Jason M. Rubin
You can get away with being familiar with just an album or two, but Laura Nyro’s music always rewards repeated listenings, and following her mercurial career so thoroughly restores her to three-dimensional life.
Just weeks apart, two different groups have made their way to Boston on international tours – without Robert Fripp but with his blessing – their shows focusing on a specific era of King Crimson’s existence.
Juventas’s commitment to classical music in the present tense makes it the only professional ensemble of its kind devoted specifically to the music of emerging composers.
Given the age of the recordings and peculiarities of the venue, the sound quality is very good — certainly more than good enough given the historical value of the amazing music captured therein.
Now that the pandemic dust has settled, Dalia Davis’s album warrants excavating and shining a long-awaited spotlight on.
Josie Lowder debut solo album “Here To Love” is more than a reminder of how good she was — it stands as incontrovertible evidence that she has grown as an artist and especially as a songwriter.
The album lightly reiterates John Powhida’s prog influences while offering a snappy set of short, earworm-inducing pop songs.
“There needs to be a bigger sense of community in the music world. Artists and labels and venues need to help each other out. There’s a void out there and I think Rock Garden Records is a positive new development.”
The album suggests an earlier time, but most of the music is modern, relevant, and timeless.
If you’re brave enough to dip your toes into a musical unknown, there are pleasures a-plenty to be had in this recording, in which Joe Jackson takes us on what purports to be a musicological excavation of the works of a long-forgotten figure of the English Music Hall era.
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