New music

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This article was published 12/05/2016 (3445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP /ROCK

Radiohead

A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) 

Radiohead’s new album is a rich and engrossing listen that somehow finds more undiscovered territory for a band that has built a career on doing just that.

Radiohead had a run of inventive and critically revered albums that began with the grunge-era single Creepand expanded to the serrated yet tender guitar-rock of 1995’s The Bends, then the art-rock heights of OK Computer and its electronics-embracing followup Kid A. 

With 2011’s difficult-to-love The King of Limbs there was a sense the band had backed itself into a corner, yielding an album of glitchy loops and knotted beats best appreciated more as a transitional experiment.

A Moon Shaped Pool reaches for something far more organic and immediate. The band even opened up its self-contained distribution model, making it available on iTunes, Amazon and the streaming services Apple Music and Tidal.

The record is bookended by older tracks in the orchestral panic of first single Burn the Witch, which has been kicking around since the mid-’00s, and the keyboard-driven live fixture True Love Waits. But the pivotal newcomers are swelling strings and a 13-person choir from the London Contemporary Orchestra in a shift that points to lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s recent film-score work for Paul Thomas Anderson.

The electronics remain, haunting the fringes of Desert Island Disk, a track that recalls the delicate guitar work of Nick Drake, and Ful Stop, whose propulsive krautrock soul and surging blend of electronics and guitar prove the band is still capable of capturing a twitchy rock drive unlike anybody else.

At just under six minutes, The Numbers may be the album’s most striking moment with its flickering argument of bluesy pianos and a strummed acoustic guitar that sounds borrowed from Neil Young. Girded by gospel flourishes, the song plays like a protest anthem, standing against digital and social structures of division. “The future is inside us, it’s not somewhere else,” Yorke sings. “The system is a lie.”

With a loping bass line and a clicking rhythm, Identikit soars as the choir gathers behind Yorke as barbed guitar lines close around him.  Present Tense begins with a loping Spanish-style acoustic guitar figure that builds to accommodate a chorus of angelic sighs. “Distance,” Yorke sings, his voice still as capable of similar heights, “is like a weapon of self-defence.”

This time, Radiohead sounds ready to come closer.

— Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times

 

Prince

HITnRUN Phase Two (Universal Music)

While fans bide their time waiting for the likely dozens of posthumous Prince releases, his 39th and final studio album, the captivating HnR Phase Two, is a funk and jazz life preserver.

Using his deliciously talented New Power Generation band, Prince avoids certain bland and popular musical memes (we’re talking to you, hip hop) to prove once again that the qualities of the music of his forebears (George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, et al.) are eminently worthy of further examination. While Prince lays on the lyrical innuendo, 2 Y. 2 D. uses a sweet flute riff and a spot-on horn section to get its message bubbling into your brain. Stare employs a Seinfeld-themed bassline to deliver the goods, and even references the Purple One’s own playbook by sneaking in a touch of Kiss riffery, just for a sweet second. The molasses-slow ballads (Revelation, When She Comes) drag the flow slightly, but without them, it just wouldn’t be a real Prince set.

Critics will dissect his entire catalogue now that he has left for the big Paisley Park in the sky; while this album won’t hit any top 10 lists, it provides evidence Prince left far too soon and that he still had something to say musically. ★★★1/2

DOWNLOAD: Xtraloveable, Screwdriver

— Jeff Monk

 

James Culleton

Vanished Days (Independent)

Local boy James Culleton is something of a creative polymath. He’s a visual artist whose sketches of musicians in action have been collected in book form and can also be found in clubs all over the city; he’s a sculptor whose work in steel adorns the facade of the West End Cultural Centre; and he’s a furniture designer who recently won a Pinnacle Award from the American Society of Furniture Designers.

Culleton is also a pretty darned good singer-songwriter who regularly gigged around town as Knick Knackerson. On Vanished Days, he’s recorded under his own name, as this nine-song project is the musical culmination of an artistic residency he was invited on by the North Dakota Museum of Art, which saw him stay at the McCann House, a turn-of-the-19th-century farmhouse.

As such, this album is a high, lonesome and rootsy exploration of life in the late 19th century, based on texts and letters Culleton found in the house, as well as his study of the era and the area. The title track is a real winner, as Culleton stretches his voice to plaintively evoke the wonder of Great Plains wheat farmers just beginning to realize they live in the bread basket of the world. Dear Margery is almost quaint, written to a woman who spends her winters back east while her man runs the farm, and songs such as Homeseeker’s March and Fair North Dakota reflect the bittersweet dichotomy of the optimism of homesteaders set against the reality of often lonely Prairie lives. Don’t skip the instrumental version of Vanished Days that closes the album, either, as it’s a showcase for the skills of players such as Gilles Fournier, Don Zueff, Grant Siemens and, especially, organist Marc Arnould. ★★★1/2

DOWNLOAD: Vanished Days, Dear Margery, I’ve Been Searching

– John Kendle

 

JAZZ

Bill Evans Trio

Some Other Time: The Lost Session From the Black Forest (Resonance)

The term “instant classic” is probably overused, but it might just apply to this release. Bill Evans was one of the best and most influential of all jazz pianists. His music is melodic, creative and still a mainstay in the jazz world. And so it is a wonderful treat that, to everyone’s surprise, a formerly unknown studio session from Germany in 1968 has come to light, featuring the iconic Evans with bassist Eddie Gomez; it is especially notable for being the only studio session ever to include Jack DeJohnette on drums.

The two discs have trio, duo and solo tracks, and are an extraordinary addition to the Evans discography. DeJohnette’s drumming offers a different touch from other trios with Evans, and the three are all simply at the top of their game. The discovery of this session in itself reads like a spy novel, and the extensive liner notes are excellent. The playlist is a mix of mainly familiar standards and original Evans tunes. Evans’ playing is incredibly creative as always, and he is almost playful on some tracks. This is a surprising and delightful addition for anyone who loves the music of Evans. It is bound to inspire a new recognition of just how important the pianist was to the jazz world. ★★★★★

Download: Walkin’ Up, How About You?, Some Other Time

— Keith Black

 

CLASSICAL

Yundi

Chopin: Ballades, Berceuse, Mazurkas (Deutsche Grammophon)

Following last fall’s release of Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28, Chinese dynamo pianist Yundi returns with an all-new recording of the quintessentially romantic composer’s solo keyboard works.

His latest disc features Chopin’s Mazurkas, Op. 17 and Berceuse, Op. 57, with the centrepiece being the set of four ballades, composed between 1831 and 1842 and considered a staple of the solo piano repertoire.

Yundi’s keen sense of pacing allows each of the four larger-scale pieces to unfold organically, includingBallade, No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 that ultimately builds to its firestorm coda. Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 38 also showcases his utmost sensitivity, while the third work, A Flat, Op. 47 his penchant for (nearly) bone-dry pedalling. Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 is infused with sweeps of tonal colour, pregnant pauses and declamatory themes worthy of an Italian tenor.

The pianist also tackles the four mazurkas with graceful aplomb, before turning inward with a particularly stirring Berceuse in D Flat Major, Op. 57 — an album highlight. ★★★1/2

— Holly Harris