Reviews music

The Norwegian lutenist makes this 400-year-old music sound vital through a mature, warmly expressive sensibility, even as he explicates these old "texts" through a prism of meticulous technique.

Faithfull’s 1960s material is the subject of a recently released six-CD, 81-track anthology that shows she was capable of handling everything from traditional and modern folk to Brill Building tunes and rock.

This collaboration between vocal ensemble Blue Heron and composer Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol is as beautiful as it is tricky to describe.

The meaning of simple contrasts is magnified in composer Ryan Vigil's meditative, thought-provoking works for violin and piano.

If you’re a Dylan fan, this eclectic box is a great place to go treasure hunting.

Perhaps the Pale Fountains will finally garner some notice following the appearance of a new four-CD box set devoted to Michael Head's critically acclaimed band, which formed in Liverpool in 1980 and split up in 1987.

Let’s hope we’ll soon see similar boxes devoted to the making of Drake’s other two studio albums, both of which are as noteworthy as his debut. The world needs all the music from him that it can get.

'Metal Horse' from Billy Nomates is an album that will probably fly under most people's radars but it's also one that needs to be listened to.

Exemplary, living Bach from musicians with few equals at the repertoire; sensitive violin performances of Poulenc transcriptions and sonatas

The title piece is a set of variations on a theme from the Irish folk song "Shule Agra." The lyrics to a version known in English as "Johnny Has Gone for a Solider" are hopeful but uncertain. But that doesn't take away from this colorful album's predominantly upbeat feel.