Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

New Recordings

Pop Sufjan Stevens took the Internet by surprise this month when, on the same day, he both announced and put on sale (for $5) this eight-cut, hour-long EP. The multitalented Brooklyn songwriter and conceptualist thereby left no time for his fans to wonder whether this release - which precedes a tour that will bring him to the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall Nov. 10 - is the full-fledged follow-up to 2005's Illinois, the second chapter in his acclaimed "50 States" series.

Pop

All Delighted People EP

(Asthmatic Kitty ***)

nolead ends Sufjan Stevens took the Internet by surprise this month when, on the same day, he both announced and put on sale (for $5) this eight-cut, hour-long EP. The multitalented Brooklyn songwriter and conceptualist thereby left no time for his fans to wonder whether this release - which precedes a tour that will bring him to the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall Nov. 10 - is the full-fledged follow-up to 2005's Illinois, the second chapter in his acclaimed "50 States" series.

It isn't. It is, however, highly ambitious in its own not-so-focused way. The title song, which is included in both an 11-minute "original" and an eight-minute "classic rock" version, employs many trademark Stevens elements - chorales, shifting time signatures - while pushing his folk-baroque style in more experimental, prog-rock directions and quoting Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" at several junctures.

When Stevens sings, "I know I'm still afraid of letting go of choices that I made," he may or may not be expressing ambivalence about ever saying he was going to make albums about all 50 states. But he makes clear here that he has plenty of non-geographical ideas. The most colossal cut is "Djohariah," a 17-minute, truly epic guitar jam full of gnarly improvisational excursions to make Neil Young envious. If that sounds too hard to swallow, All Delighted People also includes compact gems such as "Enchanting Ghost" and "Heirloom" that hark back to his earlier work.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Katy Perry
nolead ends nolead begins Teenage Dream
nolead ends nolead begins (Capitol **1/2)

nolead ends I have a friend who switches Katy Perry's "California Gurls" off whenever it comes on the car radio. At first I agreed - and I loved Perry's previous One of the Boys - but I've slowly given up resistance to the song of the summer. And I expect "Teenage Dream" and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" (first song to co-opt the phrase epic fail?) to follow suit. I've been absorbing them for only a week, and already their choruses sound as if they plan to stick around until 2011. But except for "The One That Got Away," which she calls Radiohead make-out music, and two bird-as-sex-metaphor songs, Perry's gotten a lot more forgettable since her less danceable debut, which was wittier and, sorry, "California," catchier.

- Dan Weiss

nolead begins !!!
nolead ends nolead begins Strange Weather, Isn't It?
nolead ends nolead begins (Warp ***)

nolead ends !!! - generally pronounced "chk chk chk" - has been closely associated with the rise of indie dance music since their nine-minute single "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard" became an underground hit in 2003. Since then, they've always created music that has an undeniably alluring quality - funky, danceable, sensual, smooth, yet also invigorating and alarming. But with the release of Strange Weather, Isn't It?, the band has fallen short of the expectations it set for itself with its arresting 2004 debut, Louden Up Now. Where Louden was charged, angry, pulsating and arresting, Strange Weather is a typical collection of dance tunes with good beats and slick production. It's fun and engaging, but not earthshaking.

- Katherine Silkaitis

nolead begins Jenny & Johnny
nolead ends nolead begins I'm Having Fun Now
nolead ends nolead begins (Warner Brothers ***)

nolead ends Johnathan Rice has worked with his girlfriend, Jenny Lewis, on her solo albums, but in Jenny & Johnny he gets equal billing, and rightfully so. Lewis will overshadow just about any partner with her aching vocals and her star power (which went into diva mode for Rilo Kiley's last album), but Rice holds his own on this set of jangly roots rock. The two split the lead vocals and, as the title declares, revel in seemingly lighthearted songs.

But these songs have barbs, and they're full of knives and snakes. "Just Like Zeus," "My Pet Snakes," and "Switchblade" take jabs at soured friendships and/or celebrity hypocrisies, and "Big Wave" and "Animal" are bitter political ditties. The bright West Coast country-rock underpinnings disguise the jaded sentiments, but the mean-spiritedness sometimes undermines the fun.

- Steve Klinge

Country/Roots

Ghost Train:
The Studio B Sessions

(Sugar Hill ***1/2)

nolead ends In the liner notes to Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, Marty Stuart concludes by writing, "It was time to write some songs and it was long past time to play some hard-hitting country music." Well, Stuart and his band, the Fabulous Superlatives, along with guests such as steel-guitar great Ralph Mooney, deliver in spades.

Stuart is a country music veteran who's an unabashed lover of the music's history in its various forms, and you can hear that throughout Ghost Train. It opens with a couple of Bakersfield-style electric guitar workouts, "Branded" and Don Reno's "Country Boy Rock and Roll," the latter a duet, and a six-string duel, with the Superlatives' Kenny Vaughan (more of that approach turns up later).

Stuart also nods to his former father-in-law and boss, Johnny Cash, with their cowritten "Hangman," a sepulchral ballad; duets with his wife, Connie Smith, on "I Run to You," and pays tribute to an old friend with "Porter Wagoner's Grave," delivered in a Wagoner-style recitation.

Following his, uh, superlative work of the last decade, Ghost Train offers further proof that the 51-year-old Stuart, who got his start at 13 with bluegrass legend Lester Flatt, is really just now in his prime.

- Nick Cristiano

Jazz

Beautiful Dreamers

(Savoy Label Group ***1/2)

nolead ends Guitarist Bill Frisell's new trio recording, which comes out on Tuesday, is a sly one. Using elements from country and blues to jazz and rock, Frisell creates a unique listen that sneaks up on you.

It's not loud. The arrangements, with violist Eyvind Kang and drummer Rudy Royston, happen in wide-open spaces and create extraordinary group rhythms that really resonate. Frisell and company cover tunes that include Stephen Foster's tune "Beautiful Dreamer" to the pop oddity "Goin' Out of My Head," which gets humorous and gentle care here.

A hoedown is never far away. Among the set's many kicks are Blind Willie Johnson's "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine," which lights up a country blues vein, and Benny Goodman's "Benny's Bugle," which is cause for swinging.

- Karl Stark

Classical

Isabel Bayrakdarian, Zheng Cao, Frederica von Stade, Susan Graham, Paul Groves, Keith Phares, and Joyce DiDonato

(Avie ***1/2)

nolead ends What on earth is going on here? That question pops up early on in this disc of songs by opera composer Jake Heggie (Dead Man Walking, Moby-Dick and others) in a series of duets for two female voices, one being a wacky tango characterizing a woman arguing with her dead mother - with mom arguing back. Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade have a grand time with the words and sound great together on a disc that inevitably challenges any conventional ideas about what constitutes a song.

Although Heggie's conservative idiom isn't going to rock anybody's boat, he's game for a wide range of texts, including the final monologue from Terrence McNally's play Master Class, which has a few seconds of uncomfortable prosody but stands well on its own because Heggie so effectively characterizes the loneliness of high artistic accomplishment. Elsewhere, Heggie's attractive Here and Gone cycle is written for tenor, baritone, and piano quartet, happily recalling Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock's Edge. The singing is as fine as this distinguished lineup promises to be, though the composer is so respectful of them at the piano that the songs could make an even better impression with a more challenging presence at the keyboard.

- David Patrick Stearns