Month: January 2003

  • Kronos Quartet Volume II: Caravan

    Originally a recording produced in 1999, Caravan is one of the Kronos Quartet’s recent world explorations, this time through the imagery of the Gypsy Diaspora. Pannonia, a name once given to the stretch of eastern Europe where the Mediterranean and European worlds cross paths with the Orient, is the setting and inspiration for an evening…

  • David Gray

    After three solid albums diffidently supported by three labels, English pop-folkster David Gray got the break he deserved when frat-friendly superstar Dave Matthews chose White Ladder as the first release on Matthews’ own label. True to its title, Ladder kept climbing, reaching multiple platinum on the strengths of its effervescent electronic beats and Gray’s sophisticated,…

  • Neil Finn

    Neil Finn has been making the musical progression from reckless youth (he joined his brother’s band, Split Enz, at age 18) to pop craftsman (Crowded House) to, on his last couple of solo discs, melancholy crooner. Finn’s rich, textured vocals and whimsical and songwriting make him one of the most underrated performers of the last…

  • Jane Monheit

    There’s just no way around it, so we’ll take it head-on: Jane Monheit is similar to Diana Krall—but, we hasten to add, in all the right ways. She’s a brilliant retro-jazz interpreter, an incredible vocal stylist, and a very young woman with a very bright future. At the tender age of 26, she’s worked wonders…

  • Johnny Marr and The Healers, Boomslang

    When Johnny Marr unplugged his guitar and walked out of the Smiths in 1987, his time as the king of jangly guitar was effectively over, as much by his own choice as anything else. Beyond a lackluster teaming with New Order’s Bernard Sumner in Electronic, Marr was inconspicuous through the 1990s, interspersing sideman stints with…

  • Cocteau Twins reissues

    It’s unfortunate that sonic groundbreakers like the Cocteau Twins sometimes sound so unremarkable in retrospect—in part because they spawned dozens of soundalikes, some of whom went on to greater glory and radioplay, such as Fascination Street-era Cure. We have fond memories of the Twins’ earliest records from the 80s, like Garlands. These were brooding, proto-gothic…