New music

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2020 (2315 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AMERICANA

Shelby Lynne
Shelby Lynne (Everso Records/Thirty Tigers Records)

The first time I played Shelby Lynne’s self-titled new album all the way through, my music player served up Cowboy Junkies’ Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning as soon as it ended. An apt segue, I thought, as the ethereal mood of the Junkies, whose music is suffused with gentle warmth even as it grapples with big questions, matches Shelby’s current tone and timbre.

Lynne made this album, the 16th of her 33-year career, more or less by herself, playing bass, drums, guitar, piano and even saxophone, with occasional guest spots for exalted keyboardists such as Benmont Tench, Mimi Friedman, Billy Mitchell and Ed Roth. It’s quite a feat, too, because, although it was obviously made quite recently, it doesn’t really sound “of the moment.” Lynne is well-versed in the sounds and traditions of blue-eyed soul, earthy Americana, torchy jazz and breezy SoCal pop/rock, and the 11 songs here are seductive and timelessly familiar while also being subtly raw and direct.

Many are co-writes with film producer and screenwriter Cynthia Mort, in whose movie, When We Kill the Creators, Lynne plays an artist conflicted by the compromises she must make to fulfil her vision. If the role sounds pretty close to home for a singer-songwriter who began her career not quite fitting into Nashville’s late-’80s, pop-country cookie cutter, well… it is.

The tunes themselves, though, aren’t expressions of Lynne’s artistic conflicts as much as they are expressions of her innermost desires and doubts, and her heartfelt longings and insecurities. Once you’re enveloped in these warm musical blankets, you’ll almost be surprised to realize they are as much about loss and heartache and regret as they are about the innate human need for tenderness and togetherness. That said, the showstopper is Here I Am, a plaintive, solo-piano-and-vocal, come-and-get-me ballad on which Lynne lays her heart bare.

Bravo. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Love is Coming; Revolving Broken Heart; Here I Am

— John Kendle

 

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ROOTS / COUNTRY

Danny Barnes
Man on Fire (ATO Records)

A word that’s consistently used to describe singer-songwriter Danny Barnes is “adventurous.” On his new album, Man on Fire, banjo player Barnes offers his now-standard blend of rootsy goodness that, while it doesn’t defy description, indeed pushes the boundaries of what one might consider “normal” banjo-centric music.

Barnes is nearly 60 and has been creating music for most of his life. Since his early releases with the Austin, Texas-based band the Bad Livers, he’s found ways to lift his instrument from the traditional to the experimental and beyond. Man On Fire isn’t as untamed as some of his previous releases but it doesn’t disappoint.

Album opener Mule is, as you might not have guessed, a life story as told by that most maligned offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Barnes plays cheerfully and uses his unwavering falsetto to bring the song to life and get the ball rolling. The stage is set for a few more songs about those who toil daily trying to move their lives forward as best they’re able. Coal Mine relates the workaday habits of those who clock in and dive underground for a good portion of their lives, and Juke details the way they unwind from their toils (“Jukin’ at a Saturday night when I can / I’m a workin’ man, on a family plan / come Monday morning I go back in the ground / dig it up again, with all my no-good friends”).

There’s a funky feel to Awful Strange and Barnes even gets a touch political on Enemy Factory. Toss in an ode to a rare brand of motorcycle (Zundapp) and you get where Barnes is taking us. Along for the ride are John Paul Jones, ex of Led Zeppelin, on bass guitar and mandolin on three tracks, singer Dave Matthews, folk/fusion jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain (Bruce Springsteen, Chris Cornell, David Bowie, Randy Newman), making for some spot-on picking and grinning. ★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Zundapp, The Less That I Know

— Jeff Monk

 

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JAZZ

Itaca Quartet
Vortex (nusica.org)

The Itaca Quartet is an international collaborative band that started life in 2016 and has toured both in Canada and Europe. The name “Itaca” is derived from the first three letters of Italy and first two of Canada, as two of the members are Italian (alto player Nicola Fazzini and bass guitarist Alessandro Fedrigo) and two are Canadian (clarinetist François Houle and drummer Nick Fraser). This album, recorded in Vancouver last year, clearly shows that these four musicians were not thrown together at the last minute. They are close-knit and very sensitive to each other. Listeners from this country may be more aware of the Canadian pair, whose musicianship is absolutely first-rate, but the Italians are every bit as accomplished.

The music here is avant-garde and wonderfully inventive. Each member composed two of the eight tracks on the album, with solos interwoven beautifully throughout. Several tracks are wildly edgy, such as Sketch 26, while others, such as ‘Nette, are cheerfully melodic.

If you read these reviews regularly, you know of my huge respect for both Houle and Fraser, who are highly regarded in the global jazz world and not just here at home. Fazzini and Federigo must now be added to my A-list (particulary impressive is Fedrigo’s bass guitar, which provides much more than just a foundation). When any quartet demonstrates with its music that all four are in sync, it gives the listener great pleasure.

I believe a tour was in the works for 2020 but is obviously off the table for now. Like everyone else in the music world, jazz musicians are suffering because of the pandemic, but there are still purchase options for albums. I’m just saying…

★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Saturno, Chorale

— Keith Black

 

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CLASSICAL

Zane Zalis
I Believe: An Oratorio for Humanity (Ars Produktion)

The inaugural European recording of Winnipeg composer/lyricist Zane Zalis’s passion project, I Believe, captures the horrors of the Holocaust while inspiring hope for the future — never more necessary than now. The 90-minute work (which received its world première in 2009 with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra), penned for soloists, ensembles, children’s chorus, choir and orchestra, was recorded in Germany with the Bayer-Philharmoniker (Bernhard Steiner, director).

Stefan Muller-Ruppert’s crisply delivered German narration, translated from Zalis’s original English text, provides further bite, particularly chilling during one of the work’s darker 12 “chapters,” He Said, matched equally by The Directive, depicting the evil of Hitler’s “final solution,” with the latter featuring tenor Marko Zeiler as the “Perpetrator.”

Zalis skilfully blends listener-friendly contemporary styles with classical symphonic tradition that provides gravitas, fuelled by a theatrical, sweeping narrative arc highlighting key historical moments of the Holocaust as well as its characters’ individual and collective gut-level emotional responses.

One of the most searing highlights is children’s chorus The Children, as well as I Have a Name, featuring the compelling vocals of soprano Kelsey Cowie and tenor Jean-Pierre Ouellet. Numbers bristles with percussive acuity, while the more lyrical finale, I Will Remember You, sings of peace as a “continuous journey” — welcome ballast to another gripping track, Death March, which includes an ominous humming refrain by the men transforming into lost souls that ultimately leads to Freedom.

I Believe has now been presented around the globe, including performances in Toronto, New York City and Lodz, Poland, for the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2017. For this latest performance, the members of the Solitude Choir, Chorus of the Konzertgesellschaft, and Leverkusen Children’s and Youth Choir sing as though their very lives depended on it, with their potent message of courage, strength, survival against all odds and ultimately hope for the future continuing to resound as one for the ages. ★★★★★ out of five

STREAM THIS: The Children

— Holly Harris