CESARIA EVORA
Club Sodade
(BMG)
EVORA ADMITS that she doesn’t really like her new album. “She’s not a fan of electronic music, but she knew this was a way to broaden her fanbase,“ says her manager, with refreshing candour. Like most remix projects, Club Sodade is a mixed bag. At best these makeovers display a powerful empathy for her down-tempo, acoustic style, known as “morna”, but their skittering beats are there only to emphasise the glorious subtleties of her mournfully smoky voice. A worthwhile experiment. But you would do better to seek out the original, unadulterated recordings.
Nigel Williamson (Rating: 3/5)
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KILLING JOKE
Killing Joke
(Zuma)
AGE HAS hardly mellowed him. In fact, the apocalyptic post-punker and professional irritant Jaz Coleman’s fire burns as righteously now as ever it did. “I’m a loose cannon/ urban animal/ one step from a cannibal,” growls Killing Joke’s creative linchpin on Loose Cannon, restating his case for anyone who imagines the band might have gone soft. Fat chance. Here are nine punishingly powerful, brutally malevolent, thrillingly volatile tracks — each featuring their long-term fan Dave Grohl on drums — which might well see the band restored to their former glory.
Sharon O’Connell (Rating: 4/5)
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THE MOWER
People are Cruel
(Transcopic)
THIS SMALL but beautiful label started by the former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon finally stands a chance of a hit. A raucous but hummable blast, People are Cruel is a sizeable step up from Mower’s eponymous debut album. With a new rhythm section, the CD bears traces of the Kinks (Just Say No), Small Faces (Sun Sun Sun), Buzzcocks (Morning After) and even mid-life Blur, all shot through with a healthy splurge of humorous disaffection. And the vocalist Mat Motte packs a good curdling scream to boot. If you liked the similarly revitalised Brit-new wave of the Libertines, you will want this, too.
Martin Aston (Rating: 4/5)
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STEPHEN DUFFY AND LILAC TIME
Keep Going
(Universal)
LONG BEFORE overrated charlatans such as David Gray and Tom McRae started to peddle their piffle, England possessed a peerless singer-songwriter in Duffy. He may have founded Duran Duran and produced the vacuous Kiss Me, but he has since been responsible for a string of brilliant, understated records. The opening track here, Home, may well be the most beautiful song written this year, with Duffy’s smoky voice describing a lyric of almost unbearable tenderness. As always the best music is to be found on the margins — please explore.
Paul Connolly (Rating: 5/5)
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SHIRLEY HORN
May The Music Never End
(Verve)
VERY MUCH a singer’s singer, Shirley Horn has always tended to work in the shadows, despite being championed by her friend and admirer, Miles Davis. The past few years have not been kind to her — she has had to overcome breast cancer, the loss of her right foot and the death of her long-time bassist Charles Ables. Fortunately, she has not lost her ability to negotiate an achingly slow ballad. While she may no longer be able to play piano, it is a sign of Horn’s status that she can persuade the great Ahmad Jamal to help fill in at the keyboard. The trumpeter Roy Hargrove also drops by.
Clive Davis (Rating: 4/5)
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IT IS hard to escape the suspicion that Jones arrived a little late at the folk babes’ ball. By the time she turned up two years ago with a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best newcomer under her arm, the seats at the top table were already taken by Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby and Cara Dillon. Yet Two Year Winter suggests that she deserves a place among them. She mixes arrestingly arranged songs by contemporary writers into a traditional template, delivered with impressive poise. Though not much of a writer herself yet, she is fast becoming one of the finest interpreters of her generation.
NW (Rating: 3/5)
LONNIE MACK
...Glad I’m in the Band
(Sundazed)
AFTER THE success of acts such as Johnny Winter and Canned Heat in the late Sixties, the American recording industry suddenly woke up to the blues boom. One of its first signings was the Gibson Flying V guitar-wielding Lonnie Mack, who had previously cut some stunning instrumentals for the tiny Fraternity label. His 1969 Elektra debut, reissued here, teamed up the Indiana-born Mack with the veteran arranger Maxwell Davis. The result highlighted his considerable vocal skills on tracks such as Save Your Money and Let Them Talk, as well as showcasing his dazzling guitar playing.
John Clarke (Rating: 4/5)
L’ARTE DELL’ARCO
Scarlatti, D-Sinfonie and Concerti
(Gaudeamus)
THE TITLE is misleading, because this CD is really a survey of the Baroque concerto as it existed in Naples in the 1720s and 1730s. And what a rich musical culture it must have been, because the concertos by Leo, Barbella and Durante are just as flavoursome as the ones by Scarlatti and Pergolesi, the two big names of Neapolitan Baroque music. The performances are striking and vivid without being in any way aggressive, and the richly ornamented violin solos, played by the director Federico Guglielmo, and the imaginative continuo playing make for a tone of voluptuous eccentricity.
Ivan Hewett (Rating: 4/5)