New Recordings

Jazeera Nights: Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria

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Sublime Frequencies ***1/2)

nolead ends Casual "world music" fans beware: Charismatic Syrian vocalist Omar Souleyman doesn't trade in pleasantly vague foreign background music. He peddles authentic, semi-lo-fi Arab street-pop and arrestingly exotic/electronic dance-jams, suitable for weddings, parties, etc. Unknown to the West no more, his third domestic collection on outstanding international label Sublime Frequencies again features SF compiler Mark Gergis' helpful liner notes.

Since 1994, Souleyman has produced more than 500 releases - almost all on cassette, many recorded in performance. As sharp, slippery synth lines squiggle and quaver for a distinctly Arabic sound - occasional oud-picking helps - Souleyman sing-chants in brusque, cadenced tones of love's pains ("Stab Your Heart," a head-spinning highlight here) and pleasures ("Like the Sugar in the Tea," a more languorous delight). Strong, superb stuff.

- David R. Stampone

nolead begins Dean & Britta
nolead ends nolead begins 13 Most Beautiful
nolead ends nolead begins (Double Feature **1/2)

nolead ends Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol filmed hundreds of silent black-and-white "screen tests," granting four, not 15, minutes of fame to Factory superstars such as Edie Sedgwick and Paul America, as well as such luminaries-to-be as Lou Reed and Dennis Hopper. Musical couple Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips - formerly of the moody Velvet Underground-influenced band Luna - were commissioned to put music to 13 of the tests, and they brought the highly satisfying multimedia experience to the Arts Bank as part of the Philly Fringe last year.

As a purely auditory experience, 13 Most Beautiful is only semi-successful. Without visuals of, say, Jane Holzer brushing her teeth or Reed hamming it up with a bottle of Coke, we're left with Wareham and Phillips' shimmery textures and (sometimes) sublime sense of restraint. That's suitable when attached to actual songs like the creepy and funny "Teenage Lightning (And Lonely Highways)" or Phillips' quite adept cover of Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine." It doesn't work so well with instrumental tracks such as the looping "Richard Rheem Theme." The album is strangely sequenced, with some of the eight DJ remixes included on the first of two CDs, rendering redundant a handful of Wareham and Phillips' unadorned versions that are bumped to a bonus disc.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Rick Ross
nolead ends nolead begins Teflon Don
nolead ends nolead begins (Def Jam ***)

nolead ends Rick Ross isn't a lyricist. So it's alarming when he raps, "I stopped writing . . . I'll do it mentally" on "Free Mason," a track featuring Jay-Z, another rapper who claims not to write down his lyrics. The difference is that Jay-Z is, well, Jay-Z. On his fourth album, Ross is still trying to say something, and his attempts to go deep drift toward the absurd - he even mentions the three J's: Jesus, JFK, and John Lennon.

Musically, though, he's never sounded so deliberate and cinematic, basking in lush, almost orchestral beat arrangements. And while Ross doesn't have a gift for words, he does have a way with them, invoking humor ("MC Hammer") as easily as triumph ("Tears of Joy").

- Michael Pollock

nolead begins Macy Gray
nolead ends nolead begins The Sellout
nolead ends nolead begins (Concord **1/2)

nolead ends You can't sell out if you don't buy in. That idea is at the center of Macy Gray's career. After she started the Neo-Soul '90s with its most eccentric vocal display (whiskey-soaked Eartha Kitt meets drowsy Ann Peebles) and epic hit melodies rife with psychedelic influences, audiences grew confused by Gray's occasionally bizarre behavior and increasingly odd albums.

With Sellout, Gray has taken the reins and cowritten most of the tunes. As a songwriter, Gray lacks the essentials to aid her wicked voice and effortlessly wild flow - strong hooks, clever lyrics. But you can't keep the Gray lady down, and the Rodney Jerkins-produced "Help Me," the thrillingly intimate "Still Hurts" (written with Teedra Moses), and a tender duet with Bobby Brown ("Real Love") show that, as a vocalist, she's clearer than ever without having lost an iota of weirdness.

- A.D. Amorosi

Sketches of Treme

(21st Century Blues ***1/2)

nolead ends "I rule these streets of New Orleans," Chris Thomas King boasts on "House of the Rising Son." We don't know about that. What is clear, however, is that the artist, who probably remains best known for his acting roles in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Ray, is still one of the most compelling of modern bluesmen.

Like 2006's magnificent Rise, a chronicle of his post-Katrina travails, Sketches of Treme doesn't contain any of King's audacious hip-hop/blues fusion, although the self-referential "Son" comes close. Electric numbers such as "How Does It Feel" and "Rehab" showcase a snarlingly powerful blues-rocker, while "Caught in Between," "California Letter," and other acoustic-textured tracks reveal a sweetly soulful balladeer. Despite the tale of desperation he paints in the finale, the album sounds like anything but a "Last Go Round."

- Nick Cristiano

De Bach à Jobim

(Dreyfus ***1/2)

nolead ends Magic happens when these three sisters sing. Trio Esperança was founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1958 when Mário, Regina, and Eva Correa were not yet in their teens. Over the last five decades, they've became one of Brazil's best-known a cappella singing groups.

Here on this elegantly produced CD, the sibs stay true to their Cariocan roots, weaving their spell on tunes from Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado" to the Bach cantata "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." They also apply their gentle touch to the Brazilian classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos' "Cantiga" and two Beatles tunes, "Blackbird" and "Penny Lane."

It's all pleasant. The arrangements are occasionally plush, but keep the focus on the women's formidable voices. The entire collection is so elfin-light that their sung Portuguese feels like a form of aural massage.

- Karl Stark

Elora Festival Singers, Noel Edison conducting

(Naxos ****)

nolead ends Eric Whitacre is the flagbearer in the new generation of choral music composers, thanks to music that's lush, consonant, harmonically sophisticated, but, unlike the older Morten Lauridsen, more than unending streams of gorgeousness. Again and again in this collection of mostly shortish works - including oft-recorded pieces such as i thank you God for most this amazing day and the lesser-known Birds, one of his many settings of Octavio Paz poems - Whitacre stands above the others thanks to his extra spark of musical invention as well as his instincts for gentle surprise and knowing when an idea has run its course.

In past performances, I've questioned the halting, repetitive nature of the disc's longest piece, When David Heard, but not with conductor Noel Edison and his Elora Festival Singers on hand. In fact, the piece accumulates dramatic momentum even as the music's protagonist laments at great length. With this Toronto-area chorus meeting all of the music's demands with polish and intelligence - and recorded in a radiant church acoustic - this is among the best all-Whitacre discs.

- David Patrick Stearns