New Recordings

Dirty Jeans and
Mudslide Hymns

(New West ***1/2)

nolead ends "I got me a deuce and a quarter, babe / She will ride you right," John Hiatt boasts on "Detroit Made," singing of General Motors' Buick Electra 225. The celebration of automotive style, craftsmanship, and durability is fitting, since these qualities continue to mark the work of the 58-year-old Indiana-born singer and songwriter.

Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns shows Hiatt's muse to be as sharp as ever. Amid another earthy amalgam of rock, soul, blues, and country, Hiatt still writes about restless, haunted, and on-the-edge souls with the penetrating power of someone who's been there. ("Have you ever been broken, really broken?" he asks on "All the Way Under.") "Down Around My Place," meanwhile, sounds like an allegorical State of the Union that's all dark and foreboding. But "I Love That Girl" is unabashedly upbeat, and the somber remembrance of 9/11 that closes the album, "When New York Had Its Heart Broke," ends on a note of stubborn resilience. It's a trait that applies to many of the characters here - and to the artist himself.

- Nick Cristiano

nolead begins Little Dragon
nolead ends nolead begins Ritual Union
nolead ends nolead begins (Peacefrog / EMI ***)

nolead ends Swedish electro-skitterers Little Dragon traffic in coolness, a tough balance when you're not particularly cool. Most electro-skittering these days comes with a retroactive feel (Washed Out) or a futurist aura (James Blake). But these sexy middlebrows come closest to an Everything but the Girl or a Roisin Murphy, who followed American beat influences like Timbaland rather than decidedly Euro drum-and-bass or trip-hop. As such, LD command an aura that's torchier and classier than Lykke Li or La Roux. Yukimi Nagano has put in vocals for Gorillaz, Raphael Saadiq, and David Sitek, and she knows just how to curl around the hooky, laptop-lite environments here without breathing too heavily. The best of the tracks (like the stretch of "Shuffle a Dream," "Please Turn," and "Crystalfilm") will have you rooting for more uncool.

- Dan Weiss

nolead begins Rahsaan Patterson
nolead ends nolead begins Bleuphoria
nolead ends nolead begins (Artistry ***)

nolead ends After the shaken cocktail that was Wine & Spirits (2007), smoky R&B singer/songwriter Rahsaan Patterson returns to the game with a bigger, bolder mess of holy-rolling, synthetically silken, '80s-ish soul and frank, loving funk. Patterson has shown great depth and talent in the pop eco-culture. Check out the hits he's written for Brandy and Tevin Campbell, or past Patterson efforts such as Love in Stereo and After Hours. He's an undervalued lover man on par with Maxwell, and he's a music-maker/arranger on the level of a Raphael Saadiq. Bleuphoria is his best effort yet. With guests as wide-ranging as gospel guidance counselor Andraé Crouch and lady singers Lalah Hathaway, Faith Evans, and Jody Watley, Patterson investigates funk (and a solid, up-tempo cover of "I Only Have Eyes for You") before hitting his dramatic, romantic stride with the falsetto-filled "Miss You" and the liquid, Loose Ends-like "6 AM." The ballads are sensuous ("Goodbye"), and, with Auto-Tune used only sparingly, the sound is marvelously human. But the strangest, yet most satisfying, move is Patterson's take on big gospel in the self-penned "Mountain Top." The loin-stirring devil might be in Bleuphoria's sexiest details, but the hand of God is all over this new record.

- A.D. Amorosi

nolead begins Richard Buckner
nolead ends nolead begins Our Blood
nolead ends nolead begins (Merge **1/2)

nolead ends Since 1994's Bloomed, his stirring debut, Richard Buckner has been releasing darkly poetic albums exploring a netherworld that combines literary singer-songwriter confessionals and alt-country textures with an experimentalist's sense of space and quietude. Our Blood, his long-delayed eighth album, is of a piece with his past work: cryptic, melancholy, haunting.

Most of the nine songs build on a softly throbbing guitar strum, colored with electric piano and occasional percussion (Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley is on one cut) and/or pedal steel (from Buddy Cage, who played, among many other places, on Dylan's Blood on the Tracks). Buckner's weary voice wavers around notes; his uncertain pitch fits his somber themes. But while "Escape" and "Witness" rank among Buckner's best, as a whole, the 36-minute Our Blood is too familiar: Too many melodies go places he's gone before, and it lacks the thematic cohesion of high-water marks such as the electric Since or the character-driven The Hill.

- Steve Klinge

An Old Rock on a Roll

(Stony Plain ***)

nolead ends Besides his own many records, guitarist Duke Robillard has produced stellar sessions by a number of venerable R&B and jazz men, from Jimmy Witherspoon and Jay McShann to Rosco Gordon and Herb Ellis. Here he helps turn the spotlight on a lesser known but similarly talented artist.

Piano-playing Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne is in his late 60s, but he really does sound like "an old rock on a roll." Backed by Robillard and several of the guitarist's usual cohorts (who always ensure there is plenty of "roll"), Wayne delivers an album of fleet-fingered boogie and tough R&B.

There's a vintage vibe to it all - "Heaven, Send Me an Angel" and "Wild Turkey 101 Proof" recall Ray Charles' classic Atlantic sides, while "Run Little Joe" and "Bring Back the Love" inject a dose of New Orleans. Wayne, however, wrote all 12 songs, bringing his own irrepressible personality to bear and making sure an old style sounds as fresh as ever.

- Nick Cristiano

Interface

(Savant ***1/2)

nolead ends Alto saxophonist Jim Snidero can play pretty or fast or just blend in. On this CD, the well-seasoned leader - past and present collaborators range from Jack McDuff and the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra to Frank Sinatra and the Mingus Big Band - presents all originals for the first time in 20 years. He also has guitarist Paul Bollenback play acoustic on half the tunes.

The changes make this an unexpectedly intimate session. Even when plumbing the depths of his mother's passing as on "After the Pain," Snidero shows an honesty and openness that make it appealing.

"One By One" captures the handsome effects of Bollenback's acoustic, and it sends the leader into a sweet bluesy space, full of delicacy and restraint. "Aperitivo" adds to the sophisticated mix, anchoring the quartet with bassist Paul Gill and drummer McClenty Hunter in happy bossa nova land.

- Karl Stark

String Quartets: Corigliano Quartet and Borromeo Quartet

(Robert Maggio Music ***1/2)

nolead ends When composer Robert Maggio unveiled his Songbook for Annamaria using American folk song in a string quartet roughly a decade ago, the idea initially seemed suspicious - but it worked because the composer refused to be bullied by the source material. Whether employing "Shenandoah" or "All the Pretty Little Horses," the tunes were used as musical fodder with little or no reference to the often-used iconography they represent.

Now that the piece is recorded on Maggio's own label, along with the more recent and also excellent Rain and Ash (2008), it seems even more enlightened alongside Marc O'Connor's recent forays into the classical world. O'Connor tends to the graphically descriptive and consciously evokes Americana, while Maggio's more integrated approach feels more honest and sincere.

One catches shards of the songs, but the main appeal is the composer's musical invention, subtle wit, and theatrical timing that even renders the music's autobiographical elements irrelevant. You don't need to know how the music was inspired by his adopted daughter, parents, and partner. You just want to hear it again - particularly in performances as fine as these. (Information: www.robertmaggio.net)

- David Patrick Stearns