Molly Ringwald, When It Happens to You

Whether it’s a chance encounter or code-red crisis, every gesture in Molly Ringwald’s fiction debut has a ripple effect. Greta, one half of the couple at the center of this “novel in stories,” is shocked to learn of her husband’s infidelity. Her husband, Phillip, has been having an affair with their daughter’s violin teacher, and his philandering, laid bare in the opening story “The Harvest Moon,” sets the tone for the rest of the novel.

We get to know Greta through her relationship with Peter, an actor who recently left a popular children’s show and is at a crossroads in his personal and professional life (“Ursa Minor”). Meanwhile Phillip bonds with Marina, a single mother whose young son, Oliver, would rather go by Olivia (“My Olivia”), and their daughter, Charlotte, reacts to her parents’ separation with visits to neighbor Betty, who is trying to reconnect with her adult daughter (“The Little One”). In the title story, Greta’s feelings of abandonment sound like they’re being spoken into a tape recorder. “When it happens to you, you will wonder if he loved her. He will assure you that he did not, that it wasn’t about love.”

Drawing on her career as an actor (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, The Secret Life of the American Teenager) Ringwald is very good at getting into the heads of her characters, from emotionally wounded children to a cuckolded wife and a man exploring his own fractured relationships. Observing each character can have the effect of watching surveillance video, switching between rooms. With her empathetic narration, Ringwald brings each one further into focus.

Interview: Beth Orton

Beth Orton’s fifth album, Sugaring Season, is named after a Vermont expression for the beginning of spring, when the nights are still cold and long, and the maple trees are tapped for syrup. “I liked the poetic sense of the sugaring season. It’s quite romantic and melancholy,” she explains, over a plate of chips in her London hotel. “For me, there is sweetness in melancholy.”

In many ways, 41-year-old Orton has had her own sugaring season. Six years ago, after the release of her last album Comfort of Strangers, she was dropped by EMI and moved from London to rural Norfolk to live as a single mother with her daughter Nancy. She had collaborated with folk legend Bert Jansch on his 2006 album The Black Swan, but their gigs together received mediocre reviews. “It was a really fucking hard time,” she says. “I lost a lot of confidence.”

It wasn’t a creatively fallow period, though. All the while, Orton was writing the songs that would lead to Sugaring Season. It is an album of introspection and renewal where Orton wraps her fragile, clear voice around songs that embrace both the melancholy of those difficult years and her newfound happiness — last year she married Vermont folk artist Sam Amidon and had a baby boy.

We caught up with Beth to talk about finding solace in music, taking guitar lessons from the late Bert Jansch, and getting her confidence back.

The album feels like it moves through the seasons, with songs like “Last Leaves of Autumn” and “Candles.” Was that intentional?

No. But it does go through spring, summer, autumn and winter. There you go! After making this record I realized the seasons feature quite prominently in it. There also a lot of stories, and different ways of talking about silence.

There is also a lot of nature imagery. Was it written somewhere rural?

Yes. I wrote it in Norfolk and Vermont, where I’ve spent time in the last three years. But the song “Last Leaves of Autumn” was written when I was still living in Pentonville Road [in central London]. I lived at the top of a very steep hill and there was a huge tree right outside my bedroom window, so it’s also about how you can find nature in the middle of the city.

Have you always been drawn to nature?

I’m inspired by nature and people, regeneration and completeness. Those things interest me the most.

What is the significance of birds in the single “Magpie”?

The birds are a metaphor, but they are the least important part of that song, in a way. It’s more about the stories that we attach to things, and the stories that other people tell about us that are just half-truths and lies. I was inspired by being in America recently, where they’re trying to make abortion illegal. That made me very sad. The magpie is seen as a bird of superstition, and women are seen as birds of superstition as well, to a degree, and that became part of the song.

When you talk about half-truths, are you drawing on personal experience?

All my songs start from a very personal place. That probably sounds a bit trite, but they genuinely do. With “Magpie,” I was having a meal with people I find quite difficult, and the best thing I could do when they’d gone was go to my guitar. I started layering guitar tracks on top of each other, and that drone and melody just came out. It was a feeling of, “Aaaaargh.” I really do take my troubles to my guitar, otherwise I can’t process them. Obviously, the songwriting part of my brain is much smarter than the thinking part of my brain. It joins dots that otherwise would just stay disparate.

Why the six-year gap since Comfort of Strangers?

It’s funny, because I was speaking to my husband today and he said, “You could have released a record three years ago, you just chose not to.” He said, “It’s noble, it’s a good thing.” I know it’s a good thing. I could have released a record, I had the songs, but I wasn’t ready.

In practical terms, I’d also been working with Bert Jansch [who died in 2011], and that really consumed me, creating with him. But it became my inspiration too. Bert was a man of little pretension, he was very straightforward, and one thing that happens when you have a child is that all the artifice falls away. You’re left with the raw materials, and that influenced the way I write. So I dug a bit deeper than I had before.

Another reason is that two years ago, just around the time I would have probably gone into the studio, I got pregnant again. So I waited and when my son was four months old, I started recording. He was there when I was making this record, on the sofa.

How did your collaboration with Bert Jansch come about?

In 2004 I played a gig at a folk festival called Homefires, in London, and Bert and I were headlining the same night. We were sharing a dressing room and he and his wife, Lauren, were incredibly friendly. It was funny because years ago, before I made my first album Trailer Park, I was always trying to find Bert and always missing him, like I’d turn up at gigs and he would have just left. So years later, when I’d given up, I found him — we’d found each other — and he invited me to his house. Geoff Travis [founder of Rough Trade Records] was there and he said, “You should ask him for some guitar lessons,” and I thought that was a good idea so I asked him.

How were the lessons?

It was really intimidating. I was in abject terror, like, “Why on earth did I ask for this?” And I just sat there with my hands frozen in this weird position. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience I’ve ever had. But I ended up realizing that I brought a lot to him; we became each other’s muse. There was a great fondness there. He was a good egg. I loved Bert.

How did his lessons change your relationship with the guitar?

He introduced me to the idea of playing around with tunings, so I started to be more fearless. I got better at picking, and I got better at keeping up, because when we played together I had to try to keep up. I obviously never managed to — how could I? I’m a very simple player and there was no way could I pick up some crazy licks, but I became more confident on the guitar after a while.

“Something More Beautiful” is an intensely sad song. What is it about?

That’s the oldest song on the record. I started it years ago when I was in love with someone who wasn’t in love with me, and it was heartbreaking. The song almost became too painful to touch, but then I revisited it for this record and changed some of the “I”s and “you”s and a couple of words, and asked the band to give it a certain approach. But it’s a sad song, definitely.

Do you still find it hard to sing?

I’m okay with it now. I feel like it’s quite empowering now, rather than desperately sad. It’s definitely a song about getting the sugar out of the proverbial dark night. In a sense that’s what songwriting is for me, like extracting the sugar.

You’ve said you nearly didn’t release this album at all. Why?

Just after I released Comfort of Strangers I got pregnant, and then I stopped touring at five and a half months. I didn’t have any infrastructure around me whatsoever. I had zero support for what I was doing, and that really eroded my confidence. I’d met Bert, and had been working with him, but that wasn’t exactly a great confidence boost either at first, because it really illuminated my limitations.

It was a really fucking hard time, to be honest. Just after my daughter was born, Joanna Newsom asked me to come and sing backing vocals with her, and I turned it down just because I’d done these really unsuccessful gigs with Bert and I was like, “I can’t go up and make a fool of myself again.” I lost a lot of confidence.

What turned things around?

Funnily enough, one of the things was getting together with my old mate Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers. We had a little period of writing together, and that’s where the song “Call the Breeze” comes from. In the end, there wasn’t a burning desire to finish that project, but it got me back on track and helped me remember where I’m from. Although essentially I am a folk singer, I’m a folk singer who loves soul and minimalist hip-hop, and I did get into this job via dance music to a degree. That’s how I found out I could sing, so it’s funny that Tom lit that fire again.

Do you have lots of songs you’ve never released?

If I hadn’t met my husband, I don’t think the song “Mystery” would have ever been heard. He encouraged me to release it. I have quite a lot of these songs bobbing about, but I often think they are wisps and probably not worth anyone’s time. I sideline things very easily. I have pretty high standards, although I’m learning to be easier on myself. I hope to make another record sooner than six years, anyway.

Matt & Kim, Lightning

The adjectives generally used to describe Matt & Kim lean toward some variation of “cheerful,” mainly because everything about the Brooklyn pair — from their perma-grins and party-kickstarting electropop to their idyllic relationship — is downright jubilant. Oddly enough, the duo’s albums have never quite matched the carefree chaos and joyous dancefloor anarchy seen at their concerts.

That’s changed somewhat with Lightning, which boasts a broader sonic palette as well as more spirited arrangements. “Tonight” — with its Jock Jams sirens, Blondie-inspired synths and disco beat and pro-nightlife lyrics — conveys the exhilaration of a debauched night out, while a hip-hop breakdown and divebombing keyboards cut through the frantic synthpunk cut “Now.” (In addition, more than a few hints of modern EDM sneak into otherwise straightforward tunes; for instance, the twinkly indie-pop of “It’s Alright” has several tension-building sonic crescendos, which deflate with the boldness — but not shudder — of a bass drop.)

Still, Lightning‘s denser instrumentation is far more interesting, because it reveals Matt & Kim’s depth — something for which they don’t necessarily receive credit. The whimsical nostalgia trip “I Wonder” is fun.-like stomping piano-pop with streetwise DJ scratches and tinny drums; the loping “I Said” combines Matt Johnson’s syncopated delivery, squirrelly electro blips, hip-hop swagger, haunted-mansion synths and crashing drums. Even styles for which the band is known — such as surging arcade-punk ( “Much Too Late”) and 8-bit scramble (“Overexposed”) — are crisper and sharper. If Lightning overall feels a little all-over-the-place, well, that’s perfectly fair to say. However, this characteristic also makes the album consistently interesting.

Phantoms of Pop: Shintaro Sakamoto and Yura Yura Teikoku

Musicians aren’t always the best interlocutors of their own work, but this is how Shintaro Sakamoto describes the vision that animated his solo debut to Bowlegs, How to Live With a Phantom: “An obscure party band of unclear nationality is playing mood music in a small bar, and the audience, normally shy people who rarely let their hair down, starts to feel more relaxed and, before they know it, starts to dance.” But Sakamoto’s songs were more than just some globo-cantina band’s imaginary hits — as the title suggests, How to Live With a Phantom is about creating a feeling, the atmosphere of the moment rather than a description of the moment itself. “I didn’t set out to make songs that would sound like the songs performed by that band,” he continues, “but rather songs that would evoke the mood of the club.”

There’s something silly and strange about Sakamoto’s description, but this kind of ambition begins to make sense once you sit with How to Live With a Phantom, an album that manages to feel carefree, buoyant and strangely detached. Sakamoto is a veteran of Japan’s rock underground, having founded the much-loved Yura Yura Teikoku, one of those bands that was massively popular at home but never really found a significant following beyond the neighboring countries. When they began recording and gigging in the late 1980s, Yura Yura Teikoku’s sound was ragged and garage-y, with the occasional guitar freak-out. Throughout the 1990s, though, the psych influence was sublimated into their very textured approach to songwriting. Their later albums were spacious and casual, the trippiness more ambient and polished. Perhaps their subtlety didn’t translate abroad. Even though they had been stars in Japan for nearly 15 years — the caliber of star whose songs end up in karaoke booths — Yura Yura Teikoku didn’t play outside Japan until 2005, when they were invited to open for Yo La Tengo in the United States.

There’s a fascinating shadow history of postwar Japan that routes through American and British culture — Julian Cope‘s legendary book Japrocksampler chronicles the brain-scrambling effects the sounds of 1960s America had on young Japanese bands like the heavy-as-bricks acid rockers Flower Travellin’ Band and feedback monsters Les Rallizes Denudes, bands who in turn became the guitar gods for future generations to either idolize or revolt against. The benefit for these postwar Japanese artists discovering sounds at a distance, with only the haziest grasp of context, is that it allowed them the freedom to range from the source, to imagine how a given sound might have evolved under different, non-American or European circumstances. There was a fidelity to the original but also a quirky edge, something lost in translation. This helps explain the Japanese groups that end up finding fans abroad — the saccharine Ramones knock-offs Shonen Knife, the breezy, Style Council-like pop of Flipper’s Guitar, the almost deranged easy listening of Pizzicato 5, the Beck-kitsch of Cornelius.

All of which makes Sakamoto and his former band’s relative anonymity abroad so baffling. In 2009, DFA (via their great Death From Abroad imprint) released Yura Yura Teikoku’s final album, Hollow Me (their final single, “Beautiful” is included in the reissue). It’s a mesmerizing work that suggests a varied record collection — there are moments that call to mind 10cc, Can and Steely Dan, but rarely in any overly devotional way. “Ohayo Mada Yaro” is a shivery, blissful ’70s groover powered by an ecstatic sax and Sakamoto’s slack soul. “Dekinai” and “Sweet Surrender” feel like inside-out versions of one another, an insistent, hypnotic guitar line and backbeat gnawing away at the listener. A version of that same guitar pattern seems to course through “Beautiful” before it gets crushed underneath the carnival weirdness of “In the Forest.” They started 20 years earlier with a kind of spiky aggression. But as their last album closes, they return to quiet, pensive moments like the intimate, Timmy Thomas-like “Lonely Satellite” and the gorgeously triumphant lounge-funk of the title cut.

When Sakamoto disbanded Yura Yura Teikoku in 2010, he holed himself up with a house full of instruments and a multi-track recorder and began piecing together the feeling of this imaginary “club” by himself. There’s certainly a timeless, placeless feel here — Tropicalia, French pop, bossa-via-1980s British bands like Weekend. How to Live With a Phantom bears a faint resemblance to Yura Yura Teikoku’s later works, but there’s an unpolished playfulness to the sprays of electric guitar, the lazy vocals, the loping bass-lines and congas, the way Sakamoto’s flat harmonies feel at odds with the sunny arrangements of “In a Phantom Mood.” “You Just Decided” sounds like a Japanese cover version of some lost 1970s AM gem, while “My Memories Fade” drip-drops along gorgeously until Sakamoto himself is whisked away in a wash of echo.

There’s something melancholy about all twee pop, and How to Live With a Phantom is no exception. Even if you have no real sense of what Sakamoto is saying, there’s a slight plaintiveness to his singing, a loneliness to his flawless creations, a hint of resignation when a harmonica closes out the title cut. Then again, Sakamoto is merely a phantom stalking the scene; maybe the songs are an antidote to all this. “Dancing With Pain” and “Something’s Different” are lovingly crafted pastiches that start somewhere in Brazil and end up, well, in a small bar, where a community of “normally shy” people are finally letting their hair down.

Tim Burgess, Oh No I Love You

Madchester contender, Britpop pin-up, reformed coke addict, Transcendental Meditater, bestselling autobiographer — Tim Burgess has ticked many boxes on the rock superstar checklist in his two decades with The Charlatans. A solo career, initiated with 2003′s I Believe, however, seemed to have stalled right there, as his energies were consumed by the Charlies, who enjoyed an unforeseen purple patch through the Noughties.

After the break-up of the marriage that took him to California — he now lives back in North London — the chipmunk-chirpy singer obviously had a little more time on his hands, and resolved to record this second solo offering, parallel to writing his memoir. Recalling an encounter with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, where they’d vaguely agreed to write a song together, he duly made contact again and flew to Wagner’s hometown, Nashville. There, they entered into an unusual creative partnership, meeting for coffee every morning before going off to work on each other’s ideas separately until the next morning’s summit. The music was largely done by Tim, the words by Kurt, who sought, apparently, “to be Burgess’s mirror.”
Listening to Oh No I Love You, it certainly sounds as if Wagner accurately reflected the singer’s turbulent state. Lyrically, the opener “White (Heartbreak On Hold)” captures all the bruised optimism of finding new love after a painful romantic ending; its sound, meanwhile, is all jaunty acoustic guitars and warm saxophone — a throwback, perhaps, to Lambchop’s most upbeat and beloved record, 1999′s Nixon.

Elsewhere, as on “A Case For Vinyl” (Burgess is a notorious vinyl junkie), there’s more a vibe of Lambchop’s 2002 album Is A Woman — the music is sparse to the point of emptiness and heavy with piano-resonating sadness. It was Wagner who corralled the studio band from the ‘Chop’s ranks and from Nashville session royalty: It features Chris Scruggs, the grandson of legendary bluegrass banjo-picker, Earl Scruggs.

As a whole, though, Oh No I Love You is an intriguing collision of country music, and Burgess’s more esoteric, Charlatans-incompatible interests. “Tobacco Fields” floats off on a note of funereal, ivory-chord melancholy, initially very Bill Callahan, but gradually elevates to a near-ecstatic mood vaguely reminiscent of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” complete with Eno- resembling synth melodrama.

This is an album where, very understatedly, miracles happen. Among the occasionally orchestrated Nashville grandeur, there are echoes, too, of post-punk trailblazing, with strange drum-machine programming from Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey and Nik Colk Void (she is the relevant new flame in “White…”). Then, at the last, “A Gain” presents an unexpected new development — a choir! — whose refrain, “I’ll not brave the depth’s floor for you (again)”, signals Burgess’s ultimate extrication, and self-reassertion.

Alan Gilbert, Nielsen: Symphonies 2 & 3

Alan Gilbert, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, is on a mission. He wants to be The Voice on behalf of a neglected composer, as Leonard Bernstein was for Mahler, and he’s chosen one Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) from Denmark. Nielsen is ripe for rediscovery: an unfortunately marginalized artist who writes big, sprawling, quirky symphonies that speak to the Scandinavian condition, but are cast in a high Germanic mold, much like his contemporaries Mahler and Sibelius. Judging from the haste with which many a presenting institution are rushing to claim their own “find” (I’ve got Holmboe and Krenek!), 2012 may yet become known as the Year of the Underserved Composer. On this recording, however, Gilbert and the Philharmonic make’s Nielsen’s case in a dynamic, even extraordinary, way.

What music! What big, overstated, loftier-than-thou symphonic-with-a-capital-”S” music. In the course of these two big symphonies — here is one of those rare cases where the word “epic” actually applies — a Nordic lifetime is lived and re-lived.There are craggy melodies and huge crescendos; there are fiery orchestral hits (the opening of Symphony No. 3), passionate longeurs (the slow movement of Symphony No. 2, “The Four Temperaments,” a supremely touching section), and above all an unexpected and individualistic Scandinavian quirkiness amidst the glorious bombast. Alan Gilbert owns this music, and persuades the group to own it too.In such capable and expressive hands the Carl Nielsen revival is well — and thankfully — underway; future generations will have other neglected fish to fry.

Moon Duo, Circles

Ripley Johson and Sanae Yamada of Moon Duo specialize in their hometown of San Francisco’s current favorite flavor: bleary, sun-baked psych-rock. The nine songs on Circles cruise by at the same mid-tempo throb, the kick drum marking time like highway lines disappearing beneath your wheels. The fuzz tone is thicker than tar, and the guitars stay hunched over two chords. If you stare directly at this music for too long, your pupils might start pinwheeling. Driving, repetitious and hypnotic, the duo stretches out the basic materials of stoner rock so far that the result teeters on ambient music. Things happen in Moon Duo’s songs, but on their own sweet time.

On their last full-length, Mazes, however, their lava-lamp blobs started to suspiciously resemble songs, a development that continues on Circles. If you peek through the heat shimmer, you’ll start to discern Jesus and Mary Chain-style heartbreakers moving beneath it, like on the major-key title track or the wistful, chiming “Trails.” Their extended two-chord vamps have sneakily gotten groovier too: The five-and-a-half-minute “Free Action” spikes its slow head-nodding action with a polyrhythmic spatter of claps and stomps. At its most potent, Circles hits a frictionless bliss: Standing almost completely still has rarely felt this cool or dynamic.

Lo’Jo, Cinéma El Mundo

It is testament to the talents of globetrotting French band Lo’Jo that after three decades together they’re still producing albums as seductive and enigmatic as Cinéma El Mundo. They have built their reputation on exploring music from different parts of the world, from chanson to reggae-infused cha’abi from the Maghreb, to the fiery beats of the Balkans. Their quest for new and different sounds has taken them to far-flung places like Chechnya and deep into the Sahara, where they helped found the Festival in the Desert with Tinariwen in 2001. All these influences have been carefully and lovingly woven together on this, their 13th album, which is global in vision but has a sweetly mournful Gallic heart, and could only be Lo’Jo.

Lo’Jo’s lyrics are full of surreal images, and the man behind them all is bandleader and songwriter Denis Péan. He has a poet’s ear and a voice that is deliciously louche and dissipated, in contrast to the sweet Algerian harmonies of his co-vocalists, the El Nourid sisters. Their partnership finds perfect expression here on “Tout Est Fragile,” a song that is as close to pop as the band has come in years, with infectious layers of voices giving release in a surging chorus. The lush feel of that track is a stark contrast to the sonic travelogue of “African Dub Crossing The Fantôms Of An Opera,” featuring Tinariwen guitarist Ibrahim Ag Alhabib — a fragile soundscape that skitters lightly across continents, conjuring up smoky, shadowy images before moving on.

Cinéma El Mundo is full of beautiful details, like the deep dub echo on the drums of “La Marseillaise En Créole,” and the soft horns that punctuate “Tout Est Fragile.” These little subtleties add highlights, as do guests such as cellist Vincent Segal, whose playing on “Magnétic” is as expressive as any human voice. But it’s the appearance of British cult musician Robert Wyatt that will probably draw most attention. He intones (in French) the poem that acts as an overture to the album, and also contributes a wordless, instantly recognizable vocal to the title cut, scat-singing over a shimmer of strings and liquid percussion — a beautiful, breathless interlude before the circus rhythms of “Zetwal” take the journey in an utterly different direction.

Deep into their long career, Lo’Jo have come up with something that builds on their globetrotting and sounds fresh, vital, and beautiful. It might just be the best thing they’ve ever released.

Flying Lotus, Until the Quiet Comes

What was Flying Lotus supposed to do, twist our synapses till they turned blue every single time out? Please — not even Hendrix could have done that. British DJ Mary Anne Hobbs may have declared FlyLo Jimi’s modern equivalent, but Until the Quiet Comes, his fourth album, plays like something Jimi didn’t get to stay around and make: both reflective and madcap, full of details scurrying in the margins. Take “Tiny Tortures,” which rides a near-subcutaneous bass pulse, twitchy, subtle clicks and clacks, ruminative jazz guitar flecks and flurries. Is it fusion? Maybe, but it doesn’t show off the way most fusion does — it’s too busy sneaking up on you.

Seventies cosmic jazz has always been a FlyLo touchstone, and his forays into it can feel ponderous, such as on the brief “DMT Song,” on which Thundercat’s vocals are echoed into gauze over glittery electric piano and twisting double bass. But mostly he’s impish, as is evident even on broader-stroked tracks such as the overtly daffy “Pretty Boy Strut,” where a walking bass line meets cartoon-voiced keyboards and insistent electro-handclaps. There are fewer giant flourishes of the sort that marked 2008′s Los Angeles or 2010′s Cosmogramma, though. Even the big guest stars—Erykah Badu on the circularly rhythmic “See Thru to U,” Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on the dense whorl of “Electric Candyman” — are ingredients he stirs into the mix with impunity. As always, the signature is FlyLo’s alone.

Damien Dempsey, Almighty Love

Largely unknown outside of his native land, Damien Dempsey is a prodigious figure in Ireland, where Glen Hansard recently called him the country’s Atlas, carrying the hopes of the people on his shoulders. Those same people have responded gratefully by regularly sending his albums into the higher reaches of the charts and Almighty Love, his sixth, will be no exception. Dempsey’s musical formula is a simple one: Inspired by childhood heroes the Dubliners, the Chieftains and — particularly — Christy Moore, he fires out spirited protest songs and heartfelt ballads over plaintive guitar and uilleann pipes, in the strongest Celtic accent heard in song since the Proclaimers. Dempsey has a well-deserved reputation as a champion of the common man and a critic of Ireland’s formerly lauded, now collapsed Celtic Tiger economy, but Almighty Love finds him in personal rather than political mode, pledging his devotion on the title track and mourning a late gay friend on the moving “Chris and Stevie.” When he does turn his attention to Ireland’s economic travails, his broad-brush deliberations can be a tad clunky (“In bad men you’ll invest, you charge big interest”, he tut-tuts on “Money Man”) — but his sincerity is palpable and it is easy to see why he is a prophet with honor in his own land.

Ultraísta, Ultraísta

Ultraísta is spearheaded by producer Nigel Godrich, and the building blocks of the project’s self-titled debut are what we’ve come to expect from Radiohead’s unofficial sixth member. Alongside vocalist Laura Bettinson (FEMME/Dimbleby & Capper) and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Joey Waronker (Beck, Atoms for Peace, Smashing Pumpkins), Godrich whips synths, jittery tribal percussion, and Bettinson’s Stereolab-lite voice into a Thom Yorke-worthy cloud art-rock abstraction.

Named for a 20th-century Spanish literary movement that declared surreal variations on minimalism are superior to more ornate styles, Ultraísta hews close to these ideals — using sonically commanding elements in sparse arrangements. As a result, their 10 dark, twisted pop compositions are given room to slowly unfold. The Spartan “Party Line” ebbs and flows around a jazzy, late night emotional current, not unlike Yo La Tengo’s “Autumn Sweater.” Meanwhile, “Wash it Over” induces alpha waves though the use of electronic drones and Bettinson’s hypnotically chanted invitation, “Come on and wash it over me.”

But the most startling (and ultimately satisfying) tracks all stem from moments when the band sets aside their self-enforced guidelines. “Static Light” starts out with a single percussion line, Bettinson’s voice carrying the melody until the song’s midway point, when keys and a ghostly backing join in, creating the backdrop to an oppressive dance floor anthem. Bettinson also takes center stage on album highlight “Small Talk,” shuffling between vocal lines and a percussion series of “ohs” and “hums.” Her efforts are looped and multiplied into an unsettling choir that — like so much of the album — isn’t merely dynamic, but downright explosive.

Hidden Orchestra, Archipelago

Most records that are called “cinematic” generally follow the moody smoke-trails of Barry Adamson, DJ Shadow or Portishead. But while Archipelago, the second album from Edinburgh-based quartet Hidden Orchestra and the follow up to 2010′s Night Walks, evokes neon lights reflected in dirty puddles and dangerous nocturnal journeys through seedy side-streets, it reaches a little further than the usual urban darkness. The jazz inflections of “Seven Hunters” bear the scent of Soft Machine-style experimentation, while “Fourth Wall,” with its booming bass and brass, does the whole car-chase-while-smoking-Gitanes thing with enough vigor to swerve the cliché slip-road. The delicate strings of “Disquiet” give way to an alarming crack of thunder, and “Reminder” breaks down in a rush of cloudburst percussion — it’s stormy weather all the way. Densely layered and dynamically structured, this music is as much about the head as that mythical underbelly, and Hidden Orchestra have the skill to ensure these imaginary motion pictures genuinely move.

Dave Douglas Quintet, Be Still

Over the course of 20 albums as a leader, trumpeter Dave Douglas has reconfigured the role of his instrument within jazz while broadening the music’s ever flexible palette as a composer and arranger. Whether performing the music of Kurt Weill and Stravinsky backed by a string trio, fusing Eastern European folk and American improvisation, composing with ’20s silent film star “Fatty” Arbuckle as inspiration, or simply blasting away with his brass-centric Brass Ecstasy band, Douglas is seemingly never at a loss for creative outlets or ideas.

Be Still may be Douglas’s most distinctive project to date. Performed by a new quintet and joined by vocalist Aoife O’Donovan of progressive bluegrass band Crooked Still, Be Still is a plaintive collection of hymns and folk songs altered by detailed, jewel-like improvisations and O’Donovan’s delicate vocals, which often recall Alison Krauss.

Each song receives a unique treatment: Opener “Be Still” evokes a lush, expansive Americana somewhere between Union Station and Bruce Hornsby, with the band erupting in flashes of cresting improvisations. “High on a Mountain” introduces a bit of yee-haw! hokum, its jig-like rhythm and hillbilly vocal melody sounding rather stilted coming from these New York City jazz musicians, save Matt Mitchell’s bright piano interlude. “This is My Mother’s World” recalls a New Orleans funeral march, the groove swinging from upbeat to sedate. “Going Somewhere with You” is the least hymnal of the set, its queasy melody and practically rubato rhythm creating a sense of unease perhaps meant to imply the proverbial “crossing over.”

Be Still‘s repertoire was performed at the memorial service for Douglas mother, and as such, may be too close to be more than a dark rumination. As an experiment, Be Still is thoughtful, sometimes compelling. But strangely, it is never comforting or sympathetic, which is ultimately the goal behind any hymn or folk song. Be Still seems to focus on the finality of loss, not the ecstasy of release.

Anat Cohen, Claroscuro

This is cocktail-hour music with a non-trivial progressive kick — an interesting mixture. Cohen’s warm-sounding clarinet is supported throughout by the occasionally rambunctious pairing of Jason Lindner on piano and Daniel Freedman on drums. Their considered approach is established right away, on the opening one-two punch of songs. “Anat’s Dance” is a spirited original by Lindner that opens up just enough room for things to get wooly — though, just in case it was feeling too free for your taste, next up is a smooth rendition of “La Vie En Rose,” with Wycliffe Gordon on vocals, out of nowhere! (Gordon also gets his some trombone time during “And the World Weeps.”) An array of other world-music accents get their due in the mix — there’s a prepared-piano texture that crops up now and again in “All Brothers,” and the Brazilian romp “Um a Zero” has double-time abandon to spare — but not one threatens to overwhelm the comfort-food-style presentation.

Who Is…Maria Minerva

Maria Minerva, a somewhat mysterious artist from Estonia, first emerged with a cassette release that was both strangely good and intriguingly in-step with the trend toward moody music pitched somewhere between the dance floor and the bedroom. That album, Tallinn at Dawn, came out in 2011 on the Los Angeles indie label Not Not Fun, and the short time since, Minerva has released a 12-inch single, a full-length, and an EP on the slightly dancier Not Not Fun sub-label, 100% Silk. Charting the differences between them is less illuminating than finding the commonality: a playfulness that’s alternately cerebral and coy, and a lightness of touch at the controls. She sings too, with a voice that stretches out and rises up from deep pools of echo.

On Minerva’s latest effort, Will Happiness Find Me? , she plays with different sounds and different tempos, with a mind toward both vintage club music and futuristic pop at once. In New York from London, where she has lived for the last few years while working toward a master’s degree, Minerva spoke with eMusic’s Andy Battaglia about getting soused with a feminist legend, reconciling the study of Marxism with a need to work, and getting down as a young girl to Basement Jaxx.

On playing a show at Urban Outfitters for Fashion Week in New York:

I felt out in the cold, because when you’re performing a show for people who come and go, it’s scary. It was a good experience, because I’ve never done anything like that. I’ve always been in safe environments where people know me — or, at least, know what they’re getting. Except a few times, like last week in Australia, when I did a weird panel talk that was like a Saturday Night Live-style talk show where everybody was like 45-plus. They had [noted feminist author and academic] Germaine Greer on the panel! There was no theme — it was just, like, a fun panel. The reward was that I got to hang out with Germaine Greer. She’s 73 and I’m 24, and we were drinking. I had a bottle of Jameson on my rider. [Laughs.]

On recently completing her thesis:

I turned in my thesis and [my coursework] should be over by January, hopefully. My thesis is on “nonsensical voice and glossolalia,” basically on vocalisms. It could have been fun, but I was so stressed out. I was here in New York in April and my mind was already fixed on getting back. I was waiting on a visa and couldn’t really count on it, so when I finally got it, everything else just seemed like something I needed to do before I could go and fuck off. [Laughs.]

On learning to like dance music:

I remember very precisely. I was 13, and I got really into French house. Around the same time [I also got into] electroclash, like Miss Kitten, Felix da Housecat, Fischerspooner. And everything that came after Daft Punk. When Remedy by Basement Jaxx came out in 1999, I didn’t have a CD player yet, so my dad recorded it on tape for me. So I was listening to Remedy on a Walkman at 11. It was such a fascinating collage of sounds, and it still is. I can still listen to Remedy and it’s awesome. Also Cassius and some more mainstream things helped me discover the house formula, or disco-inspired dance music. Then I went in deeper and started listening to, like, Marshall Jefferson.

On deciding to make dance music of her own:

It was all like two years ago. My first releases are all weirdo music. It wasn’t even a question: dance music just seemed the most normal thing to me. I went out dancing every Friday night for years. That was the only interesting thing going on in terms of night life for me. I hate the idea of “gigs.” It’s boring. I’m not interested in it. When I go out, I just want somebody to DJ from about 10 to 6.

On the notoriously arty, progressive, theory-strewn Goldsmiths college at University of London:

It was wonderful. It’s a very nice place if you want to study the type of stuff that I studied. There are loads of like-minded people there, but I feel like I didn’t meet many of them, because I was always working. When you work and try to do music 24 hours a day, to make the most of [the college experience] I guess you need to have a trust fund or something, so you can go to every talk by every Marxist. Instead of going to Marxist talks, I went to work. [Laughs.] It’s hard to describe what it’s like there. I don’t think the majority of people would say it even qualifies as “higher education,” but it was cool.

On her favorite music writer, Simon Reynolds:

He incorporates a lot of theory, but he’s also just a very good essayist and a good writer, very precise and intelligent, but at the same time very easy to read. He never exhausts you or puts you off from what he’s trying to say. He also gives an amazing historical overview of different genres of music in ways that people don’t often talk about. He’s extremely encyclopedic and goes over everything, and mentions bands that people don’t remember anymore. He’s an archivist in addition to being a theorist. You know it’s good music writing when you read about other music and it makes you want to make your own music. My main [favorite] book of his was always The Sex Revolts, which he wrote with his wife [Joy Press]. But his post-punk history [Rip It Up and Start Again] changed the course of my taste for a year. I was only listening to music from like 1978-84. He led me to so many things. I was all about going back in time and going through everything, and he had something to do with that.

On other music writing she likes:

I’ve read a lot of music writing in general. Often musicians say they are not interested or they don’t want to know, but I can’t say the same. I was reading Paul Morley or Greil Marcus, mainly from the UK and the U.S. But then there are some books that I’ve never managed to read about music, like the Thomas Mann book based on Schoenberg, Doctor Faustus. This is my goal for life — they say it can be handy when you think about music or being a person who makes music. The Thomas Mann was the only one I couldn’t read yet so far. It’s translated into Estonian though.

On her stature back home in Estonia:

It’s so small. But I’ve been away for two years, and I don’t think they care. Why should they care? I don’t want to let this thought into my head, but sometimes it does: wanting to show people at home what you can do without their help and without their support. There is a lot of help and support there, but sometimes I go on a website there and the comments are the most horrible things that I’ve ever seen. People are just mean. Sometimes also funny but usually just mean. Also my dad is kind of known there, so some people have come up with weird conspiracies of why I’m in the newspaper in the first place. My dad is in the media — he has a TV show and a radio show, and he writes for a newspaper, but it’s all comedy and satire, so it doesn’t have anything to do with him being able to decide who ends up in the music pages. I’m used to people always associating me with my dad back home. Sometimes I try to avoid being interviewed there, but every once and a while I do something. The name of his TV show…it doesn’t translate. I don’t have any idea…kind of like “to put somebody in their place”? The worst things I’ve ever read about myself have come from Estonia. But it’s also such a new country still and everybody is just starting to travel a lot, young people at least. Everybody who’s 35-plus has always been there.

New This Week: Diamond Version, Cave Painting & More

Diamond Version, EP1 Two of electronic music’s most revered names, Alva Noto and Bytone, have teamed up under the alias Diamond Version to release five EPs on Mute. The first in the series is a hard-cut, machine-made gem: “Technology at the Speed of Life” is booty music retooled with German precision, while “Empowering Change” is the sort of impactful, industrial electro that could bring down buildings. Recommended.

The Souljazz Orchestra, Solidarity The Canadian collective – whose music couldn’t be described as soul, jazz or orchestral – turn in an album of global beats and pieces on the reliably brilliant Strut label. Embracing everything from Afrobeat to vibe-loaded reggae to Cuban salsa, this is world music for adventurous ears everywhere. Recommended.

King Tubby, King Tubby’s Classics: The Lost Midnight Rock Dubs Chapter 3 Prime dub pressure from the archive of producer Jah Thomas, founder of the Midnight Rock label.

Cave Painting, Votive Life The hyped Brighton band, who were signed after their second show, deliver a debut of Cocteaus-esque indie, full of rich atmospherics and melodies that trail like smoke.

Neil Halstead, Palindrome Hunches A third album of articulate, round-the-campfire folk music from the founding member of Slowdive, with the emphasis on songs rather than sounds.

Mr Scruff, “Be The Music” A cut of wobbly-basslined disco that sounds like a party on a submarine.

Deacon Blue, “The Hipsters” If you thought the words ‘hip’ and ‘Deacon Blue’ were mutually exclusive, the timeless pop of the lead single from their first album in 11 might persuade you otherwise.

Suzanne Vega, Close Up Vol 4 – Songs of Family An album of stripped-down re-recordings from Vega’s back catalogue that sounds like it should come with a free Starbucks.

New This Week: Mumford & Sons, Dum Dum Girls & More

Mumford & Sons, Babel : This breakout folk act returns with their follow-up to 2011′s stratospherically successful Sigh No More. To hear Kevin O’Donnell it, they’re reaching even higher this time around:

It’s fitting that the Mumford & Sons have titled their new album Babel, a Biblical reference to man’s attempt to build a structure to reach the heavens. In just three short years, Mumford and Sons have gone from a quaint roots-rock group from London to one of the biggest new bands on the planet with 2011′s Sigh No More, and their follow-up attempts to match that ambition by outdoing that album’s already sprawling, epic roots-rock tunes. The disc is loaded with more big, important, grab-you-by-the-collar anthems.

Dum Dum Girls, End of Daze EP: Dee Dee of the Dum Dum Girls has been steadily amping up her charisma and pop-song craft over the course of the band’s two albums and EP, and with End of Daze, she hits a new plateau. “Lord Knows,” “Season In Hell,” and the Strawberry Switchblade cover “Trees and Flowers” – all are last-call-at-the-New-Wave-prom slow-dance perfect. This one is Highly Recommended. Mike Powell has more:

Sporting black leather jackets, bright red lipstick and hangdog poses, Dum Dum Girls resemble high-school dropouts from another time — the ’50s, maybe; or maybe it’s the ’60s; or maybe it’s the ’80s. Whenever it is, it’s not now. But no assembly of retro references, however clever, will get you to sing with a voice as bold, outsized and sad as Kristin Gundred, nor will they get you to write melodies as instantly indelible as she can either. Over the course of two albums, and now two EPs, her band has gone from playing misfit little garage songs punctuated by “bang-bang”s and “la-la”s to dark, glittering music exploring resignation, regret, and other big subjects that sound surprising coming from a band calling themselves “Dum Dum Girls.”

Melody’s Echo Chamber, Melody’s Echo Chamber Kevin Parker, of psych-rock A-listers Tame Impala, lends the dusty, overdriven psych-rock; Melody Prochet provides the air-dusted French-pop vocals. It’s a perfect citrus twist on the Tame Impala sound, and a record that will remind you of Broadcast and Elephant 6 in all the right ways. It’s Highly Recommended. Matthew Fritch writes:

Produced by Prochet’s boyfriend/Tame Impala leader Kevin Parker and featuring backing instrumentation from members of his Australian psych-rock outfit, Melody’s Echo Chamber initially seems to live up to its sounding-board imperative. It’s easy to ferret out the Spacemen 3 simplicity and static bursts on “Crystallized,” the bright, girl-group chorus and Bandwagonesque outro guitar shredding of opener “I’ll Follow You,” or the Stereolab-quality vintage-organ loops of “Quand Vas Tu Rentrer?” (Prochet sings in both English and French). But the album gets denser and weirder as it progresses.

The Soft Pack, Strapped: Super-solid garage-rock band makes super-solid second record after an extended break. Austin L. Ray writes:

The Artists Formerly Known As Muslims fall into the thankless category of white dudes making consistently solid indie rock — the kind of guys who can sing, “If it’s time you’re looking for, I got that time and so much more,” and sound effortlessly cool. Indeed, privileged though they may be in certain respects, in a world of next big things and exotic young esoterics, it’s easy to gloss over what is, at the end of the day, just another damn good rock band.

Glenn Campbell and Jimmy Webb, In Session: A classic appearance from two veterans who hit their highest peaks working together. Peter Blackstock writes:

Though Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb each had huge successes outside each other’s company — Campbell’s biggest hits included Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights” and John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind,” while Webb songs became pop smashes in the hands of Donna Summer and the Fifth Dimension — their most lasting legacy remains the work they did together. In Session…, compiled from a TV appearance in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1988, finds the two revisiting some of the highest points of their partnership (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”) while also taking turns down less-familiar avenues.

Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album, Pt. I: Lupe takes it back to basics for his latest studio effort. Per the title, it’s the most grounded and effortless he’s sounded since the first F&L, although only Lupe would have the audacity to release a record that’s both a “Part II” and a “Part One” at the same damn time.

No Doubt, Push and Shove: The first new No Doubt record in years! Somehow, they haven’t lost a step with the sound of radio, proving the hypothesis that I just arrived at this morning that No Doubt were way more forward-thinking than anybody realized. Bill Murphy writes:

It’s been more than 10 years since No Doubt’s last studio album (2001′s Rock Steady), but the band has always insisted the hiatus was never a breakup—even after Gwen Stefani’s solo turn, spurred by the viral success of “Hollaback Girl,” elevated her to Madonna-like status. Push and Shove finds the crew jostling for a renewed sense of solidarity, and as the title track makes clear, the chemistry is still strong. Stefani can still tap at will into her sassy rebel persona, which leaps out of the dance-pop fog machine of “Looking Hot” and the bouncy “Settle Down,” but she also tones it down for the reggae-spiced confection “Sparkle” (a throwback to the mellow vibes of UB40) and the Madge-worthy ballad “Undone.”

Witchcraft, Legend: Swedish stoner/doom metal mainstays keep refining the potency of their formula. Jon Wiederhorn writes:

That Swedish band Witchcraft formed 12 years ago just to record a tribute song for their heroes in Washington, D.C. — Black Sabbath worshippers Pentagram — is interesting enough. That they’ve since evolved into one of the most heralded bands on the psychedelic doom circuit is even more intriguing. But the fact that Witchcraft have survived the departures of three members and returned with their strongest and heaviest album to date is reason to believe in a higher (or lower) power. Five years have passed since the band released its third record, The Alchemist, and while Witchcraft still summons the darkened atmospheres of Pentagram, the mystical rural feel of Jethro Tull and the bluesy swagger of Led Zeppelin, they’ve expanded their sonic horizons even further on Legend, and improved their songwriting in the process.

Murs & Fashawn, This Generation: West Coast indie-rap scene vets team up for a collaborative record that feels like love at first sight. Nate Patrin writes:

There’s 10 years, a couple hundred miles and not much else that separates L.A. underground vet Murs and Fresno phenom Fashawn. Both MCs specialize in a West Coast indie-rap classicism that prizes personality first and scene-setting lyricism a close second. And that makes This Generation one of those super-duo team-ups that winds up feeling like less of a crossover blockbuster and more like an inevitable pairing of like-minded compatriots. It’s strongest when they’re swapping verses directly — the candid point-of-pride sessions “Yellow Tape” and “Slash Gordon” make their back-and-forth mid-line mic trades sound like they’re finishing each others’ thoughts.

Chris Cohen, Overgrown Path: On Captured Tracks: Wide-eyed, wobbly psychedelic pop shot through with California sun rays and a sense of gentle wonder.RIYL: early Cass McCombs, Robert Wyatt, pastoral Neil Young. Highly Recommended

Alan Gilbert, Nielsen: Symphonies 2 & 3: The conductor of the NY Philharmonic makes his bid to reclaim the Danish composer Nielsen from obscurity with this impassioned recording of the man’s second and third symphonies. Daniel Felsenfeld writes:

Alan Gilbert, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, is on a mission. He wants to be The Voice on behalf of a neglected composer, as Leonard Bernstein was for Mahler, and he’s chosen one Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) from Denmark. Nielsen is ripe for rediscovery: an unfortunately marginalized artist who writes big, sprawling, quirky symphonies that speak to the Scandinavian condition, but are cast in a high Germanic mold, much like his contemporaries Mahler and Sibelius. In such capable and expressive hands the Carl Nielsen revival is well — and thankfully — underway; future generations will have other neglected fish to fry.

Levek, Look a Little Closer: I first got wise to Levek via their great single “Look on the Bright Side” for the Father/Daughter label a few years back. It was smoky and soulful, a kind of indie update on Curtis Mayfield. On their full-length, they evolve yet again, this time into something like billowing AM Gold, but cooler and sleeker and more focused. It’s Recommended for sure. Also, if you guys haven’t already, this would be a good time to start keeping an eye on Father/Daughter in general. Between this and Pure Bathing Culture, they seem to be the label that Gets There before anyone else gets there.

R.E.M., Document: 25th Anniversary Edition: BIRTHDAY PARTY CHEESECAKE JELLY BEANS BOOM. R.E.M.’s commercial breakthrough spawned one of the world’s meanest love songs and proved that it was possible to smuggle talk about the proletariat, McCarthyism and old blues singers into the mainstream. A formidable rock record that’s Highly Recommended

Rosco Bandana, Time to Begin: Rollicking roots music sure to appeal to fans of Steve Earle an Ryan Adams. Their take on Blur’s “Tender” is a revelation. Recommended

Unnatural Helpers, Land Grab: On the outstanding Hardly Art label, this is a batch of tightly-wound minimalist punk — kind of Wire-y, if Wire were bigger boozers. The lines are clean, but the attitude is reckless. Recommended

deadmau5, >album title goes here: I’m sort of convinced that if I type the phrase “EDM,” I’ll be invoking a hex on members of my family. So let’s just call this bright-n-shiny techno with a Gerard Way cameo and call it even.

Frightened Rabbit, State Hospital EP: Our beloved Scots swing the heartache on their major label debut EP. Lots of slow-builds and tear-rimmed eyeballs, lots of yearning and lots of loss. Oh, Frabbits. I love you so.

Black September, Into the Darkness, Into the Void: Heaving, pitch-black, 400-ton heavy metal from this brutal Chicago band. Kind of in the blackened thrash variety, with some seriously demonic lead vocals.

Caspian, Waking Season: Slow, twinkling instrumental post-rock that starts small and gradually builds to those roiling crescendos we all love so much. Caspian are more deliberate and calculated than most — there’s an eeriness beneath even the tranquil parts of their songs that makes for a genuinely unsettling feel over all.

7even Thirty, Heaven’s Computer: New one from our buddies at Mello Music, this one has a Kool Keith/Lost in Space vibe to it — spacey, glittery productions and driving delivery.

Mumford & Sons, Babel

It’s fitting that the Mumford & Sons have titled their new album Babel, a Biblical reference to man’s attempt to build a structure to reach the heavens. In just three short years, Mumford and Sons have gone from a quaint roots-rock group from London to one of the biggest new bands on the planet with 2011′s Sigh No More, and their follow-up attempts to match that ambition by outdoing that album’s already sprawling, epic roots-rock tunes. The disc is loaded with more big, important, grab-you-by-the-collar anthems like the title cut and “Whispers in the Dark,” which are heightened this time around by the addition of bold horns and sweeping strings. There’s no doubt that Mumford and Sons have the gift of crafting arena-ready anthems like they’re U2 Unplugged, but after a half-dozen attempts on Babel, that emotional, gut-punching impact loses its visceral force.

Singer-guitarist-lyricist-sometimes-drummer Marcus Mumford also has an almost annoying fixation with the past: His band even toured via vintage railcar for their Railroad Revival Tour last year. But thanks to his gentlemanly disposition and his gravelly baritone, his sepia-toned narratives of sin and redemption (“Ghosts That We Knew”) come off as genuinely quaint and convincing. That tack works best when his band tones down the noise to let his thoughts ring through. As the Tower of Babel allegory warns, sometimes it’s better to scale things back.

Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb, In Session…

Though Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb each had huge successes outside each other’s company — Campbell’s biggest hits included Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights” and John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind,” while Webb songs became pop smashes in the hands of Donna Summer and the Fifth Dimension — their most lasting legacy remains the work they did together. In Session…, compiled from a TV appearance in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1988, finds the two revisiting some of the highest points of their partnership (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”) while also taking turns down less-familiar avenues. “Light Years” and “If These Walls Could Speak” were high points of an album of Webb songs Campbell had released just prior to this taping; the latter song stands with their finest collaborations. Snippets of commentary from Webb help to explain how the songs came to be; especially enlightening is his observation that this strikingly deliberate rendition of “Galveston” has reverted back to the tempo in which it was written: “It’s almost as though songs know how fast they want to be sung,” he muses. And, yes, they tackle Webb’s epic “MacArthur Park,” with the songwriter confessing his “cake in the rain” motivation matter-of-factly: “I was not putting anybody on. It was a love song about somebody that I cared about very much, and about a relationship that was over.” Thankfully, his relationship with Campbell continued for many decades hence.

John Boyne, The Absolutist

War is John Boyne’s topic; his best-known novel is the concentration camp soul-crusher The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. In his latest, The Absolutist, the action all stems from one Tristan Sadler’s time in the horror show that was the trenches of World War I. The war shapes the next decades of Tristan’s life, as he is drawn into the influence of fellow soldier — and occasional lover — Will Bancroft.

The Absolutist has both grand themes and a sweeping scale. Boyne does not shy away from either talking about the death of a generation or to question of what those deaths accomplished, but his focus on Will and Tristan allows him to examine morality in multiple layers. Will, for one, is more concerned with being discovered as a homosexual than being shot by his own side for cowardice. In fact, Will is the titular absolutist whose strong moral compass guides him 180 degrees from the relativism that is necessary in war, while Tristan is willing to kill in wartime for the greater good.

Years after the end of the War to End All Wars, Tristan is unable to shake Will’s absolutism. Narrated in the voice of a British everyman by Michael Maloney, he cannot partake of the glorious histories others recount. This truth-to-power attitude can occasionally seem like browbeating, with Tristan’s pronouncements veering into “War (What Is It Good For?)” territory. When asked about his thoughts on the Great War, Tristan can’t help but respond, “I didn’t think it was all that great. In fact, if memory serves, it was bloody awful.” But who cares if Tristan’s views are sometimes inartfully stated? The message comes through loud and clear.

In some ways, The Absolutist> is a pastiche of all the great war and post-war novels of the last 150 years, with prominent doses of War and Peace and Atonement, but this tale of two soldiers brings a fresh look at the fog of war — and love.