Album reviews

POPJASON MRAZ: WE SING. WE DANCE. WE STEAL THINGS***

ATLANTIC, 9.99

ALTHOUGH broadly conveying the same laidback troubadour vibe as Jack Johnson and Ray Lamontagne, San Diego singer/songwriter Jason Mraz is less likely to lull you to sleep thanks to a likeably characterful voice and a playful approach to his music. His third album – titled after a drawing by Glasgow artist David Shrigley, who also supplies the album artwork – makes agreeable summer listening with its sunny 1970s-influenced tunefulness and whimsical lyrics (not unlike The Feeling, if they weren't trying so hard), but deviates slightly with the gospel sentiments of Live High and the irritating faux-funky scat of Dynamo.

SILVER JEWS: LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, LOOKOUT SEA

****

DRAG CITY, 10.99

AN ALBUM that sounds like it was a blast to work on in the studio doesn't necessarily translate into a fun time for the listener, but Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is a frolic of easygoing eccentricity courtesy of the fertile imagination of head Silver Jew David Berman. Like a less excitable Wayne Coyne or a more optimistic Bill Callahan, he comes out in sympathy for a Suffering Jukebox ("you got Tennessee tendencies and chemical dependencies"), extols the virtues of being lost at sea on Party Barge and ponders the confounding questions so we don't have to on What Is Not But Could Be If, all with the keen participation of his trusty musical ensemble.

MY MORNING JACKET: EVIL URGES

****

ROUGH TRADE, 10.99

KENTUCKY'S My Morning Jacket continue to challenge their prevailing image as a bunch of blissed-out hirsute hippies on their fifth album, which pushes at a few more musical boundaries. Fans of their earlier work will be soothed by the trad Eagles rock of I'm Amazed, the mellow pedal steel twang of Sec Walkin' and maybe even the mane-shaking retro rocker Remnants, but the joy of Evil Urges is in hearing them branch out, Beck-like, with the breathless falsetto funk of the title track, the hot-under-the-collar Highly Suspicious and the intoxicating psych-funk odyssey Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt 1 & 2.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

MICHAEL WISE: SACRED CHORAL MUSIC

****

DELPHIAN, 12.99

MICHAEL Wise was a colourful character, by all accounts. Frequently drunk, negligent of his duties as organist of Salisbury Cathedral, and with a tongue that matched the "other excesses" of his life, it comes as no surprise to learn that he was beaten to death in his thirties by cathedral watchman, whom he had insulted late one night in 1687.

Yet behind the debauchery was a composer – a near-contemporary of Henry Purcell – of some significance, as this dedicatory CD on Edinburgh's Delphian label superbly illustrates. The music bears all the artistry of its time – unpretentious homophony sprinkled with evocative chromaticism and a general empathy for its purpose as music to enhance the experience of church worship in Restoration England.

In this selective mix of canticles and anthems, including Wise's cherubic treble duo setting of The Lord is My Shepherd, the Choir of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge under its director Geoffrey Webber capture the essence of the composer's serious side.

To have these works interspersed by organ music of Wise's older contemporaries Mathew Locke and Christopher Gibbons (his own organ compositions are lost), offers a perspective that is useful in pinpointing his place in the development of English church music. Organ scholars Thomas Hewitt Jones and David Ballantyne equip themselves well in these. And we are much the wiser for it.

MISTERSTOURWORM AND THE KELPIE'S GIFT

****

CIRCULAR RECORDS, 11.99

AS A performer, Scottish harpist Savourna Stevenson crosses many musical boundaries. As a composer, that eclecticism informs a delicious little "musical adventure" called Misterstourworm and the Kelpie's Gift, which she claims is the first such narrated piece since Prokefiev's Peter and the Wolf. That's debatable, but the bottom line is this: it is a delightful work, narrated here by actor Billy Boyd, sung by the National Youth Choir of Scotland Edinburgh branch and the RSNO Junior Chorus, with the Scottish Opera Orchestra under Christopher Bell's direction. Add to that some other songs by Stevenson and a colourfully illustrated booklet, and the package is just the ticket for young children who like a good tale well told.

KENNETH WALTON

WORLD

ROUGH GUIDE TO ARABIC CAF

****

RGNET, 8.99

FORGET the connotations of our British idea of what constitutes a caf, and think instead backgammon, hookahs, newspapers and intellectual debate. It was in the cafs of Beirut and Cairo that the radicals of the Middle East developed the ideas which fuelled their post-colonial emancipation: if some of the locales reflected on this CD are rougher and raunchier, its core is an idealistic heart, and the music is superb. After kicking off with the austere a cappella beauty of Amal Murkus's Palestinian folk-singing, we move to the brilliance of oud-master Amer Ammouri, and the belly-dance rhythms of Salamat and the Musiciens du Nil. We also get a snatch of the Lebanese diva tradition courtesy of Ghada Shebir, and its Egyptian male counterpart from Mohamed Roshdi. Elsewhere, the great Oum Kalthoum makes her obligatory posthumous appearance, as does that brilliant Algerian jazz-pianist Maurice El Medioni. This release could so easily have been compiled by a contemporary crap-merchant, but Nili Belkind is a real connoisseur, and has given us a most refined musical feast.

ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF MALI

***

RGNET, 8.99

HARD on the heels of Entre dunes et savanes: Desert Blues 3 (Network) – a release which I reviewed on these pages last month – comes this more modest compilation from the same territory, but it's none the less welcome. Compiler Marisa Lassman has covered all the main facets of Malian music here, from east to west, and from the parched north to the sultry south. So Maninka jeli music is represented by Toumani Diabate and Habib Koite, while the bluesier Bamana sound is delivered by those non-jelis Boubakar Traore and Rokia Traore. Sacred wassoulou music – for which the singers are known as "songbirds" – is represented by the inimitable Oumou Sangare, while the late, great Ali Farka Tour sings to us from the banks of the Niger. After this comprehensive and enticing introduction, you may want to dig deeper into Mali's fascinating musical traditions.

MICHAEL CHURCH