, the latter in particular proving the poetic beating heart of the Velvet Gentleman who continues to mesmerize new generations of listeners 100 years after his demise. ★★★★ and a half out of five

Stream: Gnossiennes No. 1 to 5; Three Pear-Shaped Pieces; Valse-Ballet

— Holly Harris