Album reviews: Merle Haggard | DJ Shadow | Portugal. The Man | Nicola Benedetti | Sonny Rollins | Barabra Dymock | Greece: En Chordais

OUR critics take a look at some of the best and worst of this week’s new releases...

POP

Merle Haggard: Working In Tennessee

Vanguard, £12.99 ***

MUCH like his outlaw country contemporary Willie Nelson, who guests here on a new version of Workin’ Man Blues, Merle Haggard makes it all sound so easy. At the grand old age of 74, he is still a master of understated eloquence, as demonstrated by the intuitive phrasing of practical protest song What I Hate. Elsewhere on his 76th studio album, he taps into some sincere regret on Sometimes I Dream and brings his absorbing conversational style to a couple of Johnny Cash numbers, including the casual country swing of Cocaine Blues. Ironically, his call for a return to musical integrity, Too Much Boogie Woogie, is by some way the weakest track on this otherwise nimble collection.

DJ Shadow: The Less You Know The Better

Island, £13.99 ***

HAVING influenced the hip-hop game once with his groundbreaking sampledelic opus Endtroducing, DJ Shadow has simply continued doing his eclectic cut-and-paste mixtape thing for the ensuing years, though the shock-of-the-new sensation has long since dissipated.

The Less You Know The Better is still a heartily enjoyable trip about the genres, skirting those copyright infringement orders even as it leaps from the sleek LA pop rock of Warning Call to the disturbed electronic dreamscape of Give Me The Nights via meaty rock guitars (Border Crossing), old school funk basslines (Stay the Course), conscious soul (I’ve Been Trying) and mournful folk (Sad And Lonely, Redeemed) leaving just enough space for snippets of old school hip-hop.

Portugal. The Man: In The Mountain In The Cloud

Atlantic, £12.99 ****

ALASKA-BORN, Portland-based quartet Portugal. The Man are six years and now six albums old but this major label debut will be the entry point for most listeners, one which places them comfortably in the psychedelic pop company of infectious tunesmiths such as MGMT, Empire of the Sun and Foster the People and alongside Wolf Gang for instantaneous commercial appeal and David Bowie-loving glam-flecked confidence. When frontman John Gourley hits his falsetto range, there’s a glimpse of what Mika could be doing if only he would stop writing glorified ad jingles and tap into something cosmic. FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

Nicola Benedetti: Italia

Decca, £12.99 ***

THERE’S nothing in Nicola Benedetti’s latest album, Italia, that isn’t neat, tidy and in its place. From the cutesy sleeve image of her posing 1960s-style with a classic Vespa, to a track list populated by the neat guys of the Italian Baroque – Vivaldi, Tartini and the lesser-known Veracini – everything seems as cosy as a calm summer’s day in Tuscany. Pleasant though the music is, it’s much the same throughout. At least that’s how Benedetti plays it. There’s nothing wrong with her silken approach, and her rapport with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Christian Curnyn is like fine lace. But where’s the genuine spark in thrillers like Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, or Vivaldi’s Summer? KENNETH WALTON

JAZZ

Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Vol. 2

Emarcy, £13.99 ***

TWO of the six tracks on this disc are from concerts in Japan, and the rest are from the saxophonist’s 80th birthday celebration a year ago in New York. The centrepiece is a 22-minute workout on Sonnymoon For Two in which Rollins jousts with another giant of modern jazz saxophone, Ornette Coleman, contrasting two very different approaches to jazz improvisation. Both veterans give it everything, and the squeaks-and-all live recording captures the spontaneous energy of the moment. Other tracks feature guest slots for Jim Hall (a lovely reading of I’m In A Sentimental Mood with the band but not Rollins), Christian McBride, Roy Haynes and Roy Hargrove. Rollins’ rather fulsome introductions will doubtless wear thin with repetition, as will some of the moments of dodgy intonation, but it is an invigorating and generally still impressive snapshot of the great man. KENNY MATHIESON

FOLK

Barbara Dymock: Hilbert’s Hotel

Liftfire Recordings, £12.99 ***

THIS Dundee-based traditional singer makes a welcome re-emergence, having spent the last couple of decades largely concentrating on medical career and family. A nice choice of traditional and contemporary material comes accompanied by a tight if unassuming group of musicians including fiddler Carol Anderson, flautist Kenny Hadden and Martin MacDonald on guitar and mandolin.

Occasionally, as in The Cauld, Cauld Winter’s Gane, vocals and accompaniment tend to follow each other rather too faithfully. The unaccompanied Billy Taylor shows Dymock’s mettle with more spark. Elsewhere, though, the settings work nicely, Edward, for instance, working up a string-driven tension reflecting the Appalachian source of this variant of the near-universal fratricide ballad, while The Unquiet Grave comes over with (literally) haunting poignancy.

Less traditional interludes include the droll antisocial nightmare of Michael Marra’s Muggie Sha’, Bob Dylan’s Farewell Angelina and the keen Macedonian harmonies of Sto Me E Milo. JIM GILCHRIST

WORLD

Greece: En Chordais – Music of Asia Minor and Constantinople

Ocora Radio France, £11.99 ****

YET another piece of pioneering musical archaeology from Ocora, yet another forgotten corner of world music exposed to the light. The musicians of the En Chordais ensemble recorded this music last year, but if it wasn’t for the absence of any hiss or crackle, you’d think these tracks were laid down a century ago. Greek rembetiko – the rough blues of the Adriatic ports – may be reasonably familiar, thanks to heavily amplified versions on the club circuit, but the rest of this music will be terra incognita for most listeners. Yet at times it feels oddly familiar, with elements of Arabic and Balkan Gypsy music threading their way through the tapestry. This is because it draws on the styles of the surrounding civilisations, as befits the history which has given rise to it.

Its roots go back to the co-existence of the Turkish and Greek communities in Anatolia, which until the 11th century had been part of the Byzantine empire: ancient Byzantine music laid the foundations for Ottoman music, which – with its links to the Central Asian and Arab-Persian traditions – brought other elements into the mix. Armenia’s troubadour tradition fed in too, as did the Slavic music which Jewish communities brought on their wanderings; this was “intercultural” creation in the best sense of the word.

When war between Greece and Turkey led to a huge exchange of populations in 1922 – hundreds of thousands of Greek and Turkish peasants being “brought home” or “deported” – the cultural miscegenation was brought to a halt, but its music continued to thrive wherever men gathered in cafes, or women sang as they worked.

Hence the songs and dances here, powered along by instruments like the oud, zither, spike-fiddle and goblet drum. The liner notes coyly describe many of these songs as “erotic in content”, and there’s no mistaking their lusty vigour; the instrumental improvisations, meanwhile, are fascinating. MICHAEL CHURCH