By Kish Lal, John Shand, Barnaby Smith and Barney Zwartz
Cecilia Bartoli: superhuman accuracy and articulation, combined with passion and sensitivity.Credit: Alain Hanel.
OPERA
Cecilia Bartoli
QUEEN OF BAROQUE (Decca)
★★★★½
Cecilia Bartoli is probably the outstanding baroque coloratura of her generation, so the album title is no exaggeration. This glorious collection spans 1993 to 2020 (including two never-before recorded arias by Steffani and Vinci; both well worth putting on the record, as it were). The 17 tracks are arias and a few duets/quartets by Handel, Porpora, Caldara, Steffani, Pergolesi, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Albinoni and others: a who’s who of baroque opera composers. This may be heretical, but baroque opera sometimes palls on me because it can be so stylised, static and repetitive. The emphasis is on expressing an emotion rather than advancing a narrative. But Bartoli transcends this with her superhuman accuracy and articulation in the most fiendish runs, leaps and ornamentation; with her ability to convey the most minutely disambiguated emotions; with her passion, sensitivity, vocal technique more generally, and desire for historical fidelity (all orchestras she records with use period instruments). A Steffani duet with celebrated counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky is particularly lovely, while Handel’s famous Lascia ch’io pianga from Rinaldo could scarcely be more perfect, and the religious works are notably affecting. BARNEY ZWARTZ
PSYCHEDELIC FOLK
Cory Hanson
PALE HORSE RIDER (Drag City)
★★★★½
Cory Hanson, best known as singer/songwriter with the exceptional Los Angeles psych/prog band Wand, produced one of the last decade’s unheralded masterpieces with his solo debut, The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo (2016). Where that forged a sparse aesthetic, merging Hanson’s nylon-string guitar playing and delicate, winsome vocals with delicious string arrangements, Pale Horse Rider is a more textured and complex affair, combining folk-based foundations with synthesisers, soundscapes, guitar effects and even field recordings. Here also are two bona fide Hanson classics: Paper Fog and the swelling, imposing Another Story from the Centre of the Earth. Several other tracks, such as Limited Hangout, are less busy, more sombre affairs that hazily recall the Limbo mood. Lyrically, the album covers surreal and occasionally apocalyptic Americana, warping myths and toying with the symbolism of death, among other things. Much like Wand, Hanson explores recognisable modes of popular music, yet there’s also an unpredictable, mysterious wildness to this hugely talented songwriter’s style that makes him endlessly compelling. BARNABY SMITH
JAZZ
Tani Tabbal Trio
NOW THEN (Tao Forms)
★★★★½
Raindrops on a window move with glacial slowness until two or three converge, whereupon they race as one with extraordinary velocity. This trio is like that. When the music converges, all sense of self is lost in the exhilarating rush of collective music-making: a spiral of prodding, colouring and answering each other. Drummer Tani Tabbal’s background with the mystical Sun Ra and the great saxophonist/composer Roscoe Mitchell has honed his instincts for finding the profoundest way to play a groove: part heart, soul and feel; part a matter of meticulously layering sounds around the kit. Bassist Michael Bissio shares this instinct, and he and Tabbal pen compositions that allow it to flourish, while on the title track they can also deliver rhythmic matter as ephemeral as the wind passing through a copse of trees. The trio’s third member is alto saxophonist Adam Siegel, who improvises with a keen sense of contributing just a third of the story, rather than dominating it, but can rise up to match the most volcanic titans on his instrument when the music demands. He also has a lighter, more aerated sound that comes out on Bisio’s Ornette Coleman tribute, Oh See OC Revisited. JOHN SHAND
INDIE POP
London Grammar
CALIFORNIAN SOIL (Metal & Dust/Ministry of Sound)
★★★
English trio London Grammar have carved a space for themselves as a lo-fi pop staple, although their sound – once unique and energetic – has dulled into something resembling soulless adult contemporary music. This third album came with the purpose – according to leader singer, Hannah Reid – of pulling apart and examining the layers of control, permission and success she experiences as a woman in the music industry. But for the most part the band instead offers sweeping electronic soundscapes (Lose Your Head), stories about chasing and letting go of the American dream (America), and ennui (Missing). From diaristic odes about inner chaos (Californian Soil) to electronic producer George Fitzgerald lending his magic on Baby It’s You and Lose Your Head, the record has its triumphs, with its most glittery tracks inciting a bubbling of euphoria (Talking, Lord It’s a Feeling). But in its pitfalls it is a paint-by-numbers pop record with predictable hooks (How Does It Feel) and uninspired choruses. For fans of London Grammar’s chart-topping sophomore album this third instalment will feel comparatively flat, lacking the charismatic pop-tinged hymns that Reid once recited with haunting reverie. KISH LAL