June music reviews

Mary Chapin Carpenter: Age Of Miracles

Rounder/Universal

MCC's first album since suffering a pulmonary embolism in 2007 finds Mary in a reflective mood, writing about "a larger, more universal expression of the wonder at the times we are living in… we live in an age of miracles when we still believe they are possible." Songs subjects include the protests of monks in Burma, along with MCC's ruminations on love and now, marriage.

This is a quiet album. There aren't the rocking songs that helped make MCC so popular. Instead, most of the songs re based around a quiet acoustic guitar and often quiet vocals.

Although I no longer find MCC as compelling as I did in her Come On Come On/Stones In The Road heyday, it's more a matter of degree than of absolutes. Michael Jones

Youssou Ndour: Dakar-Kingston

Universal

As the title suggests we travel the world from Africa to Jamaica to fuse the sounds of Youssou Ndour. From the opening track Marley featuring Mutabaruka, this truly is what why reggae music is a universal genre of music. Black Woman is a wonderful Jamaican influenced tune paying tribute to all our lovely women in the universe.

Recorded in Kingston, Dakar and Paris, stick this cd under the category of new world reggae! A few favourite tracks for the ipod are Africa Dream Again, Diarr Diarr and Don’t Walk Away featuring Morgan Heritage. This should be the album for the World Cup soccer this month! Ants Fong

Christian Scott: Yesterday You Said Tomorrow

Concord Jazz

While I’d love to announce the arrival a stunningly clever, innovative new (to me) jazz trumpeter this is not the album that will do it. Apparently his fourth album for Concord this is self indulgent twaddle that just tries too hard to bring something fresh to the table. Glimpses of what might have been will mean I will check out further (or earlier) releases should they come my way but this can be skipped over by all. Allan McFarlane

Angie Stone: Unexpected

Stax

Feeling in the need to check out some of the new soul divas this release duly arrived and received a lengthy audition. The only reason to check this out would be to find out what all the audiophile press are talking about when they refer to the paucity of good recorded pop material these days. This is a stitched together album with each track “produced” by a different entity that provides all the material for Angie Stone to lay down her vocals over the top. Dynamics? Forget it. Originality of musical or production or vocal values – absent. Oh that she was born 30-40 years ago and Motown found her… Disappointing. Allan McFarlane

Various: Feel Good 80s

Sony Music

Nostalgia for a past decade is common in music. 60’s music has always had a following and more recently we have started to see 70’s interest with the revival of groups such as Abba.

This is a three CD set from Sony Music of 55 songs spanning 1980-1989. There are some big 80’s tracks: David Bowie's Let’s Dance, Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Belinda Carlisle's Heaven is a Place on Earth and of course Michael Jackson's Thriller. There is also a smattering of less well known artists. I had not heard of a number of the artists but if you listen to the CDs without looking at the listings, many of the tunes seem familiar. Not too surprisingly, most of the music is under Sony copyright and while this makes for some restriction in choice, it does not sound like anything is missing when you listen to the tracks.

Without singling any songs for criticism, some of the 80s songs are truly bad! I think this is more a reflection of the 80’s sound – heavily synthesized pop and all that. Perhaps they sounded better in the 80s, perhaps they were always bad! Younger listeners, you have been warned!

This set lived in my car for a good part of summer and I would describe if as a good set for driving or dancing at parties. For those of us who lived through the 80’s this is a fun way to reminisce. For younger listeners there is still a lot of fun in this album but keep your remote handy and be prepared hit the fast forward button a few times.

Overall: Recommended for fun value –just don’t take your self too seriously and it is a good buy. Matthew Strack