New Recordings

Introducing Joss Stone

(Virgin ***)

nolead ends Somewhere between Mary J. (sans the drama) and Amy Winehouse (without the attitude) fits sassy, soulful Joss Stone, the very nearly 20-year-old Brit vocalist. There's a cheeriness to Stone that doesn't usually exist within the funky-girl framework, something gleeful in her phrasing and shiny in her choice of new material that elevates Introducing above her previous CDs. Raphael Saadiq (Tony! Toni! Tone! singer, TLC producer) helps Stone pursue that lightness of being. She can still go dark and hard, as she does on the wailing "Girl They Won't Believe It." But throughout this collection, Saadiq takes her gruff joviality and lines it up proper-like with authoritative melodies, girl-group harmonies and slick grooves, especially on the big tunes like "Put Your Hands on Me" and the cunning vintage sound of "Baby Baby Baby." You just wish Stone got more intimate more often. But maybe getting cozy comes after the Introduction, hmm?

- A.D. Amorosi

nolead begins Mika
nolead ends nolead begins Life In Cartoon Motion
nolead ends nolead begins (Casablanca ***1/2)

nolead ends "Grace Kelly," the first single on the debut album from Mika - born Mica Penniman to Lebanese and American parents in Beirut - starts off with a sample of the former Princess of Monaco opining that "getting angry doesn't solve anything." Au contraire. "Grace Kelly" is a ticked-off flipping-of-the-bird to a record company foolish enough to not sign the poperatic, piano-playing big-star-to-be when they had the chance. Their bad. The song, which is a thoroughly fabulous account of one 23-year-old Londoner's efforts to make it to the top, no matter what it takes, has already topped the UK charts, and the 23-year-old Londoner seems poised to do the same Stateside. He's certain to win the hearts and minds of devotees of gleeful high camp, from Queen to Elton John to the Pet Shop Boys. At this early stage, Mika is at times guilty of brandishing his influences too openly - though "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" is a fairly hilarious update of "Fat Bottomed Girls." You can forgive that copycatism because his talents are so abundant.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Low
nolead ends nolead begins Drums and Guns
nolead ends nolead begins (Sub Pop ***)

nolead ends Drums and Guns opens with quietly buzzing feedback and Alan Sparhawk proclaiming, like a doomsday town crier, "All the soldiers, they're all going to die. All the little babies, they're all going to die." This is not a fun album, but it's a rewarding one.

Low diverged from their spartan slowcore aesthetic with 2005's Dave Fridmann-produced The Great Destroyer. For D&G, guitarist Sparhawk and his wife, drummer Mimi Parker, enlisted a new bass player, Matt Livingston, and Fridmann returns - although the aggressive rock riffs don't. Instead, martial rhythms haunt "Sandinista," and eerie electronics rumble and click throughout, gently propelling "Always Fade" and "Dragonfly."

"All I can do is fight, even if I know you're right," sings Sparhawk atop churchy organ chords in "Violent Past," the last of D&G's meditations on our bellicose times. These brief, unsettling, stately songs burn with bitter, understated intensity.

- Steve Klinge

nolead begins Antibalas
nolead ends nolead begins Security
nolead ends nolead begins (Anti ***)

nolead ends Antibalas' explicit mission is to carry on the legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Nigerian originator of Afrobeat, who died in 1997. The Brooklyn 12-piece often stretches grooves for 10 minutes or so, trading leads among pointillist guitars, armies of horns, soulful keyboards, and rafts of percussion. Vocals, when present at all, tend to surface in the middle of a song as just one of many layers.

For Security, their fourth album, Antibalas drafted producer John McEntire of the Chicago post-rock band Tortoise. Smart move. While "Filibuster X" offers credible ersatz Fela spiked with punk-funk energy, the general tone is less frenetic. But the band still cooks, from the brittle rhythms of "Beaten Metal" to the spacey dub of "Sanctuary" to the solemn horn fanfare in the middle of "I.C.E." Old fans of Talking Heads' Remain In Light or new ones of !!!'s Myth Takes should take note.

- S.K.

Last of the Breed, Vol. 1 and 2

(Lost Highway ***1/2)

nolead ends

The title may be a bit overblown, but there's no doubt that this two-disc set features three long-in-the-tooth greats doing what they do best.

It's a Tex-centric collection, which is not surprising since Nelson and Price are Lone Star natives, and Californian Haggard, with his affinity for Bob Wills, is a kindred spirit. Nelson has recorded separately before with each of these guys, and all three blend together easily through the album's Western swing, shuffles and ballads, while backed by a studio crew that includes equally venerable aces such as fiddler Johnny Gimble, steel player Buddy Emmons, and the Jordanaires. Amid the chestnuts by Lefty Frizzell, Floyd Tillman, Cindy Walker and others, Nelson and Haggard each contribute a top-notch new number, proof that these old-timers are not just resting on their laurels.

- Nick Cristiano

nolead begins Johnny Bush
nolead ends nolead begins Kashmere Gardens Mud
nolead ends nolead begins (Icehouse ***1/2)

nolead ends

This album, a companion to Bush's new autobiography, Whiskey River (Take My Mind), celebrates the singer's Houston roots and the city's musical diversity. Or, as the subtitle puts it, "Houston's Country Soul."

There's much to celebrate. After years of battling voice problems, Bush is singing nearly as well as ever. He employs his smoothly resonant baritone on a set that ranges from spare, acoustic country to horn-driven R&B, touching along the way on honky-tonk, swing, gospel, Mexican ranchera, and even supper-club balladry. Helping Bush out, although he really doesn't need it, are such peers and acolytes as Willie Nelson, Floyd Tillman, Dale Watson and Jesse Dayton.

- N.C.

Metheny Mehldau Quartet

(Nonesuch ***1/2)

nolead ends Following last year's duet recording, guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau took on some part-time help here. This set of seven quartet numbers and four duets captures an important bonding moment between two signature players.

The Missouri-born Metheny has always embodied a Midwestern aesthetic in jazz. His smooth, bright blend hints of the pastoral, which is highly unusual in a quintessentially urban music.

Mehldau provides some needed disruption to the usual Metheny mix. The pianist's personality is vivid enough not to be subsumed, and he definitely makes sparks. The relatively short pieces discipline Mehldau and keep him from running on.

The result is a successful outing, though one that lessens in impact by the end. Bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard convey a Latin feel on Mehldau's "Secret Beach" that breaks up the set's predictability, while "A Night Away" exudes a pleasant energy.

- Karl Stark

nolead begins Randy Crawford & Joe Sample
nolead ends nolead begins Feeling Good
nolead ends nolead begins (PRA Records ***) nolead ends

Singer Crawford, whose best-known hit "Street Life" dates from 1979 with the Crusaders, saw her U.S. career falter in the 1990s. Yet she's well worth hearing and has become a much more successful R&B singer overseas.

Her partnership with keyboardist and former Crusader Joe Sample reasserts the link in jazz to R&B.

This is a fun set, guaranteed to induce spontaneous boogying. The session is bluesy and funky, except when Crawford is squeezing a sumptuous tune like "But Beautiful" or ripping the heart out of "Save Your Love for Me." "Rio De Janiero Blue" has a nice slinky feel, while Billie Holiday's "Tell Me More and Then Some" generates a fine lather.

The set doesn't tell us anything new. But then again it's not a newspaper. With Philly native Christian McBride on bass and producer Tommy LiPuma on the case, the set scratches a familiar itch.

- K.S.

Mikhail Pletnev, piano; Russian National Orchestra, Christian Gansch conducting.

(Deutsche Grammophon ***)

This is the first installment of Mikhail Pletnev's Beethoven immersion as a conductor and pianist: By 2008, he'll have all five piano concertos and nine symphonies on the market. Like most things Pletnev has done, you can count on the recordings' being a wild ride. He loves breaking the music's pulse to spotlight a particular element, choses Beethoven's more obscure cadenzas, and plays them so freely you might not even recognize them as Beethoven. Even in rhythmically strict passages of the Piano Concerto No. 3, Pletnev proceeds with a give-and-take tempo that makes previously unimagined expressive points. Some think Pletnev is visionary; others are sure he's a crackpot. I prefer to reserve judgment until I hear more of his Beethoven. In the meantime, I enjoy hearing these performances as one of many ways into the master's music, albeit by an obscure and winding route.

- David Patrick Stearns

nolead begins Canty
Felix Femina:
Scottish Medieval Polyphony
nolead ends nolead begins (Gaudeamus ****)

nolead ends Though no music is appropriate to income tax season (aside from unrelieved dissonance), this disc will ease the pain and, since it's Scottish, inspire thrift. The music is a mass reconstruction from the 13th century, inspired by both the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Margaret Queen of Scotland, with sounds familiar to those who have followed the group Anonymous 4 over the years. Singing in an expansive, contemplative manner, Canty is more vocally robust than either A4 or Trio Mediæval. The acoustics have a dark, mysterious cast (you can almost feel an old-church chill), and the use of accompanying string instruments is spare and tasteful. The album notes maintain that some of the vocal decorations in the cadences have a Scottish feel. And though it's hard to identify such qualities in music this remote, it's an intriguing element to ponder.

- D.P.S.