New Recordings

God Help the Girl

(Matador ***1/2)

nolead ends While Stuart Murdoch was working on the last Belle & Sebastian album, 2007's The Life Pursuit, he hatched the idea for God Help the Girl, a musical narrative with female singers. The result: a set of chiming, chirpy, deeply orchestrated songs that looks backward to '60s Brit-pop (think Sandie Shaw or Petula Clark) and sideways to the last two B&S albums.

The 14 tracks, including two instrumentals and several repurposed and rerecorded Life Pursuit songs, feature the B&S band with gorgeous widescreen orchestral arrangements from B&S' Mick Cooke. The vocals come from newcomer Catherine Ireton and other women (several drafted via an Internet posting), with Murdoch singing on two tracks and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon on one.

Murdoch plans to incorporate these songs into a film, and a few feel constrained by their narratives and a few others seem like very good B&S karaoke. But there are gems, too, including the galloping "Musician Please Take Heed," the lilting "I Just Want His Jeans," and the goofy "I'll Have To Dance With Cassie."

- Steve Klinge

nolead begins Moby
nolead ends nolead begins Wait For Me
nolead ends nolead begins (Little Idiot ***1/2)

nolead ends It's been a decade since pint-sized Moby blew up to extra-large to become the world's biggest shaven-headed vegan DJ, with the blues-infused field-holler techno of the ubiquitous Play. Since then, the mixmaster born Richard Melville Hall has receded to a more comfortable size, most recently with last year's old-school dance-floor workout, Last Night.

Wait For Me is that album's antithesis: It's an ambient chill-out record on which Moby wisely puts aside the modern rock moves of 2005's Hotel and smartly farms out the vocals to singers more skilled and soulful than he, while melding the melancholy of Play with delicately pretty electronic textures. An old pro, getting back to what he does best.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Japandroids
nolead ends nolead begins Post-Nothing
nolead ends nolead begins (Polyvinyl ***)

nolead ends "We used to dream," the Japandroids repeatedly sing, feeling their youth slipping away in "Young Hearts Spark Fire." "Now we worry about dying / I don't want to worry about dying / I just want to worry about those sunshine girls."

So it goes on Post-Nothing, the first full-length from the Vancouver, B.C., duo of guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse, who specialize in droning, catchy garage-rock salvos that express the angst of early adulthood without boring us too much with the details. They would dearly love to stay "Crazy/Forever" but know the chances of that are pretty slim, which makes them want to make that much bigger a noise.

- D.D.

nolead begins Levon Helm
nolead ends nolead begins Electric Dirt
nolead ends nolead begins (Vanguard ***)

nolead ends With 2007's Grammy-winning Dirt Farmer, Levon Helm made a triumphant return after a long battle with throat cancer. Electric Dirt, as the title hints, expands on that folk-based record, making it more reminiscent of his legendary work with the Band.

Rural themes surface again. "Growing Trade," by Helm and guitarist-producer Larry Campbell, is a moving farmer's lament, and Happy Traum's "Golden Bird" has the fiddle-laced air of an old Appalachian ballad. "Move Along Train" and "When I Go Away," however, introduce deep gospel grooves, and "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had" injects a dose of blues.

Helm's Arkansas drawl is a bit pinched now, but it's still robust enough for a funky, very Band-like take on the Grateful Dead's "Tennessee Jed." Also making a Band connection are two numbers with horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint, who did the charts for the Band's Rock of Ages live album: Randy Newman's New Orleans-flavored "King Fish" and an R&B workout, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free," that ends the set on an appropriately lively note.

- Nick Cristiano

My Turn

(Saguaro Road ***1/2)

nolead ends From her sensational jailbait debut in the '70s through her recent TLC reality show, Tanya Tucker has often led a tabloid-worthy life. Her musical instincts, however, have more often than not remained true. That's especially so on My Turn, as the smoky-voiced singer teams with Pete Anderson, Dwight Yoakam's old guitarist and producer, for a set of vintage country songs.

The music sounds familiar but fresh. Flaco Jimenez's accordion adds Tex-Mex spice to "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone?" and Jo-El Sonnier's squeezebox injects a heavy dose of Louisiana flavor into "Big Big Love." Tucker, the onetime hellion, sounds pretty frisky tearing through "Love's Gonna Live Here" (with Jim Lauderdale) and "Oh Lonesome Me," and declaring her independence on "Ramblin' Fever." Her well-seasoned artistry really flowers, however, on ballads that also reveal a tender side, like "After the Fire Is Gone" and "Walk Through This World With Me."

Tucker has said My Turn is a salute to her late father and mentor, Beau Tucker, who loved these songs. It's hard to image a more well-executed tribute.

- Nick Cristiano

nolead begins Kendel Carson
nolead ends nolead begins Alright Dynamite
nolead ends nolead begins (Train Wreck ***)

nolead ends Kendel Carson closes her second album with "Mexico," a ballad addressed to a lover that's all about heading south of the border. The 24-year-old Canadian oozes so much seductive heat, however, that you realize she's not talking just about a road trip.

That's just one aspect of the fascinating personality Carson presents on the multifaceted Alright Dynamite. She's the second singer-fiddler taken under the wing of "Wild Thing" composer Chip Taylor, now a respected Americana elder statesman (he produced the album, wrote nine of the songs, and cowrote four with Carson). But she's no clone of the first, the more demure Carrie Rodriguez.

"Mexico" and numbers like "Oh Baby Lie Down" and "Ooh That Dress" represent Carson's sultry side. But she also displays plenty of sass that's right out of rock - and so is the music on "I Don't Want to Be Your Mother" and "Submarine." The one nonoriginal, Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz," gets a hoedown treatment that showcases Carson's fiddling chops.

- N.C.

The Monterey Quartet: Live at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival

(Monterey Jazz Festival Records ***)

nolead ends As collectives go, this is a good one. These four mega-players gathered in 2007 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, Calif., where Clint Eastwood is on the board of directors. Tenor saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist Dave Holland already play a lot together, so there's a comfort level there. Pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba represents a wild card. You feel the Cuban émigré's presence most on his romantic bolero "Otra Mirada" ("Another Look"), and on the stentorian chords that underlie drummer Eric Harland's "Treachery."

Like much of this session, Potter can be both amazing and acidic. His "Ask Me Why" finds him blowing to both poles. The tune is jagged, and Potter's solo scores for its sheer sense of adventure. But it also leads to a kind of mechanical chaos, as if he were on automatic pilot. But the set comes together on Harland's beautiful tune "Maiden." And Rubalacaba's "50" has some quirky funk to recommend it.

- Karl Stark

nolead begins Frank Wess Nonet
nolead ends nolead begins Once Is Not Enough
nolead ends nolead begins (Labeth ***)

nolead ends At 87, tenor saxophonist Frank Wess holds forth with a buttery perfection not unlike his long-passed mentor, Lester Young.

The distinguished Count Basie sideman originally joined with nine other players for a week-long stand at Dizzy's Coca Cola Club in New York in 2008, and parlayed that into this collection of standards and Wess originals.

The leader is all liquid on his "Dementia, My Darling," a crack-up of a title. The entire recording, which puts Wess in trio, quartet, and nonet settings, projects a quaint swing feel.

Wess, who doubles on flute, is a sagacious storyteller. He shows he's still got the tender touch on "Lush Life," while "Tryin' To Make My Blues Turn Green" is all sass. A monster group backs him, including Temple University's Terell Stafford on trumpet, Steve Turre on trombone, Rufus Reid on bass, and Winard Harper on drums.

- K.S.

Elisabeth Leonskaja, piano

(MDG ***1/2)

nolead ends nolead begins Sonata No. 3, Sonata for Cello and Piano, plus mazurkas, nocturnes and waltzes
nolead ends nolead begins Maria João Pires, piano
nolead ends nolead begins (Deutsche Grammophon ***1/2)

nolead ends nolead begins Complete Works Vol. 1 and 2
nolead ends nolead begins Ian Hobson, piano
nolead ends nolead begins (Zephyr, two discs, ***)

nolead ends With Chopin's core works so widely played by so many great pianists through the generations, you'd never think three sets could arrive at the same time with so many surprises. The chronologically programmed Ian Hobson is full of rarely played early works, such as the Piano Sonata No. 1, various contredanses, rondos, and variations on themes by others. The pieces don't have a great sense of content and are primarily about the delight of exploiting everything pianistically possible, but are worth an occasional hearing.

Elisabeth Leonskaja is an insider favorite among piano connoisseurs; her sensitivity and intelligence are not always found in the booming sonorities of Russian pianists. Here, she interestingly plays a 1901 Steinway, which is probably closer to the pianos Chopin knew and doesn't have modern instruments' piercing treble range. What emerges is performances that show why composers revere Chopin for his profound sense of musical craft - worth much more than an occasional hearing.

Maria João Pires' absence in recent years is partly explained by this new two-disc set's dedication to the cardiac unit of Salamanca University Hospital. As great as Pires has been in the past, she's even better now: Each phrase has astonishing authority, each note rings out with a combination of force and radiance and, in a throwback to 19th-century pianist, chords are "broken" (each note sounded individually) with an eloquence beyond that of Vladimir Horowitz. The only disappointment in this late-Chopin program is the Cello Sonata Op. 65: Pavel Gomziakov seems to lack the empathy to bring it off.

- David Patrick Stearns

nolead begins Unsuk Chin
Violin Concerto
nolead ends nolead begins Viviane Hagner, violin; Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano conducting
nolead ends nolead begins (Analekta, ****)

nolead ends Korean composer Unsuk Chin came to the attention of many in the American classical music community when, seemingly out of the blue, she won the Grawemeyer Award. But catching up with this 47-year-old composer isn't easy. Though her Alice in Wonderland opera is out on DVD, it makes a curious, even tedious impression. The first piece on this disc, the 2008 Rocana, is dense and trying. Then you enter the almost indescribable heaven that is her 2001 Violin Concerto, which takes up most of this disc.

Though it vaguely follows the exterior contour of a four-movement concert work, it's something of a neo-impressionist journey in sound (imagine Kaija Saariaho without electronics) that both hangs together and is more uncompromising than distant ancestors such as Debussy and Ravel. The piece is so much itself, so complete in the world it inhabits, that you can't really call it modern or retro, Eastern-influenced or not. It's one of the great CDs of the year - thanks also to the intensely committed performance by violinist Viviane Hagner and the Montreal orchestra under Kent Nagano.

- D.P.S.