Michael Gordon: Timber

"Gordon felt an urge to 'clear my mind of pitches and orchestration,' as he said in a program note. So he set about writing an hour-long piece for percussion, a study in pure rhythm. Unsure of what instruments to use, he brought his sketches to the Dutch ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag. After a failed attempt with tomtoms, a member of the group fetched a simantra -- a long, thin slab of wood that, in Eastern Orthodoxy, is used to summon worshipers. ... Gordon decided that six percussionists would hammer on simantras of varying lengths and timbres. His punning title was 'Timber.' ... As repetitive patterns multiply and accelerate, swelling and fading in rapid succession, six-note melodies flicker out of nowhere. Early on, there's an electrifying passage in which Gordon takes an already complex polyrhythmic scheme -- twenty-four pulses in a bar against twenty-one against eighteen against sixteen against fifteen against twelve -- and doubles the quantities, so that a blizzard of beats ensues. The piece resembles 'Drumming,' [Steve] Reich's percussion tour de force of the early seventies, yet it's more jagged and eruptive" (Alex Ross, "Musical Events," New Yorker, 1/7/13).

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Fall Out Boy: Folie a Deux

"Fresh off a three-year hiatus, Fall Out Boy took the stage at The Studio at Webster Hall in New York on Tuesday night, playing for a crowd of 300 to 400 near-rabid fans. The concert came as a total surprise after the band announced on Monday they would be touring to support a new album in May, released a new single and would kick it all off with three intimate shows in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles this week. After three long years, the band actually seems to be having fun again. During a mostly tight 90-minute set, FOB plowed through a 25-song set list nearly identical to the one they played in Chicago on Monday, with frontman Patrick Stump again admitting he was struggling to remember all the lyrics to their songs. It's a relief to see the boys back in good spirits, since the band's last album 'Folie a Deux' touched so heavily on the theme of the perils of fame -- something the band's bassist and mouthpiece, Pete Wentz, is well-versed in" (Stephanie Marcus, "Fall Out Boy's New York Concert Proves The Boys Still Have What It Takes," Huffington Post, 2/6/13).

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Lutosławski: Symphonies 3 and 4; Les Espaces du sommeil

"Listen to this: Lutosławski's Fourth Symphony, his last major work before his death in 1994, and a piece that symbolises and cements the achievement of his musical language. This is astonishingly eloquent music: a piece that creates a genuinely symphonic discourse through a revivification of some classical principles of achieving unity through diversity, but which is also open and adventurous enough to admit the existence of doubt, conflict, and melancholy – listen to the final few minutes to hear what I mean" (Tom Service, "A Guide to Witold Lutosławski's Music," The Guardian, 1/15/13).

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Alt-J: An Awesome Wave

"Alt-J's debut album, 'An Awesome Wave,' might just be my favorite of 2012. Some might argue the quartet has a sound so unusual it's more a series of sounds than music. Describing them is a hurdle. The name is taken from the mathematical symbol delta (the triangle), meaning change; Alt-J are the keystrokes on a Mac computer that produce that symbol. Nate Chinen of The New York Times described them as 'a handsome alloy of dry acoustic timbre and reverberant effect, suggesting a very British convergence of texture-minded electronic music and psychedelic folk.' NPR Music said, 'The Mercury Prize-winning band (that can be difficult on first listen) plays angular, poetic music that takes unexpected turns, shifting gears when you least expect it.['] They came together in 2008 at Leeds University, where the four were students, and moved to Cambridge to record. The frontman, Joe Newman (lead vocals/guitar), Gwil Sainsbury (guitar/bass), Thom Green (drums) and Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards) mix Mr. Newman's high pitched twangy voice with lyrics that sometimes are indiscernible. 'Alt-J surely understands that intrigue, however precious, is its best currency,' Mr. Chinen wrote" (Val Haller, "Music Match," New York Times, 1/16/13).

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Kevin Eubanks: The Messenger

"Eclecticism was a creative prerogative for the guitarist Kevin Eubanks long before he took the musical helm of 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,' when it became a corporate necessity. Mr. Eubanks left the show in 2010, and his output since has suggested a gentle but pointed reclamation. Consider the title and tone of 'Zen Food,' released on Mack Avenue that year. 'The Messenger,' due out on the same label on Tuesday, is a sharper and less self-conscious album, his most satisfying in more than a decade. An amalgam of funk and fusion, it also features some beautiful ballad writing, on songs like 'The Gloaming' and 'Sister Veil.' Mr. Eubanks’s longtime band, which includes Bill Pierce on saxophones and Marvin (Smitty) Smith on drums, supports the effortless flair of his playing —  as do Mr. Eubanks’s brothers, Robin (a trombonist) and Duane (a trumpeter), on a few tracks. And if nobody ever asked for a slow-groove version of John Coltrane’s 'Resolution' featuring Alvin Chea of Take 6, the result ends up exceeding all reasonable expectations, especially during a too-brief guitar solo" (Nate Chinen, "Playlist," New York Times, 2/15/13).

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Renee Fleming: Poèmes

Winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for best classical vocal solo. The contents are Ravel's "Shéhérazade," Messiaen's "Poèmes pour Mi," and two works by Dutilleux, "Sonnets de Jean Cassou" and "Le Temps l'horloge." Accompaniment by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Alan Gilbert, and, for "Le Temps l'horloge," the Orchestre National de France under Seiji Ozawa.  A gorgeous recording.

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Destiny's Child: Love Songs

"Destiny's Child's Super Bowl performance was something of an open secret. Though Michelle Williams denied that it was happening, there was just too much evidence to the contrary: Williams herself was not busy on Sunday, Beyonce refused to deny a DC3 reunion was planned and the group released a single and album of old material on the preceding Tuesday. So when Beyonce was joined by Williams and Kelly Rowland during the halftime show, there was hardly any reason for shock -- except, perhaps, at the brevity of the reunion. The trio worked through 'Bootylicious' and 'Independent Woman' before singing Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' with her. And that was it: They did not perform 'Nuclear,' their latest, Pharrell Williams-produced song. ... Sunday's performance marked [the] group's first live show since 2006, when they performed at the NBA All-Star game. The group split up in 2005 and each of the three members worked on solo projects, to painfully obvious varying levels of success. But will Destiny's Child's reunion be but a blink in the eye of Beyonce's career?" ("Destiny's Child Super Bowl Performance," Huffington Post, 2/3/13).

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Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1, Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2

"Van Cliburn, the American pianist whose first-place award at the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow made him an overnight sensation and propelled him to a phenomenally successful and lucrative career, though a short-lived one, died on Wednesday at his home in Fort Worth. ... Hailing from Texas, Mr. Cliburn was a tall, lanky 23-year-old when he clinched the gold medal in the inaugural year of the Tchaikovsky competition. ... He signed a contract with RCA Victor, and his recording of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto sold over a million copies within a year. Reviewing that recording in The Times in 1958, the critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote, 'Cliburn stands revealed as a pianist whose potentialities have fused into a combination of uncommon virtuosity and musicianship'" (Anthony Tommasini, "Van Cliburn, Cold War Musical Envoy, Dies at 78," New York Times, 2/27/13).

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Carrie Rodriguez: Give Me All You Got

"She released her début album, 'Seven Angels on a Bicycle,' in 2006, and recently put out her fifth, 'Give Me All You Got.' Along the way, Rodriguez ... has broadened her sound. It’s still founded in country-folk and showcases her skilled fiddling, but her arrangements have ventured to the border of pop music without quite crossing it. 'Whiskey Runs Thicker Than Blood,' one of the strongest songs on her new album, is a nearly perfect mid-tempo shuffle with pedal steel sparkling on the surface. And 'Brooklyn' cannily celebrates both her adopted home and the pleasures of occasionally escaping it. What is most impressive about Rodriguez’s singing is something unexpected: her diction, which can be slurred with emotion one moment and crisply analytical the next. She creates beautiful music that is always slyly smart, which in turn makes it more beautiful" (Ben Greenman, "Critic's Notebook," New Yorker, 2/11/13).

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Beethoven for All: Symphonies 1-9

"The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was founded in 1999 by the late Edward Said and me as a forum for young musicians from all the different countries of the Middle East -- Palestine, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, etc. -- to come together, to have an opportunity to make music together, and in this way to fight against the ignorance that there is of one another. We set out to do the impossible -- a project with Israelis and Palestinians and other Arabs that was not political. Making music together means first and last listening to each other. When two people play together, they have to listen to each other in order to be together, to be on the same degree of loudness. ... Let's face it: the CD market does not need another Beethoven cycle, there are so many wonderful ones ... some more wonderful, some less ... But I think the Beethoven symphonies with the Divan orchestra is, in some ways, different. I would not be so pretentious as to say it is better, but it is certainly different. It is different in the sense that there is a terrific amount of energy (because of the youth of the people), but there is just as much rigour. And the combination of rigour with energy is very powerful. If people get one tenth of the satisfaction that we had when we played this music by listening to it, then I will be happy" (CD notes by conductor Daniel Barenboim).

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Gary Clark, Jr.: Blak and Blu

"MR: Your new album, Blak and Blu debuted at #6 on Billboard's album chart, and it follows your Bright Lights EP that got a lot of attention. How did you put this project together? GCJ: Well, I approached the album in kind of the same way as I approached the EP...I was doing all kinds of things on the album. Basically, I had a bunch of ideas and put them all on one record and I had a good time doing it. ... MR: Who were some of your influences? GCJ: Some of my influences were Jimi Hendrix, the obvious one, Shuggie Otis, Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Curtis Mayfield, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, Lead Belly...acts like that. I could go on and on and on. MR: Speaking of Hendrix, you include 'Third Stone From The Sun' as part of a medley. Is that something you normally play live and then you thought, 'Okay, let's put it on the record?' GCJ: Yeah, that's kind of how it came about. The whole medley happened by accident. We just started jamming around Austin doing our gigs, everyone was just standing around looking at each other like, 'What are we going to play?' 'I don't know, what do you want to play?' 'I don't know, I can't think of anything.' So we'd start off something and that kind of happened and it turned into that medley. We figured we might as well put that on tape" (Mike Ragogna, "A Conversation with Gary Clark, Jr.," Huffington Post, 11/5/12).

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Frank Sinatra: Nothing but the Best

"'Now a newer, happier, emancipated Sinatra ... untrammeled, unfettered, unconfined' is how the early ads described Frank Sinatra on Reprise. In late 1960, Sinatra realized his dream of recording for his own label. He had formed Reprise after deciding not to re-sign with Capitol Records and a tentative deal to purchase MGM's Verve label unraveled. 'I wasn't happy during that period with Capitol,' Sinatra explained. 'I had said I wanted to quit Capitol ... even if it meant not recording at all for two years until the contract ran out. But they let me go on the condition I cut four more albums for them to wind up the deal. I wanted to form my own record company and run it along my own ideas.' At the time Sinatra's idea and business model for Reprise was innovative: he became one of the first in the recording industry to pioneer the concept of having artists own and control their masters. Composer/arranger Neal Hefti was one of the first executives hired at the new label. Hefti would work with many of the early artists signed to Reprise, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. But some of Hefti's most memorable work at Reprise would be with the label's founder" (CD notes by Charles Pignone).

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Muse: The 2nd Law

"Muse fans rejoice- the British rock band has a concert set for Mohegan Sun on Saturday, April 13. The tour date by the multi-platinum band was announced Monday morning. Muse released their 6th album, '2nd Law,' this past Fall. The Grammy Award winners were also just nominated for two Brit Awards (Best British Group, Best British Live Act)" (Nick Caito, "Muse Lock In April Tour Date at Mohegan Sun," Sound Check, 1/14/13).

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The Lone Bellow (self-titled)

"With its stately brownstones and trendy cafes, the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn might seem an unlikely place to produce a Southern country-rock trio. But the members of the Lone Bellow are all transplants there from small Southern towns, and though they have made a life in Brooklyn, their stomping, acoustic sound seems rooted in the places they grew up, drawing on that region’s country, soul, gospel and folk. ... The heart of the Lone Bellow’s appeal is its close harmonies: three singers whose timbres meld seamlessly even at full volume. Yet there is little about their music that recalls the Nashville pop-country trios in vogue like Lady Antebellum and the Band Perry. Theirs is more rough-edged, closer to the pounding, anthemic folk-rock that Mumford & Sons has popularized. 'On the surface they seem like a country or bluegrass band, but they understand the dynamics of rock,' said Rita Houston, WFUV’s music director. 'This can translate into a big rock sound.' The Lone Bellow is one of several Americana groups the club owner Ken Rockwood has nurtured at the Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side. The band recorded its album in the club" (James C. McKinley Jr., "A Band Stomps Across the Mason-Dixon Line," New York Times, 1/21/13).

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The Music of Nashville, Season 1, Volume 1

"Like the series itself, these T Bone Burnett-assisted songs from the ABC drama are sneakily addictive. The Civil Wars and Elvis Costello, writers of the disc's best stuff, definitely deserve their due. Still, it's a wonder that a crew of actors can pull off such convincing country collaborations: Clare Bowen has a winningly sweet warble, and Hayden Panettiere is as pop-sleek as any CMA-certified crossover star. You don't have to like Nashville, or even Nashville, to get into it -- you just have to listen" (Ray Rahman, "Quick Takes," Entertainment Weekly, 12/14/12, p. 71).

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The Beatles: Let It Be

"Let It Be is the 12th and final studio album released by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970 by the band's Apple Records label shortly after the group announced their break-up. Most of Let It Be was recorded in January 1969, before the recording and release of the album Abbey Road. For this reason, some critics and fans, such as Mark Lewisohn, argue that Abbey Road should be considered the group's final album and Let It Be the penultimate. Let It Be was originally intended to be released before Abbey Road during mid-1969 as Get Back, but the Beatles were unhappy with this version, which was mixed and compiled by Glyn Johns, and it was temporarily shelved. A new version of the album was created by Phil Spector in 1970 and finally released as Let It Be, serving as the album for the 1970 motion picture of the same name" (Wikipedia).

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Little Dragon: Ritual Union

"Adam Rathe of Spin.com wrote that their newest album, 'Ritual Union,' is 'equal parts chill-out room dreamy and club-friendly fierce.' The effect was intentional. The band's drummer, Erik Bodin, told Spin, 'It's an album for multitasking,' adding, 'Our aim is to make music for people to escape into or dance to.' The band was formed in 1996 in Gothenburg, Sweden, by several high school friends: Yukimi Nagano, a Japanese-American singer who also did percussion, Mr. Bodin (drums) and Fredrik Kallgren Wallin (bass), who often got together to jam after school. 'We were weirdos,' Ms. Nagano told Spin.com, 'but we found each other and could be in a bubble together.' They added Hakan Wirenstrand (keyboards), supporting themselves with side jobs as they developed their sound. ... Their albums 'Little Dragon' (2007), 'Machine Dreams' (2009) and the highly acclaimed 'Ritual Union' (2011) are accompanied by music videos perfect for projecting on club walls, and several tracks have been used on TV shows like 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'The Vampire Diaries' and 'Gossip Girl.' Little Dragon has been invited to collaborate with other top artists like Gorillaz, Jose Gonzalez, SBTRKT, DJ Shadow, Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq" (Val Haller, "Music Match," New York Times, 1/29/13).

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