Rudresh Mahanthappa, Gamak

Indian-American saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa sometimes looks for ways to bridge jazz and South Indian music, as on his celebrated two-alto collaboration with Kadri Gopalnath, Kinsmen. On Gamak, Mahanthappa’s point of departure is the gamakas, the specific ways Indian classical musicians sculpt a note: sliding into it from just above or below, intensifying it with wide or narrow leaps, ending it with an upward swoop; it’s these rococo designs that give Indian melodies their distinctive character. Mahanthappa has written striking tunes with the same sort of pungent inflections (“Abhogi,” “Stay I,” “We’ll Make More”), developing the details with input from his frontline partner, microtonal guitarist David Fiuczynski. Mahanthappa’s bandmate in Jack DeJohnette’s quintet, Fiuczynski makes Indian swerves and blues string-bends sound like they’re part of the same tradition. With its Carnatic saxophone jitters and slide guitar, “Abhogi” sounds like a Gopalnath/Beefheart mashup. Dan Weiss applies his knowledge of tabla beat-cycles to the trap set; Francois Moutin is the jazz anchor on bass.

New This Week: Veronica Falls, Jim James, Eels & More

Veronica Falls, Waiting For Something To Happen Veronica Falls set the bar high with their 2011 debut, and on Waiting For Something To Happen they raise it. Produced by Rory Attwell (The Vaccines), the record is a confident and clear-eyed throwback to a time when strummy ’80s college rock ruled the underground. It confirms Victoria Falls as one of the best indie-pop bands going.

Jim James, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God As the lynchpin of My Morning Jacket, Jim James has made a name as the consummate crafter of spacey classic country, etched with psychedelic pop and soul. His solo debut is very different: these nine intimate songs nod towards everything from kosmiche blues to futuro-hip hop, to steal hearts in 38 impeccably judged minutes.

Eels, Wonderful, Glorious Mark Oliver Everett has always worn his misanthropy like a badge of honour; it’s telling that he counts Tom Waits as a fan. This caps a four-year burst of activity that yielded an autobiography, a documentary about his late father and a trilogy of concept albums, and what sets it apart is an overarching sense of optimism – a glorious development indeed.

Darkstar, News From Nowhere Darkstar’s sophomore album is a tricky one to grasp – placid on the surface, but built to make its intricacies emerge with patient listening. It is bound to take some getting used to for fans of the band’s early moody dubstep, but go in expecting a low-key sort of sunny euphoria, and it’ll feel like an intriguing new facet to their style.

FIDLAR, FIDLAR Los Angeles punks FIDLAR kick off their debut with a song called “Cheap Beer”, but there’s more subtlety here than meets the eye. If you slowed down “Max Can’t Surf” it would sound like a Buddy Holly ballad, while the rest hits a happy medium between the feral rush of The Black Lips and the hooks-first polish of early Green Day.

Grouper, The Man Who Died in his Boat This is the latest from Liz Harris aka Grouper; here she offers ethereal vocals blended with layers of moody electronic effects and strummed acoustic guitar. The grim title is inspired by a story as mysterious as her songs, in which an empty boat washed ashore in Oregon.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II In this psychedelia Venn diagram, the overlap is largely in the details: off-kilter production effects, wispy vocals, a sense of groove. Slight nods and tactful sonic cues rather than “hey man, far out!” indulgence. Working in this sweet spot, Ruban Nielson has produced a loose batch of great songs.

Prince, Screwdriver Definitely not inspired by a trip to B&Q, this double entendre-heavy release from the artist who doesn’t “do” albums any more sounds like vintage-era Prince, again.

Night Beds, Country Sleep – Rangy, lamplit alt-country graced with angelic, Jim James-style singing and lovely harmonies. A stunning late-night weeper of a record, with flecks of Ryan Adams surfacing. Lyndsey Field writes:

Country Sleep, the debut from Colorado expats Night Beds, is largely the product of 23-year-old frontman Winston Yellen, sprung from a trip Yellen took across America in a small hatchback  Think Justin Vernon, but not for too long: As soon as Yellen’s voice starts sliding up to falsetto it flicks suddenly away, like candlelight in a night breeze.

Chris Stamey, Long Distance Mixing – The producer and singer/songwriter returns with another rough-cut jewel of an indie-rock record, one that recalls his time in jangle outfits like the DBs as well as pointing towards darker, more cinematic places. Holly George-Warren tells us:

An in-demand producer (Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo), North Carolinian Chris Stamey infrequently releases solo work. So when his finely-crafted songs make their way to an album, it’s always a sonic surprise, rich with echoes of his myriad projects: sometimes jangly fare like his seminal power pop outfit the dB’s, other times unabashed rock like Yo La Tengo, with whom he cut 2005′s A Question of Temperature. The haunting Lovesick Blues, Stamey’s first solo offering in eight years, is darkly intimate chamber pop reminiscent of Big Star’s Third.

David T. Little, Soldier Songs – A mini-opera song cycle dealing soberly with the personal and emotional fallout of warfare, complete with sampled snippets of interviews with real veterans. Seth Colter-Walls writes:

“Every Town Has a Wall” and “Two Marines” are both driven by post-war reflections, and it’s in those songs that Little reaches for the complexity of mood that also made Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs a modern classic. Precisely because we may be prone to think we’ve moved past the “Global War on Terror” era (drone strikes to the side), Little’s songs feel important, even necessary.

New This Week: Veronica Falls, Jim James, Eels & More

Veronica Falls, Waiting For Something To Happen Veronica Falls set the bar high with their 2011 debut, and on Waiting For Something To Happen they raise it. Produced by Rory Attwell (The Vaccines), the record is a confident and clear-eyed throwback to a time when strummy ’80s college rock ruled the underground. It confirms Victoria Falls as one of the best indie-pop bands going.

Jim James, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God As the lynchpin of My Morning Jacket, Jim James has made a name as the consummate crafter of spacey classic country, etched with psychedelic pop and soul. His solo debut is very different: these nine intimate songs nod towards everything from kosmiche blues to futuro-hip hop, to steal hearts in 38 impeccably judged minutes.

Eels, Wonderful, Glorious Mark Oliver Everett has always worn his misanthropy like a badge of honour; it’s telling that he counts Tom Waits as a fan. This caps a four-year burst of activity that yielded an autobiography, a documentary about his late father and a trilogy of concept albums, and what sets it apart is an overarching sense of optimism – a glorious development indeed.

Darkstar, News From Nowhere Darkstar’s sophomore album is a tricky one to grasp – placid on the surface, but built to make its intricacies emerge with patient listening. It is bound to take some getting used to for fans of the band’s early moody dubstep, but go in expecting a low-key sort of sunny euphoria, and it’ll feel like an intriguing new facet to their style.

FIDLAR, FIDLAR Los Angeles punks FIDLAR kick off their debut with a song called “Cheap Beer”, but there’s more subtlety here than meets the eye. If you slowed down “Max Can’t Surf” it would sound like a Buddy Holly ballad, while the rest hits a happy medium between the feral rush of The Black Lips and the hooks-first polish of early Green Day.

Grouper, The Man Who Died in his Boat This is the latest from Liz Harris aka Grouper; here she offers ethereal vocals blended with layers of moody electronic effects and strummed acoustic guitar. The grim title is inspired by a story as mysterious as her songs, in which an empty boat washed ashore in Oregon.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II In this psychedelia Venn diagram, the overlap is largely in the details: off-kilter production effects, wispy vocals, a sense of groove. Slight nods and tactful sonic cues rather than “hey man, far out!” indulgence. Working in this sweet spot, Ruban Nielson has produced a loose batch of great songs.

Prince, Screwdriver Definitely not inspired by a trip to B&Q, this double entendre-heavy release from the artist who doesn’t “do” albums any more sounds like vintage-era Prince, again.

Night Beds, Country Sleep – Rangy, lamplit alt-country graced with angelic, Jim James-style singing and lovely harmonies. A stunning late-night weeper of a record, with flecks of Ryan Adams surfacing. Lyndsey Field writes:

Country Sleep, the debut from Colorado expats Night Beds, is largely the product of 23-year-old frontman Winston Yellen, sprung from a trip Yellen took across America in a small hatchback  Think Justin Vernon, but not for too long: As soon as Yellen’s voice starts sliding up to falsetto it flicks suddenly away, like candlelight in a night breeze.

Chris Stamey, Long Distance Mixing – The producer and singer/songwriter returns with another rough-cut jewel of an indie-rock record, one that recalls his time in jangle outfits like the DBs as well as pointing towards darker, more cinematic places. Holly George-Warren tells us:

An in-demand producer (Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo), North Carolinian Chris Stamey infrequently releases solo work. So when his finely-crafted songs make their way to an album, it’s always a sonic surprise, rich with echoes of his myriad projects: sometimes jangly fare like his seminal power pop outfit the dB’s, other times unabashed rock like Yo La Tengo, with whom he cut 2005′s A Question of Temperature. The haunting Lovesick Blues, Stamey’s first solo offering in eight years, is darkly intimate chamber pop reminiscent of Big Star’s Third.

David T. Little, Soldier Songs – A mini-opera song cycle dealing soberly with the personal and emotional fallout of warfare, complete with sampled snippets of interviews with real veterans. Seth Colter-Walls writes:

“Every Town Has a Wall” and “Two Marines” are both driven by post-war reflections, and it’s in those songs that Little reaches for the complexity of mood that also made Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs a modern classic. Precisely because we may be prone to think we’ve moved past the “Global War on Terror” era (drone strikes to the side), Little’s songs feel important, even necessary.

New This Week: Jim James, UMO, Frightened Rabbit & More

Jim James, Regions of Light and Sound of God – MMJ frontman goes solo with an easy-flowing, richly intimate record. Sharon 0′Connell writes:

 Regions of Light and Sound of God presents as a deeply personal record, most of it played by James himself and recorded in his home studio. The reverb slathered so generously over MMJ’s material also warms and enriches these nine, alluringly intimate songs, but without once threatening to smother James’s effortlessly lovely voice, while instrumentation (his MIDI guitar gets a good workout) and arrangements are markedly more minimal.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II – The Portland-via-New-Zealand take a breath and ease into some looser, laid-back jams without losing their firm grip on melody or concision. Definitely an Editor’s Pick. Alex Naidus has more:

 Unknown Mortal Orchestra, primarily the creative vehicle of founder Ruban Nielson, is an unconventionally psychedelic band. Many of the things you’d imagine floating a psych rock tag cloud — “sprawling,” “trippy,” “open-ended,” “whimsical” — largely don’t apply. Nielson is a disciplined songwriter, and the carefully-constructed sound that unspools on II is streamlined, deliberately deployed and, oftentimes, gentle. In this psychedelia Venn diagram, the overlap is largely in the details: off-kilter production effects (vocal and guitar delay, occasional wah, slight panning); wispy vocals; a sense of groove. Slight nods and tactful sonic cues rather than “hey man, far out!” indulgence. Working in this sweet spot, Nielson has produced a loose batch of great songs.

Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse-  Our favorite soused Scots return, this time wielding their expanded budget with a bit more confidence. Dan Hyman writes:

 Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchinson has long led us down a dour path littered with cigarette-burned hearts and suffocated dreams. The singer’s love/hard-breakup/drink heavily/rinse-and-repeat ethos once felt intimate — see 2010′s The Winter of Mixed Drinks – yet on last fall’s State Hospital EP, the first Frightened Rabbit release to follow the Glasgow five-piece signing a major-label deal with Atlantic, such tales of woe were propped up (and rendered sterile) by lavish production. Pedestrian Verse, the band’s latest full-length and fourth, is still a transitional album — Hutchinson, drummer brother Grant and company now bring a noticeably brighter, more arena-sized sheen to their tales of woe.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, We The Common – Thao takes a breath, takes aim, and takes on bigger targets. Ashley Melzer has more:

 After spending most of her 20s touring like mad and cranking out ragged, playful indie pop, Thao Nguyen settled down in San Francisco for a year’s respite. The break from the typical tour-to-studio-to-tour grind gave her time to explore the city, work with nonprofits (like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, through which she met track one’s dedicatee, Valeria Bolden) and take a more measured tack toward her writing process. The result is palpable. We The Common is a thoughtful, provocative build on all the band’s strengths of easy-flowing melodies, big hooks and inventive arrangements.

Darkstar, News From Nowhere – The electronic trio get more delicate on the woozily lovestruck follow-up to North. Here’s Nate Patrin with the review:

Six years after their first batch of trad-dubstep singles, four years after the skittering buzz of their breakthrough “Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer,” and three years after their synthpop-homaging debut full-length North, Darkstar just keep getting more delicate. Their sophomore album News from Nowhere is a tricky album to grasp — placid on the surface, but built to make its intricacies emerge with patient listening. Instrumentation leans heavy on airy, bright pianos and chimes, the basslines hover just as much as they throb, and vocalist James Buttery has an almost translucent quality to his voice that still sounds inhumanly frail no matter how many multitracks and effects it’s run through.

Eels, Wonderful Glorious – Mark Oliver Everett, the man behind Eels, takes a lickin’ and keeps on Eelsin’. He has been mightily prolific as of late, a development chronicled for us by Bill Murphy:

 Wonderful, Glorious caps a prolific four-year burst of activity from Everett that yielded an autobiography, a documentary about his late father (quantum physicist and “many-worlds” theorist Hugh Everett III) and a trilogy of Eels concept albums. What sets this one apart is the overarching sense of optimism and the fact that Everett’s four-piece backing band — a road-hardened touring unit since 2009 — had an equal share in the making of it. While Everett still relishes his sarcasm, he sounds more relaxed than ever — a glorious development indeed.

Night Beds, Country Sleep – Rangy, lamplit alt-country graced with angelic, Jim James-style singing and lovely harmonies. A stunning late-night weeper of a record, with flecks of Ryan Adams surfacing. Lyndsey Field writes:

Country Sleep, the debut from Colorado expats Night Beds, is largely the product of 23-year-old frontman Winston Yellen, sprung from a trip Yellen took across America in a small hatchback  Think Justin Vernon, but not for too long: As soon as Yellen’s voice starts sliding up to falsetto it flicks suddenly away, like candlelight in a night breeze.

Richard Thompson, Electric – The celebrated British guitarist and singer/songwriter Richard Thompson gives us a sputtering, seething burst of his still-sharp-as-ever mind. Richard Gehr writes:

Thompson long ago electrified the Anglo folk tradition’s too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral and hey-nonny-nonny tropes as a founding member of Fairport Convention. His later mastery of a kind of “Anglocana”-noir manifests itself on Electric in songs like “The Snow Goose” — a duet with Alison Krauss in which he sings that “Nothern winds will cut you/ Nothern girls will gut you/ Leave you cold and empty like a fish on a slab” — and “My Enemy,” a slow, seething survivor’s tale in which vengeance is far from sweet. The instrumentation may not always be electric, but the playing, writing and singing sure as hell are.

Chris Stamey, Long Distance Mixing – The producer and singer/songwriter returns with another rough-cut jewel of an indie-rock record, one that recalls his time in jangle outfits like the DBs as well as pointing towards darker, more cinematic places. Holly George-Warren tells us:

An in-demand producer (Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo), North Carolinian Chris Stamey infrequently releases solo work. So when his finely-crafted songs make their way to an album, it’s always a sonic surprise, rich with echoes of his myriad projects: sometimes jangly fare like his seminal power pop outfit the dB’s, other times unabashed rock like Yo La Tengo, with whom he cut 2005′s A Question of Temperature. The haunting Lovesick Blues, Stamey’s first solo offering in eight years, is darkly intimate chamber pop reminiscent of Big Star’s Third.

Terri Lyne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue – An acidic, coolly swinging revisitation of Duke Ellington’s classic Money Jungle. Ken Micallef writes:

Carrington revisits some of the album’s original material while delving further into the nature of a buck in modern America. Peppered with dollar-centric speech sampled from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George W. Bush, Herbie Hancock and others, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue spikes swinging and occasionally funky jazz with provocative political commentary.

David T. Little, Soldier Songs – A mini-opera song cycle dealing  soberly with the personal and emotional fallout of warfare, complete with sampled snippets of interviews with real veterans. Seth Colter-Walls writes:

“Every Town Has a Wall” and “Two Marines” are both driven by post-war reflections, and it’s in those songs that Little reaches for the complexity of mood that also made Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs a modern classic. Precisely because we may be prone to think we’ve moved past the “Global War on Terror” era (drone strikes to the side), Little’s songs feel important, even necessary

The Spinto Band, Cool Cocoon: The Spinto Band is back with their second record in less than a year; lots of jangly, harmony-driven indie rock.

Bettie Serveert, Oh, Mayhem!: Dutch group Bettie Serveert have been around for 20 years but they’ve kept up with modern times, at least in terms of song titles — there’s one here called “iPromise.” Lots of quirky indie pop here.

Clogs, The Sundown Song: A few new tracks from Brooklyn indie-classical faves, backed by the Mallacoota Community Choir.

Hayden, Us Alone – The Canadian alt-rock stalwart has a lovelorn, frail little voice that he mumbles sweetly with like a suburban Nick Drake. This is warm, gently understated folk rock, his specialty.

Apache Dropout, Magnetic Heads – Smeary, echo-laden, yodelin’-in-the-bathtub lo-fi garage pop racket.

Ballake Sissoko, At Peace – Raindrop-delicate sketches from the Malian kora player. This is subtly restorative, relaxed music, a deep cleansing breath.

Cough Cough, Everything EP – Big-ticket British guitar-rock band, exposed-nerve twitchy and caffeinated and yelpy. Sounds like Bloc Party and Vampire Weekend in a Cuisinart.

Guards, In Guards We Trust – Big, echoey bombast from a big-ticket American indie rock band. Sounds like The Arcade Fire and Twin Shadow in a Cuisinart.

Fela Kuti, The Best of the Black President 2 – A repackaging of some of the Afro-beat master’s most potent music.

Chris Stamey, Lovesick Blues

An in-demand producer (Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo), North Carolinian Chris Stamey infrequently releases solo work. So when his finely-crafted songs make their way to an album, it’s always a sonic surprise, rich with echoes of his myriad projects: sometimes jangly fare like his seminal power pop outfit the dB’s, other times unabashed rock like Yo La Tengo, with whom he cut 2005′s A Question of Temperature. The haunting Lovesick Blues, Stamey’s first solo offering in eight years, is darkly intimate chamber pop reminiscent of Big Star’s Third. And for good reason: Stamey, a longtime friend and musical collaborator of Alex Chilton in the ’70s, has spent the past two years as musical director of concert performances of Third, for which he orchestrated woodwinds, horns and strings around emotion-thick rock.

The contemplative atmosphere of Lovesick Blues draws from the same palette and, lyrically, it’s Stamey’s most personal album to date: “Skin,” “Wintertime” and “I Wrote This Song For You” are intimate assurances across a small, shadowy room. A seven-minute ode to late guitarist Sam Moss, the title track is an ambitious orchestral dreamscape. Stamey’s more upbeat side is also here, with the exuberant “You n Me n XTC” and “If Memory Serves.” Fans of Nick Drake, the dBs, and Third will find that they don’t want to shake these Lovesick Blues.

Richard Thompson, Electric

Nearly everyone is found guilty in a Richard Thompson song. Take the horny geezer in “Walking on Stony Ground,” the opening track on Electric, the great British guitarist-songwriter’s mostly plugged-in “power-wimp” trio album with drummer Michael Jerome and bassist Taras Prodaniuk. Unable to contain his lust for “an Irish rose with thorns,” the codger is beaten senseless by her brothers. There’s also the hot, teasing and bible-believing Southern belles of “Sally B” and “Straight and Narrow”; the hungover wife abuser of the Kinks-ian “Salford Sunday”; and the suspicious husband and cheating spouse in the rollicking “Good Things Happen to Bad People.” Imperfections apparent, they are all regaled by Thompson’s gloriously spluttering, spiraling and harmonically inspired Celtic-tinged solos.

Thompson long ago electrified the Anglo folk tradition’s too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral and hey-nonny-nonny tropes as a founding member of Fairport Convention. His later mastery of a kind of “Anglocana”-noir manifests itself on Electric in songs like “The Snow Goose” — a duet with Alison Krauss in which he sings that “Nothern winds will cut you/ Nothern girls will gut you/ Leave you cold and empty like a fish on a slab” — and “My Enemy,” a slow, seething survivor’s tale in which vengeance is far from sweet. The instrumentation may not always be electric, but the playing, writing and singing sure as hell are.

Night Beds, Country Sleep

Country Sleep, the debut from Colorado expats Night Beds, takes place in the middle of the night, and in the middle of a young man’s mind. The album, largely the product of 23-year-old frontman Winston Yellen, sprung from a trip Yellen took across America in a small hatchback — sweeping church floors and sleeping on couches as he went. The five-month journey ended in Nashville, where Yellen rented out June Carter and Johnny Cash’s pre-civil war house in the woods of Hendersonville, Tennessee. It was there (and in the Brown Owl Studio in Nashville) that Country Sleep was recorded.

The album opens with “Faithful Heights,” a solitary a cappella lament that introduce Yellen’s vocals as the strongest instrument on Country Sleep. The next song, “Ramona,” adds electric guitar and a highway-hitting rhythm, but even the fastest songs still feel like bluesy, morose heartland ballads. The crooning slide and the ghostly reverb on tracks like “Borrowed Time” and “Cherry Blossoms” recall Wilco circa Sky Blue Sky, but Yellen’s vocals have no relation to Tweedy. Think Justin Vernon, but not for too long: As soon as Yellen’s voice starts sliding up to falsetto it flicks suddenly away, like candlelight in a night breeze. “I don’t want to feel this on my own,” he sighs balefully. Country Sleep lives in those dark moments, the ones between wake and sleep.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, primarily the creative vehicle of founder Ruban Nielson, is an unconventionally psychedelic band. Many of the things you’d imagine floating a psych rock tag cloud — “sprawling,” “trippy,” “open-ended,” “whimsical” — largely don’t apply. Nielson is a disciplined songwriter, and the carefully-constructed sound that unspools on II is streamlined, deliberately deployed and, oftentimes, gentle. In this psychedelia Venn diagram, the overlap is largely in the details: off-kilter production effects (vocal and guitar delay, occasional wah, slight panning); wispy vocals; a sense of groove. Slight nods and tactful sonic cues rather than “hey man, far out!” indulgence. Working in this sweet spot, Nielson has produced a loose batch of great songs.

II starts at a canter — the opening three tracks are fizzy and swinging, not quite nosing beyond mid-tempo. “Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark),” an album standout, is irresistible, the chugging backbeat paired with Nielson’s deft fingerpicking like a slightly caffeinated version of “Blackbird.” “So Good at Being in Trouble” is sly slo-mo funk-soul with a wonderful ascending chorus melody and a pleasantly stark spaciousness. The back half of II spirals out into some more loose, expansive explorations. These aren’t wildly heady jams, though. “No Need for a Leader” is Stooges-lite, rollicking and taut. A drowsy, loping ballad, “Monki” unfolds over seven minutes with a sultry, matching guitar and vocal melody and ringing, delay-heavy production. It’s a testament to Nielson’s concision and attention to detail as a songwriter that a tedious-on-paper “seven-plus minute long slice of psychedelia” doesn’t succumb to the obvious pitfalls; rather than an aimless or psuedo-trippy walkabout, “Monki” is a sweet and satisfying saunter.

The almost anesthetizing warmth of listening to II, though, neatly camouflages what are some distinctly foreboding lyrics. In “From the Sun,” Nielson sings that “isolation can put a gun in your hand”; in “Swim and Sleep” there’s the “sweet cold darkness” and “dreams… constantly melting away”; “No Need for a Leader” has the line, “something wicked this way comes/ we don’t like to fall, but when we go down, we lose it all.” This is not the stuff of peppermints and rainbows. Despite the sometimes dark and solitary lyrical themes, though, II is an irrepressibly giddy outing — a groove-y, kinda shaggy, endlessly hummable set of songs.

Terri Lyne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue

Fifty years ago, United Artists released Duke Ellington’s Money Jungle, featuring bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach alongside the legendary pianist, composer, band leader and American icon. Money Jungle was an unusual album then and now, practically a concept album, with Ellington breaking away from his standard trio to record with the irascible, innovative Mingus and the steady-as-a-clock Roach. The album’s title hinted at what mattered most in mid-’60s America, as Grammy winner Teri Lynne Carrington’s interpretation of Money Jungle shows, it’s just as relevant today.

Carrington revisits some of the album’s original material while delving further into the nature of a buck in modern America. Peppered with dollar-centric speech sampled from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George W. Bush, Herbie Hancock and others, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue spikes swinging and occasionally funky jazz with provocative political commentary. Carrington’s deep groove is pushed and prodded by the outsized personality of bassist Christian McBride, and the group isrounded out by pianist Gerald Clayton, vocalists Lizz Wright and Shea Rose, saxophonists Antonio Hart and Tia Fuller, guitarist Nil Felder, and trumpeter (and longtime Carrington mentor) Clark Terry.

Carrington opens the title track with a buoyant mallet solo and a spoken-word sample from the film Zeitgeist: “People are basically vehicles to just create money, which must create more money to keep the whole thing from falling apart, which is what’s happening.”Carrington’s Vince Guaraldi-ish “Grass Roots” adds a note of upbeat sanguinity, her drumming spreading and shaping the music with effortless but exciting rhythmic flow. “A Little Max,” which appeared on the 1987 reissue of Money Jungle, is a beautiful samba tribute to the great drummer; “Switch Blade” allows McBride to reference the master Mingus in a beaming intro solo and the song’s rock steady pulse; “Rem Blues/Music” closes the album with lengthy verbiage about the power of women/music, and more pertinent samples of Herbie Hancock intoning excerpts from anEllington poem, including “When you get into popularity you’re talking about money, not music.” One wishes there were more hints of Ellington’sfree-spirited swing cadences and melodic directness. But as a contemporary jazz album, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue is a pleasing follow-up to Carrington’s Grammy winning The Mosaic Project. While you’d never mistake it for Public Enemy, it is food (and music) for thought.

George Saunders, Tenth of December

In Tenth of December, George Saunders uses satire to hilariously and trenchantly critique societal institutions and our roles in them (with a special emphasis on the class system, which many Americans still insist does not exist). But to focus on Saunders’s use of satire is to potentially overlook the deep faith in humanity that pervades these masterful short stories.

Put simply: It is clear that Saunders has never written a character that he does not, in some way, love. This goes for the self-involved teenager in “Victory Lap” as well as the man who comes to kidnap and rape her. Saunders’s empathy is apparent both toward the working-class mom who ties her unruly son to a tree in “Puppy” and to the middle-class mom who comes to buy a dog from the woman and is horrified to see the son straining against his tether. In one of the collection’s strongest stories, “Home,” a veteran of an unnamed Middle East war returns home to a penniless mom being evicted from her house and a sister and ex-wife shuttling quickly up the ladder to bourgeois comfort. In every “Thank you for your service” awkwardly uttered to him by numerous civilians who don’t know what else to say, one discerns Saunders’s respect for the plight of the platitude-giver and the plight of the destroyed veteran, for whom those words are more than meaningless.

Even the tone of Saunders’s reading voice, which is frequently witty but never mocking, makes clear that individuals, whether rich or poor, victims or perpetrators, are not to be blamed for the problems of Where We Are Now. We’re all caught up in the same oppressive systems, and we could do much worse than to take a cue from Saunders’s overwhelming generosity of spirit.

Tim McGraw, Two Lanes of Freedom

If God made old country roads for driving and dreaming, as is claimed on Two Lanes of Freedom‘s stomping opener, then perhaps he made Tim McGraw albums to give people something they can count on in this ever-changing world. The latest product of one of the most consistent careers in all of music, Two Lanes follows last year’s uncharacteristically uneven Emotional Traffic and a very public split from Curb Records, his label since the mullet and handlebar mustache days, with a strong narrative and stronger songs. It will almost certainly become his 14th No. 1 country album.

Across the standard release’s 11 tunes, McGraw deftly integrates a range of styles and references: A girl’s as sweet as Tupelo honey on one song, Lil Wayne’s bumpin’ on the iPod on the next, and none if it seems forced, neither pandering nor corny. Where the lead single, “Truck Yeah,” riffs off tracks like Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown,” the sort of hard-rockin’, hard-signifyin’ dirt-road anthems that once hit too hard for country radio but now fit right in, its follow-up, “One of Those Nights” is a more reflective second person account of Friday-night good times. The highlight, however, might be the closer, “Highway Don’t Care,” in which McGraw’s message to a departed lover gets entangled with the voice of Big Machine labelmate Taylor Swift coming over the woman’s car radio. In 2006, Swift’s “Tim McGraw” inadvertently rendered the singer old news. Two Lanes suggests he remains anything but.

Wendy McClure, The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

Though the 1970s TV series starring Michael Landon cemented its status as a classic, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie was also undone by that family-friendly program. When she tried to revisit the cozy inner life she created as a child in conjunction with the books, author Wendy McClure realized Wilder’s world was a lot more textured and adult than the happily-ever-after TV show — and the truth behind the books is even odder still.

McClure is at her best when she’s reveling with contagious giddiness in the strange backstory of Wilder’s books, but her return to what she dubs “Laura World” isn’t done solely via research. McClure also tries out authentic Little House recipes — the kind that call for two pounds of lard — and visits as many Ingalls family homestead sites as she can find. Her physical recreation of frontier life can drag the book down into navel-gazing hipster nostalgia — her trips to long-gone homesteads are self-consciously elegiac as she searches for meaning in her life from young adult novels — but McClure is so genuinely funny in recreating fellow fans’ strange love for a pre-electric-age world that the occasional dips are forgivable.

New This Week: Jim James, UMO, Frightened Rabbit & More

Jim James, Regions of Light and Sound of God – MMJ frontman goes solo with an easy-flowing, richly intimate record. Sharon 0′Connell writes:

 Regions of Light and Sound of God presents as a deeply personal record, most of it played by James himself and recorded in his home studio. The reverb slathered so generously over MMJ’s material also warms and enriches these nine, alluringly intimate songs, but without once threatening to smother James’s effortlessly lovely voice, while instrumentation (his MIDI guitar gets a good workout) and arrangements are markedly more minimal.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II – The Portland-via-New-Zealand take a breath and ease into some looser, laid-back jams without losing their firm grip on melody or concision. Definitely an Editor’s Pick. Alex Naidus has more:

 Unknown Mortal Orchestra, primarily the creative vehicle of founder Ruban Nielson, is an unconventionally psychedelic band. Many of the things you’d imagine floating a psych rock tag cloud — “sprawling,” “trippy,” “open-ended,” “whimsical” — largely don’t apply. Nielson is a disciplined songwriter, and the carefully-constructed sound that unspools on II is streamlined, deliberately deployed and, oftentimes, gentle. In this psychedelia Venn diagram, the overlap is largely in the details: off-kilter production effects (vocal and guitar delay, occasional wah, slight panning); wispy vocals; a sense of groove. Slight nods and tactful sonic cues rather than “hey man, far out!” indulgence. Working in this sweet spot, Nielson has produced a loose batch of great songs.

Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse-  Our favorite soused Scots return, this time wielding their expanded budget with a bit more confidence. Dan Hyman writes:

 Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchinson has long led us down a dour path littered with cigarette-burned hearts and suffocated dreams. The singer’s love/hard-breakup/drink heavily/rinse-and-repeat ethos once felt intimate — see 2010′s The Winter of Mixed Drinks – yet on last fall’s State Hospital EP, the first Frightened Rabbit release to follow the Glasgow five-piece signing a major-label deal with Atlantic, such tales of woe were propped up (and rendered sterile) by lavish production. Pedestrian Verse, the band’s latest full-length and fourth, is still a transitional album — Hutchinson, drummer brother Grant and company now bring a noticeably brighter, more arena-sized sheen to their tales of woe.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, We The Common – Thao takes a breath, takes aim, and takes on bigger targets. Ashley Melzer has more:

 After spending most of her 20s touring like mad and cranking out ragged, playful indie pop, Thao Nguyen settled down in San Francisco for a year’s respite. The break from the typical tour-to-studio-to-tour grind gave her time to explore the city, work with nonprofits (like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, through which she met track one’s dedicatee, Valeria Bolden) and take a more measured tack toward her writing process. The result is palpable. We The Common is a thoughtful, provocative build on all the band’s strengths of easy-flowing melodies, big hooks and inventive arrangements.

Darkstar, News From Nowhere – The electronic trio get more delicate on the woozily lovestruck follow-up to North. Here’s Nate Patrin with the review:

Six years after their first batch of trad-dubstep singles, four years after the skittering buzz of their breakthrough “Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer,” and three years after their synthpop-homaging debut full-length North, Darkstar just keep getting more delicate. Their sophomore album News from Nowhere is a tricky album to grasp — placid on the surface, but built to make its intricacies emerge with patient listening. Instrumentation leans heavy on airy, bright pianos and chimes, the basslines hover just as much as they throb, and vocalist James Buttery has an almost translucent quality to his voice that still sounds inhumanly frail no matter how many multitracks and effects it’s run through.

Eels, Wonderful Glorious – Mark Oliver Everett, the man behind Eels, takes a lickin’ and keeps on Eelsin’. He has been mightily prolific as of late, a development chronicled for us by Bill Murphy:

 Wonderful, Glorious caps a prolific four-year burst of activity from Everett that yielded an autobiography, a documentary about his late father (quantum physicist and “many-worlds” theorist Hugh Everett III) and a trilogy of Eels concept albums. What sets this one apart is the overarching sense of optimism and the fact that Everett’s four-piece backing band — a road-hardened touring unit since 2009 — had an equal share in the making of it. While Everett still relishes his sarcasm, he sounds more relaxed than ever — a glorious development indeed.

Night Beds, Country Sleep – Rangy, lamplit alt-country graced with angelic, Jim James-style singing and lovely harmonies. A stunning late-night weeper of a record, with flecks of Ryan Adams surfacing. Lyndsey Field writes:

Country Sleep, the debut from Colorado expats Night Beds, is largely the product of 23-year-old frontman Winston Yellen, sprung from a trip Yellen took across America in a small hatchback  Think Justin Vernon, but not for too long: As soon as Yellen’s voice starts sliding up to falsetto it flicks suddenly away, like candlelight in a night breeze.

Richard Thompson, Electric – The celebrated British guitarist and singer/songwriter Richard Thompson gives us a sputtering, seething burst of his still-sharp-as-ever mind. Richard Gehr writes:

Thompson long ago electrified the Anglo folk tradition’s too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral and hey-nonny-nonny tropes as a founding member of Fairport Convention. His later mastery of a kind of “Anglocana”-noir manifests itself on Electric in songs like “The Snow Goose” — a duet with Alison Krauss in which he sings that “Nothern winds will cut you/ Nothern girls will gut you/ Leave you cold and empty like a fish on a slab” — and “My Enemy,” a slow, seething survivor’s tale in which vengeance is far from sweet. The instrumentation may not always be electric, but the playing, writing and singing sure as hell are.

Chris Stamey, Long Distance Mixing – The producer and singer/songwriter returns with another rough-cut jewel of an indie-rock record, one that recalls his time in jangle outfits like the DBs as well as pointing towards darker, more cinematic places. Holly George-Warren tells us:

An in-demand producer (Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo), North Carolinian Chris Stamey infrequently releases solo work. So when his finely-crafted songs make their way to an album, it’s always a sonic surprise, rich with echoes of his myriad projects: sometimes jangly fare like his seminal power pop outfit the dB’s, other times unabashed rock like Yo La Tengo, with whom he cut 2005′s A Question of Temperature. The haunting Lovesick Blues, Stamey’s first solo offering in eight years, is darkly intimate chamber pop reminiscent of Big Star’s Third.

Terri Lyne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue – An acidic, coolly swinging revisitation of Duke Ellington’s classic Money Jungle. Ken Micallef writes:

Carrington revisits some of the album’s original material while delving further into the nature of a buck in modern America. Peppered with dollar-centric speech sampled from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George W. Bush, Herbie Hancock and others, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue spikes swinging and occasionally funky jazz with provocative political commentary.

David T. Little, Soldier Songs – A mini-opera song cycle dealing  soberly with the personal and emotional fallout of warfare, complete with sampled snippets of interviews with real veterans. Seth Colter-Walls writes:

“Every Town Has a Wall” and “Two Marines” are both driven by post-war reflections, and it’s in those songs that Little reaches for the complexity of mood that also made Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs a modern classic. Precisely because we may be prone to think we’ve moved past the “Global War on Terror” era (drone strikes to the side), Little’s songs feel important, even necessary

The Spinto Band, Cool Cocoon: The Spinto Band is back with their second record in less than a year; lots of jangly, harmony-driven indie rock.

Bettie Serveert, Oh, Mayhem!: Dutch group Bettie Serveert have been around for 20 years but they’ve kept up with modern times, at least in terms of song titles — there’s one here called “iPromise.” Lots of quirky indie pop here.

Clogs, The Sundown Song: A few new tracks from Brooklyn indie-classical faves, backed by the Mallacoota Community Choir.

Hayden, Us Alone – The Canadian alt-rock stalwart has a lovelorn, frail little voice that he mumbles sweetly with like a suburban Nick Drake. This is warm, gently understated folk rock, his specialty.

Apache Dropout, Magnetic Heads – Smeary, echo-laden, yodelin’-in-the-bathtub lo-fi garage pop racket.

Ballake Sissoko, At Peace – Raindrop-delicate sketches from the Malian kora player. This is subtly restorative, relaxed music, a deep cleansing breath.

Cough Cough, Everything EP – Big-ticket British guitar-rock band, exposed-nerve twitchy and caffeinated and yelpy. Sounds like Bloc Party and Vampire Weekend in a Cuisinart.

Guards, In Guards We Trust – Big, echoey bombast from a big-ticket American indie rock band. Sounds like The Arcade Fire and Twin Shadow in a Cuisinart.

Fela Kuti, The Best of the Black President 2 – A repackaging of some of the Afro-beat master’s most potent music.

David T. Little, Soldier Songs

“I just chose to conveniently ignore what I would have to do with a gun in my hand.” That’s just one of the oral-history tidbits taken from interviews with real-life veterans that composer/drummer David T. Little includes in his song cycle Soldier Songs. Little’s mini-opera, workshopped at New York City Opera in early 2008 before seeing its first full production in 2011, can feel like a letter from the recent past — a time when news breaks regarding fresh American casualties in Iraq were more front-of-mind for the nation.

Despite averring in the liner notes that he’s become less reflexively dismissive of those participating in the national war effort — especially in light of having interviewed the veterans who speak in this recording — there’s an unmistakable sardonic quality to the first two “acts” of Little’s opus. In “Real American Heroes,” a jejune recruit — sung by a baritone in falsetto voice — fantasizes about serving the nation, with jaunty 6/4 time. Seconds later, in deep adult voice, he’s “killing all the bad guys” in a breathless, whirling 11/16 meter. By the time of “Boom! Bang! Dead! (Rated “T” for Teen),” the focus of Little’s fine instrumental writing — composed with the virtuosos of the Newspeak ensemble in mind — has moved from a lead flute line to a machine-gun-riffing electric guitar part. A little on-the-nose, perhaps, but thrillingly done.

But it’s in the final stretch that Little’s chamber-opera finds a depth beyond its initial cynicism (and easy-joke titles). “Every Town Has a Wall” and “Two Marines” are both driven by post-war reflections, and it’s in those songs that Little reaches for the complexity of mood that also made Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs a modern classic. After that, this (exquisitely engineered) recording of Soldier Songs returns to oral-history mode, using new dialogue from our real-life soldiers. It’s a long coda, and perhaps robs the album of its proper climax, which comes in “Two Marines.”

Though traditional enjoyment may not be the point, either — precisely because we may be prone to think we’ve moved past the “Global War on Terror” era (drone strikes to the side), Little’s songs feel important, even necessary. “Most veterans won’t talk about it unless it’s with another veteran. Cuz people really don’t know how they’re feeling, unless it’s somebody that’s been there” runs another one of the real-life ex-grunt’s lines. For the many of us who haven’t been there, but remain responsible in our own ways for thinking through these issues, Soldier Songs provides a valuable service.

Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse

Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchinson has long led us down a dour path littered with cigarette-burned hearts and suffocated dreams. The singer’s love/hard-breakup/drink heavily/rinse-and-repeat ethos once felt intimate — see 2010′s The Winter of Mixed Drinks — yet on last fall’s State Hospital EP, the first Frightened Rabbit release to follow the Glasgow five-piece signing a major-label deal with Atlantic, such tales of woe were propped up (and rendered sterile) by lavish production. Pedestrian Verse, the band’s latest full-length and fourth, is still a transitional album — Hutchinson, drummer brother Grant and company now bring a noticeably brighter, more arena-sized sheen to their tales of woe. Refreshingly though, the outfit has struck equilibrium, balancing earnest with mainstream-sounding bombast that only occasionally tips into bloat.

The album’s blatant rock radio-aiming arrows (“Woodpile,” “March, Death March”) work best when Grant’s manic drumwork is less present in the sometimes-bulky mix, and Scott’s customary doom-and-gloom feels more astute(“Acts of Man,” “Holy”) than emo (“Nitrous Gas”). It helps, though, that the singer can still prod at his own self-seriousness, as on the jazzy album highlight/closer “Oil Slick,” when he offers, “only an idiot would swim through the shit I write.”

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, We the Common

After spending most of her 20s touring like mad and cranking out ragged, playful indie pop, Thao Nguyen settled down in San Francisco for a year’s respite. The break from the typical tour-to-studio-to-tour grind gave her time to explore the city, work with nonprofits (like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, through which she met track one’s dedicatee, Valeria Bolden) and take a more measured tack toward her writing process. The result is palpable. We The Common is a thoughtful, provocative build on all the band’s strengths of easy-flowing melodies, big hooks and inventive arrangements.

Like all of Nguyen’s work, the record boasts angular guitar lines, percussive crescendos and husky vocals. This time though, producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Explosions in the Sky and Bill Callahan) pulls new threads to the surface: distorted shouts, banjo rolls, swaggering horns, punchy bass lines. The textures range from bustling and complex (“City”) to markedly restrained (“Clouds for Brains”). Title track, “We the Common,” plays at both ends, rolling a droning banjo into a jolly chorus celebration of how “we the common do cry.” “Holy Roller” is an almost jazzy send-up of folk-pop. “Kindness be Conceived,” a duet with Joanna Newsom, puts the two voices with acoustic accompaniment and stops.

“Slowly, we all lay down,” she sings on the album closer, “Age of Ice,” a sweet release after 30 minutes of restless invention. Thao may be mellowing into her new homebase, but she’ll never lose her sense of adventure.

Barbara Hannigan, Dutillieux: Correspondances

French composer Henri Dutillieux might be the last of a certain kind of great composer: Usingdevices that might, in lesser hands,be corny — the march rhythms, washy strings, and big climax of the “de vincent a theo” movement of the eponymous piece, for example — he spins unapologetically expansive, golden narratives. On the spare opening of “memoire des ombres,” the music of the composer’s obvious predecessors (Debussy by way of Ravel) is both paid homage and made his own, to say nothing of the timbral delights that await in the “miroir” movement of the cello concerto Tout un monde lointain.

The real gem on the disc, however, is the orchestral masterwork The Shadows of Time — glee, terror, transcendence, and quiet beauty await. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen (himself a student of Mr. Dutillieux) is in complete agreement with the works, refusing to resort to flash. As soloists, soprano Barbara Hannigan and cellist Anssi Karturen do more than hold their own, and, under Salonen especially, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France is perfect for the part. There is magic in these notes.

Eels, Wonderful, Glorious

For about two decades now, Mark Oliver Everett has worn misanthropy and iconoclasm like badges of honor, which has helped make his music appealing. It takes a keen sardonic ear to conceive of a song called “Your Lucky Day in Hell” (from Eels’ 1996 debut Beautiful Freak) and cast it as a blissed-out indie rock ditty, honey-soaked strings and all. That Everett counts Tom Waits himself as a fan is testament: Everett has had his bouts with busted love, personal tragedy and lingering self-doubt, but even his breakthrough “Novocaine for the Soul” was less about killing pain than spring-boarding beyond it.

Wonderful, Glorious caps a prolific four-year burst of activity from Everett that yielded an autobiography, a documentary about his late father (quantum physicist and “many-worlds” theorist Hugh Everett III) and a trilogy of Eels concept albums. What sets this one apart is the overarching sense of optimism and the fact that Everett’s four-piece backing band — a road-hardened touring unit since 2009 — had an equal share in the making of it. It comes through in “Stick Together” and its rambling tom-tom shuffle (“It’s very clear we make a winning team,” Everett sings, with apparent sincerity), and even in the world-weary “On the Ropes” (“I’ve got enough fight left inside this tired heart to win this one and walk out on my feet”). While Everett still relishes his sarcasm, from the oddball basement head-banger “Peach Blossom” to the dark-to-light revelations of the dancefloor-ready title track, he sounds more relaxed than ever — a glorious development indeed.

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lutoslawski: Complete Symphonies

Aside from being an expertly recorded collection of imaginative and engrossing music, this collection of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s four symphonies, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen (some of which are re-issues of long-out-of-print recordings, some of which are fresh takes) doubles as an extended musical essay on the dissolution of the symphony from the pen of one of the century’s more important and rangy composers. From the jauntiness of the traditional multi-movement First to the severe and occasionally retrogressive Fourth, these pieces stand as the mightiest cornerstone of the new symphonic repertoire.

Salonen has long been associated with this composer’s work, as the commissioned fanfare “bonus track,” tucked into the end of the set, attests. But it is in the Second Symphony that he cuts deepest, expertly balancing a barbaric yawp of a piece, split in two movements (bearing the poetic subtitles “hesitant” and “direct”) that effectively and achingly straddles the Big Philosophical divide between the “old” and the “new.” Most trying for this complex music is the pacing of it, knowing when to make it roar and when to whisper, because this is music whose beauty rests in its latent explosiveness.

This is by no means to cast shade on his reading of the single-movement Third Symphony, which will probably go forth as the “industry standard” performance. Salonen, leading the always-astonishing Los Angeles Philharmonic is the perfect ear and stick for the job. It is fitting that these discs are released now, days after what would have been Lutoslawski’s 100th birthday. These anniversaries allow for a moment of pause on the importance of the celebrated composer, but they are also excellent marketing pegs, giving companies a compelling reason to steward these kinds of treasure troves.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, We the Common

After spending most of her 20s touring like mad and cranking out ragged, playful indie pop, Thao Nguyen settled down in San Francisco for a year’s respite. The break from the typical tour-to-studio-to-tour grind gave her time to explore the city, work with nonprofits (like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, through which she met track one’s dedicatee, Valeria Bolden) and take a more measured tack toward her writing process. The result is palpable. We The Common is a thoughtful, provocative build on all the band’s strengths of easy-flowing melodies, big hooks and inventive arrangements.

Like all of Nguyen’s work, the record boasts angular guitar lines, percussive crescendos and husky vocals. This time though, producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Explosions in the Sky and Bill Callahan) pulls new threads to the surface: distorted shouts, banjo rolls, swaggering horns, punchy bass lines. The textures range from bustling and complex (“City”)” to markedly restrained (“Clouds for Brains”). Title track, “We the Common,” plays at both ends, rolling a droning banjo into a jolly chorus celebration of how “we the common do cry.” “Holy Roller” is an almost jazzy send-up of folk-pop. “Kindness be Conceived,” a duet with Joanna Newsom, puts the two voices with acoustic accompaniment and stops.

“Slowly, we all lay down,” she sings on the album closer, “Age of Ice,” a sweet release after 30 minutes of restless invention. Thao may be mellowing into her new homebase, but she’ll never lose her sense of adventure.