Julius Hemphill: Dogon A.D.

This historic album features four then-unknowns on three lengthy avant-garde explorations that were quite influential not only in St. Louis (where they were recorded) but eventually on such diverse players as altoists Tim Berne and David Sanborn. Julius Hemphill (on alto and flute), trumpeter Baikida Carroll, cellist Abdul Wadud, and drummer Philip Wilson are in superb form, both as soloists and in ensembles where they react instantly to each other. This important music is better to be heard than described. (AMG)

Download

Can: Ege Bamyasi

The follow-up to Tago Mago is only lesser in terms of being shorter; otherwise the Can collective delivers its expected musical recombination act with the usual power and ability. Liebezeit, at once minimalist and utterly funky, provides another base of key beat action for everyone to go off on -- from the buried, lengthy solos by Karoli on "Pinch" to the rhythm box/keyboard action on "Spoon." The latter song, which closes the album, is particularly fine, its sound hinting at an influence on everything from early Ultravox songs like "Hiroshima Mon Amour" to the hollower rhythms on many of Gary Numan's first efforts. Liebezeit and Czukay's groove on "One More Night," calling to mind a particularly cool nightclub at the end of the evening, shows that Stereolab didn't just take the brain-melting crunch side of Can as inspiration. The longest track, "Soup," lets the band take off on another one of its trademark lengthy rhythm explorations, though not without some tweaks to the expected sound. About four minutes in, nearly everything drops away, with Schmidt and Liebezeit doing the most prominent work; after that, it shifts into some wonderfully grating and crumbling keyboards combined with Suzuki's strange pronouncements, before ending with a series of random interjections from all the members. Playfulness abounds as much as skill: Slide whistles trade off with Suzuki on "Pinch"; squiggly keyboards end "Vitamin C"; and rollicking guitar highlights "I'm So Green." The underrated and equally intriguing sense of drift that the band brings to its recordings continues as always. "Sing Swan Song" is particularly fine, a gentle float with Schmidt's keyboards and Czukay's bass taking the fore to support Suzuki's sing-song vocal. (AMG)

Download

Polish Funk - A Unique Selection Of Rare Grooves From Poland Of The 70s

A definite "unique selection" of grooves here – not just because the rare tracks are all from 70s Poland, but also because most of them have never been reissued either! The package is a wonderful introduction to the kinds of grooves we've been digging from Poland for years – that mad mix of jazz, funk, fusion, electric, and vocal elements that somehow managed to flourish wonderfully during the 70s years of Soviet control – a real musical marvel, considering the setting – and because of tight border control, very few of these tunes ever made it out to the west! The track selection differs a fair bit from the kinds of full length Polish jazz albums that have been released to date – as many of the titles here are groovier, funkier, and more electric – and in case you're wondering, there's also very little crossover with the Compost Polish jazz set from a few years back. (Dusty Groove)

Download

Sibylle Baier: Tonight

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet In San Francisco

Cannonball Adderley had struggled unsuccessfully with a quintet during 1955-1957, giving up for a time to play with Miles Davis' group. In 1959 his new quintet suddenly caught on with the release of this very exciting live album, which has been reissued on CD in the Original Jazz Classics series. With cornetist Nat Adderley, pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Louis Hayes, Cannonball had the top new jazz group of 1959. Their version of Timmons' "This Here" was a major hit, and the other numbers on this famous date (which include "Spontaneous Combustion," "Hi-Fly," "You Got It," "Bohemia After Dark," and "Straight, No Chaser") are also quite enjoyable, showing why Adderley's group was a pacesetter in funky soul-jazz and proving that they could outswing most of their competition. This gem is essential for all jazz collections. (AMG)

Download

Jaco Pastorius (1976)

It's impossible to hear Jaco Pastorious' debut album today as it sounded when it was first released in 1976. The opening track -- his transcription for fretless electric bass of the bebop standard "Donna Lee" -- was a manifesto of virtuosity; the next track, the funk-soul celebration "Come On, Come Over" was a poke in the eye to jazz snobs and a love letter to the R&B greats of the previous decade (two of whom, Sam & Dave, sing on that track); "Continuum" was a spacey, chorus-drenched look forward to the years he was about to spend playing with Weather Report. The program continues like that for three-quarters of an hour, each track heading off in a different direction -- each one a masterpiece that would have been a proud achievement for any musician. What made Jaco so exceptional was that he was responsible for all of them, and this was his debut album. Beyond his phenomenal bass technique and his surprisingly mature compositional chops (he was 24 when this album was released), there was the breathtaking audacity of his arrangements: "Okonkole Y Trompa" is scored for electric bass, French horn, and percussion, and "Speak Like a Child," which Pastorious composed in collaboration with pianist Herbie Hancock, features a string arrangement by Pastorious that merits serious attention in its own right. For a man with this sort of kaleidoscopic creativity to remain sane was perhaps too much to ask; his gradual descent into madness and eventual tragic death are now a familiar story, one which makes the bright promise of this glorious debut album all the more bittersweet. (AMG)

Download

Stanley Clarke: School Days

Every pro electric-bass player and their mothers wore out the grooves of this record when it first came out, trying to cop Clarke's speedy, thundering, slapped-thumb bass licks. Yet ultimately, it was Clarke's rapidly developing compositional skills that made this album so listenable and so much fun for the rest of us, then and now. The title track not only contributed a killer riff to the bass vocabulary; it is a cunningly organized piece of music with a well-defined structure. Moreover, Clarke follows his calling card with two tunes that are even more memorable -- the sauntering ballad "Quiet Afternoon" and an ebullient, Brazilian percussion-laced number with a good string arrangement and a terrific groove, "The Dancer." Clarke also brings out the standup bass for a soulful acoustic dialogue with John McLaughlin on "Desert Song." Evidently enthused by their leader's material, David Sancious (keyboards) and Raymond Gomez (guitars) deliver some of their best solos on records -- and with George Duke on hand on one cut, you hear some preliminary flickerings of Clarke's ventures into the commercial sphere. But at this point in time, Clarke was triumphantly proving that it was possible to be both good and commercial at the same time. (AMG)

Download

Weather Report: Heavy Weather

Weather Report's biggest-selling album is that ideal thing, a popular and artistic success -- and for the same reasons. For one thing, Joe Zawinul revealed an unexpectedly potent commercial streak for the first time since his Cannonball Adderley days, contributing what has become a perennial hit, "Birdland." Indeed, "Birdland" is a remarkable bit of record-making, a unified, ever-developing piece of music that evokes, without in any way imitating, a joyous evening on 52nd St. with a big band. The other factor is the full emergence of Jaco Pastorius as a co-leader; his dancing, staccato bass lifting itself out of the bass range as a third melodic voice, completely dominating his own ingenious "Teen Town" (where he also plays drums!). By now, Zawinul has become WR's de facto commander in the studio; his colorful synthesizers dictate the textures, his conceptions are carefully planned, with little of the freewheeling improvisation of only five years before. Wayne Shorter's saxophones are now reticent, if always eloquent, beams of light in Zawinul's general scheme while Alex Acuña shifts ably over to the drums and Manolo Badrena handles the percussion. Released just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark album proved that there was plenty of creative life left in the idiom. (AMG)


Download

J Dilla: Donuts

Donuts was made on a hospital bed and in a home studio, on a stripped-down setup with a stack of vinyl. Released on its maker's 32nd birthday, three days before he passed away, the album has a resonance deeper than anyone could've hoped for or even imagined. Some who were close to Dilla have said that there are hidden messages in the samples, the track titles, and who knows where else. It's impossible not to speculate about some things, like the track titled "Don't Cry," the looped "broken and blue" from a version of "Walk on By," the presence of Eddie Kendricks singing "My people, hold on," or the fact that there are 31 tracks, a possible signal that Dilla survived a little longer than he expected. Then again, for every possible message, there are two or three elements that could've been designed to throw any analysis off its trail. After all, if there's one single image that the disc brings to mind, it's that of Dilla goofing off, having fun with some of his favorite records, and messing with some heads in the process. (And you could probably make the album's title out to be a metaphor for the circle of life, but sometimes a donut is just a donut.) Armed with sources that are either known to novice sample spotters or only the most seasoned diggers -- surprisingly, the former greatly outweighs the latter -- Dilla's also just as likely to leave his samples barely touched as he is to render them unrecognizable. It's fitting that Motown echoes, a predominant theme, are often felt, from the use of Dionne Warwick's Holland-Dozier-Holland-written "You're Gonna Need Me" (on "Stop"), to the shifting waves of percussion plucked from Kendricks' "People... Hold On" (on "People"), to the Stevie-like piano licks within Kool & the Gang's "The Fruitman" ("The Diff'rence"). Most of the tracks fall into the 60-90 second range. It's easy to be overwhelmed, or even put off, by the rapid-fire sequence, but it's astounding how so many of the sketches leave an immediate impression. By the third or fourth listen, what initially came across as a haphazard stream of slapped-together fragments begins to take the shape of a 44-minute suite filled with wistful joy. Like everything else Dilla has ever done, Donuts is not defining; in fact, elements of its approach bare the apparent influence of Jaylib collaborator Madlib. His mode has always been too slippery and restlessly progressive to be equated with any one track or album, but Donuts just might be the one release that best reflects his personality. (AMG)

Download

Freddie Hubbard: Straight Life

Recorded between trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's better-known classics Red Clay and First Light, Straight Life is actually arguably Hubbard's greatest recording. Hubbard, joined by an all-star group that includes tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, keyboardist Herbie Hancock, guitarist George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, is frequently astounding on "Straight Life" (check out that introduction) and "Mr. Clean," constructing classic solos. The very memorable set is rounded off by the trumpeter's duet with Benson on a lyrical version of the ballad "Here's That Rainy Day." This exciting CD is essential for all serious jazz collections. (AMG)

Download

Annette Peacock: X-Dreams

Songwriter, composer, singer, and pianist Annette Peacock seemingly roared out the woodwork with X-Dreams in 1978. Few if any remembered her RCA debut I'm the One in 1970, a synthesizer-laced experiment with "straight" rock. That record, known more for its riffs and pop songs than Peacock's now trademark brand of iconoclastic jazz/rock/funk/classical compositions, sold modestly enough that it took four years before the completion and release of her X-Dreams follow-up. The large roster of studio musicians listed in the credits is the only hint that this record wasn't made in a standard session. And speaking of musicians, check this list: guitarists include both Chris Spedding and the late Mick Ronson; drummer Bill Bruford presides here, along with Rick Marotta; Dave Chambers and two others make up the saxophone choir; and everyone from Kuma Harada, Stu Woods, and Steve Cook plays bass. Peacock does nothing but sing and recite her wild poetry. Never have jazz dynamics come together and embraced rock's worship of the almighty riff so seamlessly, beginning with the opener, "Mama Never Taught Me How to Cook," with its brazen approach to revealing childhood incest and liberation not only in spite of it, but because of it! Guitars and keyboards dust the floor with one another as Peacock tells a tale of defiance, and an optimism that is taken not given. And yes, despite the subject matter, it is an erotic, tense mess of a song, glorious in its freewheeling temperament and unapologetic confession. In the 11-minute "Real & Defined Androgenes," Peacock's sexual politics ask more questions than they reveal about her thought process. Inside those questions, she lets saxophones and keyboards bleat and skronk their way through her sultry delivery on all the topics addressed by such sexual philosophers before her as the Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, Laure, and Pauline Reage. As if to balance out her growing testament on relationships, she adds two wonderful tracks from love's sadder side coming straight out of the blues. The first is "Dear Bela," truly a letter written with the intention of a one-sided conversation. A choir of saxes carries the vocal right into the listener's body so she too can feel the hurt. The other is perhaps the most amazing cover ever of the old Otis Blackwell/Elvis Presley classic, "Don't Be Cruel." Funky, chunky, and lean, this bed of electric pianos and guitars gives Peacock a soft place to fall for taking so many chances with not only her vocal but the blues form itself. She turns the melody back on itself and in turn this bluesy rockabilly number becomes a gorgeously bluesed-out jazz number. Spedding's guitar playing here is nothing less than stunning in both its understatement and the inventive manner in which he keeps the track rooted to its traditional setting while playing Peacock's new arrangement. One is truly contained within the other. There are no weak moments on X-Dreams, and despite its age, the album still sounds a bit ahead of its time. Peacock may have been wringing her own personal exorcism from these tracks, but for the rest of us, she offered a guidebook of complex emotional terrain, a treatise on the messy state of love, and a musical dissertation on how to integrate the nuances of form in rock and jazz. (AMG)


Download

Jim Ford: Harlan County

At his best, Jim Ford was a clever songwriter, capable of reworking rock & roll, R&B, and country clichés into fresh, funny roots rock. At his worst, Ford was cutesy and unfocused, pulling good songs into awkward detours. Harlan County, the only album he ever completed, captures Ford at both extremes. The laid-back, rootsy sound of Harlan County -- equal parts country-rock, soul, and pop -- provided a touchstone for British pub rock, especially for Brinsley Schwarz, which covered Ford's "JuJu Man" and "Niki Hoeke Speedway" (Brinsley's chief songwriter, Nick Lowe, later recorded "36 Inches High"). Those songs aren't on 1969's Harlan County; they're from an aborted 1971 record that was to feature the Brinsleys as Ford's backing band. Instead, Harlan County is filled with unassuming, midtempo rockers and ballads, which are either songs about love or driving. Ford has a pleasant, unremarkable white soul voice that, when combined with the mannered production, tends to undersell the songs, which would have benefited from grittier, committed performances. Then again, these songs aren't as good as "JuJu Man" and "Niki Hoeke," which deservedly became pub rock staples. Many of these songs are well-written, particularly the off-kilter title track and "I'm Gonna Make Her Love Me," but they lack the sharp humor and hooks of the previously mentioned songs. They are of interest as a curiosity, especially for pub rock fanatics, but Harlan County illustrates why Jim Ford never became a cult artist in his own right. (AMG)

Download

Matti Oiling: Happy Jazz Band

A great bit of funky fusion from Finland -- recorded in 1970 by drummer Matti Oiling, one of the funkiest percussionists in Europe! The album kicks off with the amazing breakbeat track "Oiling Boiling" -- a monster number that no beathead should be without -- then rolls into a very tight batch of grooves played by a combo that includes organ, guitar, bass, and lots of funky saxes! The grooves are great -- a crossroads of 60s and 70s soul jazz expression, handled here with a quality level that sounds more like a record on a US indie than some overseas pressing. (Dusty Groove)

Download

Portico Quartet: Knee-Deep In The North Sea

Portico Quartet are a 4-piece modern jazz group from London and Southampton. Their sound is made distinctive by the use of the hang, a 21st Century percussion instrument used on all their tracks. The group is composed of Jack Wyllie (soprano and alto saxophone), Duncan Bellamy (drums), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), and Nick Mulvey (hang and percussion).
After nearly two years of playing mainly small gigs and busking regularly outside the National Theatre in London, they signed to Babel Label in 2007. Their first album, Knee-deep in the North Sea was released on 5 November 2007, coupled with performances at the London Jazz Festival at Purcell Room together with pianist Michiel Borstlap and drummer Bill Bruford. [The album] was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize. The week after the awards show it debuted on the UK Top 200 Albums Chart at #186. It was Time Out's best jazz album of 2007. (Wikipedia)

Download

Waltz For Debby

Brenda Ray: Walatta

Another odd little sidebar brought to the light of day by the folks at EM, featuring UK postpunk everywoman Brenda Ray singing and contributing her own tracks to a set of heavy roots rhythms provided by Roy Cousins. Brenda's overdubs on these tracks were laid in the late 90s and 00s, but the rhythms originate from apparently earlier sessions Cousins cut in Jamaica, and feature a heavyweight roster that includes just about every Kingston musician anyone could hope to have featured in their rhythm section, from Family Man Barrett and Sly & Robbie to Horsemouth Wallace and Ranchie McLean. Ray wisely doesn't try to put on a rootsy hat, but offers up her own style of mellow breathy vocals, and keeps the overdubs complimentary too, so in the end the album's more of a fusion of deep rootsy tracks and modern UK pop. (Dusty Groove)

Download

Bobbi Humphrey: Blacks & Blues

Bobbi Humphrey scored her biggest hit with her third album Blacks and Blues, an utterly delightful jazz-funk classic that helped make her a sensation at Montreux. If it sounds a lot like Donald Byrd's post-Black Byrd output, it's no accident; brothers Larry and Fonce Mizell have their fingerprints all over the album, and as on their work with Byrd, Larry handles all the composing and most of the arranging and production duties. It certainly helps that the Mizells were hitting on all cylinders at this point in their careers, but Humphrey is the true star of the show; she actually grabs a good deal more solo space than Byrd did on his Mizell collaborations, and she claims a good deal of responsibility for the album's light, airy charm. Her playing is indebted to Herbie Mann and, especially, Hubert Laws, but she has a more exclusive affinity for R&B and pop than even those two fusion-minded players, which is why she excels in this setting. Mizell is at the peak of his arranging powers, constructing dense grooves with lots of vintage synths, wah-wah guitars, and rhythmic interplay. Whether the funk runs hot or cool, Humphrey floats over the top with a near-inexhaustible supply of melodic ideas. She also makes her vocal debut on the album's two ballads, "Just a Love Child" and "Baby's Gone"; her voice is girlish but stronger than the genre standard, even the backing vocals by the Mizells and keyboardist Fred Perren. Overall, the album's cumulative effect is like a soft summer breeze, perfect for beaches, barbecues, and cruising with the top down. (AMG)

Download

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly

A portrait of the artist as a young man, The Nightfly is a wonderfully evocative reminiscence of Kennedy-era American life; in the liner notes, Donald Fagen describes the songs as representative of the kinds of fantasies he entertained as an adolescent during the late '50s/early '60s, and he conveys the tenor of the times with some of his most personal and least obtuse material to date. Continuing in the smooth pop-jazz mode favored on the final Steely Dan records, The Nightfly is lush and shimmering, produced with cinematic flair by Gary Katz; romanticized but never sentimental, the songs are slices of suburbanite soap opera, tales of space-age hopes (the hit "I.G.Y.") and Cold War fears (the wonderful "The New Frontier," a memoir of fallout-shelter love) crafted with impeccable style and sophistication. (AMG)

Download

Andy Sheppard: Movements In Colour

A new set by British saxophonist and composer Andy Sheppard is always a welcome proposal, but his 13th album, and 14th release overall, also happens to be his debut for ECM. The association is a long one, indirectly, since Sheppard recorded a dozen albums with Carla Bley's band on WATT, which is manufactured and distributed by ECM. The music on Movements in Colour is an ambitious, but utterly lyrical blend of Latin, Middle Eastern, and post-bop, and it is realized by musicians such as jazz guitarist John Parricelli (who plays acoustically here) and tabla player Kuljit Bhamra -- members of Sheppard's regular quartet -- guitarist and electronic musician Eivind Aarset, and double bassist Arild Andersen, who also plays some electronics. The set opens with "La Tristesse du Roi," and some sparse, gently out playing by Sheppard on his tenor before he states a spacious, modal theme that is gently boarded by the other players -- first Aarset and Andersen's electronics before the rest of the band enter with double bass, more quietly swirling electronics, and finally, Parricelli's acoustic guitar and the tabla, which quickly becomes a centerpiece of the tune. The movement of the tabla also denotes the long work's (nearly 15 minutes) sections and prefaces the solo breaks with a slightly changing rhythm. Parricelli's is particularly beautiful. "Bing" begins with percussion and double bass creating a frenetic pace before Aarset's treated guitars, electronics, and Sheppard's saxophone state the melody that is colored elegantly by Parricelli. It too is uptempo, with Latin groove and plenty of give and take, feeling much more like a modern jazz tune -- it is exotic, but not mysterious -- as it simply moves through different moods and textures to arrive at a specific destination. "Nave Nave Moe" is a gorgeous midtempo ballad featuring Sheppard's expertise on the soprano. The interplay between the Parricelli's 12-string and Aarset's electric is lovingly accented by the rhythm section playing in a sprightly but still-laid back groove. The brief "Ballarina," and the closer "International Blue," are largely atmospheric pieces, more impressionistic than formal but still compelling. Ultimately, Movements in Colour is a wonderfully breezy, airy, but very sophisticated recording that places an unusual instrument (the tabla) at the center of a jazz group that defies expectations and delivers something new yet familiar; this set is both well-conceived, and more importantly, well-executed.  (AMG)

Download

Tom & Dito: Catibiriba

Jean-Luc Ponty: King Kong

Not just an album of interpretations, King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa was an active collaboration; Frank Zappa arranged all of the selections, played guitar on one, and contributed a new, nearly 20-minute orchestral composition for the occasion. Made in the wake of Ponty's appearance on Zappa's jazz-rock masterpiece Hot Rats, these 1969 recordings were significant developments in both musicians' careers. In terms of jazz-rock fusion, Zappa was one of the few musicians from the rock side of the equation who captured the complexity -- not just the feel -- of jazz, and this project was an indicator of his growing credibility as a composer. For Ponty's part, King Kong marked the first time he had recorded as a leader in a fusion-oriented milieu (though Zappa's brand of experimentalism didn't really foreshadow Ponty's own subsequent work). Of the repertoire, three of the six pieces had previously been recorded by the Mothers of Invention, and "Twenty Small Cigars" soon would be. Ponty writes a Zappa-esque theme on his lone original "How Would You Like to Have a Head Like That," where Zappa contributes a nasty guitar solo. The centerpiece, though, is obviously "Music for Electric Violin and Low Budget Orchestra," a new multi-sectioned composition that draws as much from modern classical music as jazz or rock. It's a showcase for Zappa's love of blurring genres and Ponty's versatility in handling everything from lovely, simple melodies to creepy dissonance, standard jazz improvisation to avant-garde, nearly free group passages. In the end, Zappa's personality comes through a little more clearly (his compositional style pretty much ensures it), but King Kong firmly established Ponty as a risk-taker and a strikingly original new voice for jazz violin.

Download

Ebo Taylor: Love & Death

During the 1970s, Ebo Taylor was one of the leading lights of Ghana's guitar highlife and Afrobeat scenes. He had a productive solo career and was one of the stars of the Apagya Show Band supergroup-- his contributions as guitarist and bandleader helped define the sound that we associate with 70s Ghana today. But it wasn't until this past decade that Taylor gained any kind of notoriety outside of West Africa. Soundway Records included his songs, both on his own and with Apagya, on its groundbreaking Ghana Soundz compilations, and he stood out as a guy with his own sound. "Atwer Abroba" and "Heaven", the two solo songs the label compiled, had a distinctive rhythm, a cousin of the Fela Kuti/Tony Allen backbeat that gave the songs a feeling of unstoppable momentum but felt much heavier than its Nigerian counterpart.

One of the best side effects of the surge of interest in West African popular music has been the revival of many careers and groups that had long been idle or working in the margins-- Mulatu Astatke, Bembeya Jazz, Orchestra Baobab, and Poly-Rythmo have all come back, and now Taylor joins them with his first-ever international release. He's joined by musicians from Berlin's Afrobeat Academy, which is comprised of members of Poets of Rhythm, Kabu Kabu, and Marijata, the last of which was active in Ghana around the same time as Taylor in the 70s. The band is important, because it's key to achieving a sound that makes it feel like Taylor never went away-- the material is fresh, but it has a thick, vintage sound that ties back to Taylor's old work nicely.
It must be said that it also generalizes his sound a little bit; many Afrobeat Academy members cut their teeth on Fela, after all, and that's clear especially in the rhythm guitar and bass playing of J. Whitefield and Patrick Frankowski, respectively. That should, however, be taken as an observation of style and not quality, as there's not really anything you could call a wrong note on the whole album. Taylor's songs are mostly newly written for the project, though the phenomenal title track is a new version of a song he originally recorded in 1980 after his first wife left him-- in the song, he compares her kiss at their wedding to a kiss of death as his guitar rolls calmly along beside his vocal. Taylor has made what appears to be a strategic decision to open the album with "Nga Nga", an adaptation of a Ghanaian children's rhyme that many people interested in highlife and Afrobeat will already recognize from a version by the Sweet Talks. Taylor's take is less frantic and takes a sort of slow-burn approach, his guitar slashing ominously against the heavy horns and spacey, snaking sax lead.
That flash of the familiar isn't necessarily a fleeting one-- if you're a fan of Ghana Soundz or, really, funky old West African music in general, you will feel right at home on this album. Taylor hasn't lost a bit of the spark that made his old records good (and we'll get a chance to compare more directly later this year when Strut releases a compilation of his old songs), and the new songs honor the spirit of that music without rehashing it. There's no need for an artist like Taylor to reinvent himself at this stage-- Love and Death gives us exactly what we want and does it exceedingly well. (Pitchfork)

Download