Dion DiMucci started out as a singer in a doo-wop group; straddling the line between teen-idol R&B and late-50′s rock and roll, he came of age in an era when most rock songs were about either cars or girls.  More than 50 years later, Dion has a new album called Tank Full of Blues. He’ s still got cars on his mind, and rest assured that there are plenty of girls here, too. But as the title indicates, he’s past the point of caring about the flashy stuff. His mind has turned to what’s under the hood, what’s been driving this music all along.

This is hardly the first Dion blues album. Even those early teenybopper records had some blues here and there, and the singer is rounding out a trilogy of latter-day masterworks that also includes Bronx in Blue and Son of Skip James. The music he’s been making for the past ten years, and continues with Tank Full of Blues, has drawn comparisons to Dylan’s own latter-day albums as the elder statesman of American blues and roots music. Love & Theft was overflowing with words and ideas, however, and Modern Times cloaked in a haze of existential mystique. Tank Full of Blues is clean, compact, and powerful; Dion recorded it in a guitar/bass/drums trio format, and the songs are lean and cut close to the bone.

There is very little here that couldn’t have been recorded in the 1950′s, or even earlier, but there is no sepia-toned nostalgia here, no romanticizing of the past, none of the analog fetishizing that sometimes characterizes these albums (like the still-very-good Gregg Allman album from last year). Dion handles the blues as living history, stretching through the back alleys of American song but still very much alive and kicking today. There is simply too much combustible chemistry from the band, and too much humor and feeling in the songwriting, for this to be nostalgia.

Even when there are references to the past– and there are many of them– it illuminates the present-day reality of Dion’s music. His “Train Medley” joins together a Muddy Waters song with a Robert Johnson one, but it’s not a generic mash-up; he get to the heart of what connects these songs. Their union here is revelatory. Johnson is again invoked in the original composition “Rider’s Blues,” which re-imagines the famous story of Johnson at the crossroads, only here it’s a done as a myth that speaks to spiritual crossroads of all kinds. It cuts to the core of what makes blues music so human, which is the album’s true gift to us.

And then there’s “I Read It (In the Rolling Stone),” in which our singer shuns the very notion of turning to a newspaper for truth or insight into the world in which he lives. And who can blame him? He turns instead to rock’s most venerable publication, an idea that makes a lot of sense to me, and asks himself what Robert Plant might do. If a song like this one doesn’t carry the sting of wit and wisdom, I don’t know what does.

There are plenty of moments here that hit just as hard– I’m partial to the sly title track and the full-force slam of “I’m Ready to Go”– but if there’s a moment here that truly disarms, and pushes Dion way out ahead of anywhere he has ever been before (to say nothing of his peers), it has to be the closer, “Bronx Poem.” A spoken word piece that’s the direct opposite of pretentious, the track finds Dion giving a full outpouring of gratitude, humility, and sincerity. It’s a poem of thanks, for all the places he’s been and all the blessings he’s been given. It’s a a moment of perfect purity, earnestness, and candor– the perfectly rousing conclusion to an album that turn the blues into a celebration of life and music.

John K. Samson, lead singer for the terrific rock band The Weakerthans, has a solo album out today– one that’s just as funny, touching, surprising, and smart as the albums he makes with the full crew. My review of Provincial is posted at CT.

Got a review of the new solo album from Hold Steady singer posted at CT this morning. There is actually a lot to admire about this record, especially in how it stays true to so many of The Hold Steady’s trappings while still distinguishing itself as Finn’s own thing. The absence of the full band’s typical piledriving momentum and electric mayhem means the emphasis is all on the lyrics, which is where, for me, it becomes a little bit apparent that Finn’s songs are becoming a little too stylized, the Catholic guilt thing not packing the punch it did on Boys and Girls in America. But that could well be my own issue, I suppose.

No less an authority than Rodrigo himself has said that, when he and Gabriela first conceived the Area 52 project, they viewed it as something of a stopgag– not as the true, proper follow-up to the gangbusters 11:11. I can see why they’d say that. They toured for the last album incessantly, devoted some time to scoring the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and then faced the daunting task of writing a new album’s worth of material. The material wasn’t coming, and the duo decided a change in scenery could inspire them anew. They headed to Havana and teamed with the thirteen-piece C.U.B.A. orchestra, plus arranger/soulful British pianist Alex Wilson, to cut spirited new versions of some of their previous songs. This new album is the result.

Regardless of original intent, though, there’s nothing about Area 52 that suggests it’s a sub-standard Rodrigo y Gabriela album. It may have begun as a search for inspiration, but it ends up an embodiment of it. It illustrates one of the things I love most about this duo, and that is their resourcefulness. On 11:11, they used nothing more than a pair of acoustic guitars to render sonic fireworks of incredible intensity. Area 52 is equally amazing. Here, they show that these songs are sturdy enough, and their performer’s instincts smart enough, to keep the intimacy and energy of their music in tact even as they re-imagine it for an entirely new setting.

Which is just to say that Area 52 is a scorching hot record, and even if you know the original compositions by heart, this album really does feel like something brand new, not just a tweaked rendering of old favorites. It’s an album fueled by jazz improvisation, heavy metal heroics, flamenco dexterity, big band swing, Latin groove, and cinematic scope. Everything their music has always suggested is fleshed out in brilliant Technicolor here. Yes, some of the scaled-back volatility of the duo recordings is lost, but a whole new world of complexity and depth is gained, and the music’s vital energy is never dampened. It is a different kind of Rodrigo y Gabriela album, but still the equal of their past recordings.

And it’s an album that flows as a seamless tapestry, an endless celebration, yet there are moments that stand out. Initially, I was most impressed by the songs that pack the biggest full-band wallop, like the razzle-dazzle opener of “Santa Domingo.” Then, the more subtle moments and rich variations began to stand out. “11:11″ sounds even more spacey and psychadelic here. “Hanuman” has a scorching, Santana-esque electric guitar solo that pushes the whole track into the stratosphere. “Ixtapa” is masked in the magnetic aura of the sitar. Wilson himself has some wonderful piano showcases that suggest a possible future for Rodrigo y Gabriela in fronting a small-band jazz ensemble.

I have heard other listeners remark that this is the Rodrigo y Gabriela album they find easiest to warm to. I can understand why; where a record like 11:11 dazzles with the simplicity of its virtuosity, this one just dazzles, in a full blaze of showmanship and spark. I am sure other listeners will find Area 52 to be something of an offense to the duo’s purity, when really I think it expands their sound while remaining very true to their core. For me, the record does not replace those earlier duo recordings, nor does it try to. It’s a knockout piece of music in its own right, and evidence that Rodrigo y Gabriela’s powers are pretty close to limitless.

I’ve always liked Kathleen Edwards, and what I particularly like about her are her voice and her songs– the same two things, I suppose, that attract me to most of the musicians I love. I did not really care, when Asking for Flowers came out, that the Canadian singer/songwriter was being billed as a sort of country/roots rocker, pitched somewhere between Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow, or that her album had Benmont Tench and Greg Liesz on it. I cared that she was a ferocious performer, expressing naked emotion through funny and irreverent songs but never obscuring their frayed and hopeful hearts. I also liked her girlish voice, especially when curse words and John Fogerty references were coming out of it. I thought, and still think, that she could make the scrappy, knockout album of her career by cutting a bunch of songs on the ragged and folksy tip, like “Sure as Shit,” with perhaps a couple of dust-kickers like “Oil Man’s War” thrown in as well.

Not that I have any interest in dispensing career advice; her new album, Voyageur, is quite good, and quite different from what I might have thought she would or could do, so clearly Edwards is on to something. I bring up the last album, though, simply to say that the new one is a departure, and one that some fans may not be as enamored with. As for me, all the things I’ve always loved about Edwards are still here. The songs are terrific and the voice is clear and true as ever, so it matters little to me that she has drafted producer Justin Vernon, who sands away the grit and gristle and makes this into what I guess we’ll call Kathleen Edwards’ pop album.

It is not pop in a conventional sense, nor in a saxophone-drenched Bon Iver sense. It is pop because there is little here that could be called roots-rock, and nothing that smacks of country, or of Tom Petty. The songs are melodic and have snappy, propulsive rhythms, even though many of them are minor-key and the whole album is reflective and atmospheric. There is a sort of 80′s pop ambiance, though not in any heavy-handed sort of way. Nothing here recalls the soundtrack to Drive, in other words. But there is something ethereal about it; Voyageur is awash in after-hours echoes, Edwards’ songs more confessional than ever but not lacking in attitude and wit. The songs remain folk songs at their core. Edwards remains ferocious.

And all of that’s fitting for an album that reminds me a bit of Lisa Hannigan’s fine Passenger– not in any sonic sense, but just because it’s an album about travel, both literal and metaphorical. Both albums have one-word titles that denote people prone to movement, and both have maps on their front covers. Edwards is writing about transitions, fresh starts and painful beginnings. Her characters are in conflict with themselves and with others, and the thought of a change in scenery is both promising and terrifying. The best song might be the first one; in a reversal of the typical stateside threat to move to Canada, Edwards’ narrator softly pledges she’s “movin’ to America” before admitting it’s likely an “empty threat.”

This is twilit introspection rendered with humor and deep emotional barbs; why, Edwards’ promise to follow her lover anywhere sharpened considerably by the very title of the song in which it appears (“Going to Hell”). Other highlights include a lovely, wrenching ballad co-authored by John Roderick of The Long Winters, called “A Soft Place to Land,” and an epic closer, “For the Record,” where Edwards almost goes full-on emo in comparing the artist to the crucified Christ (but for the record, she “only wanted to sing songs”). All of this would sound pretty good no matter how it was presented, I think. Edwards is developing a sonic vocabulary that is distinct to her, and Voyageur sounds to me like it’s as accomplished as anything she’s done.

Dylan has said that he doesn’t write protest songs, that he just sets out to tell a story and if there happens to be some kind of political resonance, well, fine. It’s a subtle but critical distinction, and I think it’s what keeps a song like “Masters of War” so perpetually devastating; it took deep root in the Vietnam era, and was still rooted when the Iraq era rolled around. But where, I wonder, does this distinction leave Ani DiFranco?

I don’t know for certain, but my suspicion is that DiFranco would have less hesitation than Dylan does about calling herself a protest songwriter. She owns up to it in the very title of her new album. Which Side Are You On? is also the title of a pro-union anthem written in the 1930′s. Its most famous performer is Pete Seeger, one of the patron saints of protest music, who, now well into his 90′s, shows up here to give DiFranco his blessing. Her version of the song is a modern-day rewrite, fueled by Seeger’s banjo and her lefty political indignation. It’s six-and-a-half minutes long, and within the first two minutes mentions stolen elections, “voting out” corporations, endless war, and “the curse of Reaganomics.” If your politics are the opposite of DiFranco’s the song will hit like a hammer, which I assume is her point. The song packs a wallop despite of, or maybe even because of, its very heavy-handedness; DiFranco and a full stable of guest musicians blow it up into a rousing political anthem, the sheer force of indignation and the want for justice making it potent.

But what has always made DiFranco charming to so many, and perhaps a bit off-putting to some, is the way that she works her politics in almost casually. This album is rife with politics, but not with anthems. Take a song like “J,” for example, a pretty song about getting stoned. The singer sprinkles it with politics, but it’s really just a song about a mellow afternoon on the back porch. This very casualness is befitting for an album that feels brittle and homemade. Though DiFranco is joined by a couple of Neville Brothers and members of Galactic and Rebirth Brass Band, the record is appealingly intimate and low key, like it was tossed off over the course of a couple afternoon sessions at DiFranco’s home studio.

Which Side Are You On? is the first DiFranco album in four years, and the first since her sublime turn on the Anais Mitchell “folk opera” Hadestown, but the album suggests that while the outside world may have changed some, the singer herself really hasn’t. Despite the album’s laid-back vibe, she gets to be pretty cantankerous sometimes, and on “Promiscuity”– a song playfully and perhaps a little cheekily celebrating its title subject– you can’t help but smile at just how comfortable she is in her own skin, with her own outspokenness. You can help but smile when things grind into something more tedious. “Amendment” is a song just as long as the title track, but nowhere near as rousing; her the singer sounds less like a movement leader and more like a crank, proposing amendments for abortion and women’s rights and a whole litany of other stuff. This song, I think, is a lot preachier, and here’s my supporting evidence: Though I happen to share many of the singer’s lefty leanings, even I find the track to be condescending.

But it’s part of the fabric of any Ani DiFranco album, part of what makes Ani Ani– love her or loath her, she really doesn’t give a damn. I should also say that there are some apolitical songs here, including the lovely, warm opener “Lifeboat” and an almost punk-ish salute to hedonism called “If Yr Not,” its party-style spelling tipping off its casual irreverence. It feels like a song that could have been a DiFranco classic at any point in the singer’s career, and it summarizes the charms that make this, if not an essential protest record, at least essential Ani.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have more than my fair share of obsessions and peculiar hang-ups—New Orleans music, black gospel music, Elvis Costello, anything involving ?uestlove—but Joe Henry surely sits at the top of the list. A few years ago, I created a list that counted down what I consider to be his finest production jobs, and never intended it to become an ongoing project. Due partly to my own obsessiveness and partly to the fact that Joe keeps doing better and better work, I’m compelled to update the list once more, making room for some of the fine work he’s done in the past year or so.

As usual, I’ll omit Henry’s own fine solo albums from the list, only to keep them from completely shutting out everything else.

01. The Bright Mississippi
Allen Toussaint (2009)
I’ve heard it said, regarding the seminal Johnny Cash/Rick Rubin American Recordings, that all Rubin had to do was put an acoustic guitar in Cash’s hands and step out of the room, and that he ended up looking like a genius in the process. In much the same way, it seems like Joe Henry gathered some of his favorite musicians into his basement and bid them go to town on some of the most classic songs of New Orleans, and the resulting record is incomparable. The Bright Mississippi is, paradoxically, as “hands off” as anything JH has produced, but it might also be the most distinctively him. All this Naw’lins racket amounts to the sound of pure joy and spontaneity. Not many records can evoke that, and the ones that do seem to come, most often, out of Joe’s basement.

02. The Long Surrender
Over the Rhine (2011)

I suspect that, had Joe Henry been living in Ohio at just the right time in the 1980’s, he would be a full-fledged member of Over the Rhine. As it is, he is merely a perfect collaborator, the catalyst for the seasoned band’s best-ever work. All of Joe’s instincts as a songwriter and a record-maker shape this masterful album, which is never in any danger of becoming anything other than pure Over the Rhine.

03. Don’t Give Up on Me
Solomon Burke (2002)

This is the one that started it all, and I suspect the one that opened the doors to most, if not all of the other collaborations listed here. It seemed revolutionary then and now: Forget the gloss, the fireworks, and the celebrity cameos. Keep the band small and soulful. Gather the very best original material possible. Focus on Song and Voice. That’s as close to a formula as you can get, I think, for a comeback record, a soul record, or really for any record that’s worth much of anything.

04. I Know I’ve Been Changed
Aaron Neville (2010)

Sometimes I read articles or hear interviews with Joe Henry, and when they list his production credits, this album never seems to get mentioned. I’m not sure why. Like The Bright Mississippi, this is strikingly emblematic of Henry’s production values. It’s got a crack band surrounding a terrific singer doing timeless material, and JH mostly just seems to let ‘em roll. Why would he do anything else? They really cook. Bottom line: The album’s hot.

05. Passenger
Lisa Hannigan (2011)

I don’t think of Joe Henry as a producer who has his own “sound,” necessarily, but there are some sonic giveaways, and most of them have to do with the musicians he regularly employs. You can frequently tell it’s a JH joint by, for instance, the shake and rattle of Jay Bellerose’s percussion. He recorded this particular album sans his regular ensemble players and outside of his Basement Studio, and it stands as a testament to his own resourcefulness. His ear and his instincts work just fine even when he’s using someone else’s studio and someone else’s band.

06. The River in Reverse
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint (2006)

This one demonstrates the subtly and steadiness of JH’s guiding hand. Though the collaboration is pitched on Toussaint’s terms, it does, indeed, feel like a true collaboration, and as far as I can tell Henry does nothing but cultivate that. He guides these musicians to make a record that’s part party and part protest; part lamentation, part indignation, part celebration. It’s totally Toussaint and completely Costello, and the sound is clean and rich without ever evoking overt nostalgia for Toussaint’s early work.

07. Recovery
Loudon Wainwright III (2008)

In terms of sheer quality, I could just as easily select Strange Weirdos. What makes this one special is the perspective Joe brings to this project. The idea of re-recording vintage material in a full-band context could have become little more than a glorified greatest-hits album. Instead, through the ace song selection and instinctive performances, this becomes a remarkable achievement and a spellbinding recording in its own right, one that actually builds upon the legacy of these great songs rather than simply presenting them in new arrangements.

08. I Believe to My Soul
Various Artists (2003)

Joe Henry has done more than just about anyone else to bring sturdy, old-fashioned soul music back into contemporary favor, and this fine recording is exemplary of his passion for the stuff. It’s traditional but never studious, and it also introduced the sort of Motown concept—with Toussaint, in particular, serving as a featured performer as well as a member of the house band—that has become a staple of pretty much all of the Garfield House recordings.

09. I’m Not There
Various Artists (2007)

It’s a little odd, I guess, to single out a fairly sprawling collection for which Joe Henry only produced a handful of tracks. The JH tracks that are here, though, are stunning. This is still the best place to hear Joe working with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, I think, the fine A Stranger Here aside. There is also a wonderful Richie Havens song, but the best song on the entire collection is the barn-burning gospel fervor of John Doe’s “Pressing On” performance.

10. Let Them Talk
Hugh Laurie (2011)

This record is simply much better than one might have expected, and most of that credit goes to Hugh Laurie, who does the heavy lifting all on his own. I give Henry credit, though, for making sure Laurie has everything he needs to make a real album and not a vanity project—including a great studio band, tremendous songs, Toussaint’s horn arrangements, and Sir Tom Jones as a duet partner.

This is just the kind of record that many are likely to write off as a “trifle,” which I just can’t stand. This band was always supposed to be a one-off, a “side project,” a busman’s holiday. They’ve now given us a second album, and it’s loaded with unequivocally great songs, all of them performed very well. What, exactly, is there to complain about?

The Little Willies are not a band you count on for grand statements or for trailblazing. They were convened on the fly, just as an excuse to play classic country music together. The joy is in hearing these songs performed with enthusiasm and warmth. That’s what you count on the Little Willies for, and that’s what they deliver. For the Good Times does not offer anything that strikes me as revelatory, but it does give an opportunity to listen to these songs framed in ways that cause you to give them a second thought. And for what its worth, it’s better than their debut.

If anything, I wish they allowed themselves a bit more anarchy, a bit more impish humor. This is a band, after all, whose name is halfway a reference to the Red-Headed Stranger himself, halfway a dick joke. There is a streak of fun-loving camaraderie that animates their records, and this one leaves room for some creative liberties here and there. By and large, they play it straight. These performances are not quite reverent, but are certainly respectful.

That might be for the best, I suppose. The really interesting thing about this Little Willies album is the way it presents these country songs without much of what I’d call grit or twang. The tendency, sometimes, is to play up the rootsiness of songs like these; how else does one prove their own mettle and country music cred when tackling standards by Loretta and Dolly, Johnny and Lefty? The Little Willies take a different approach. Perhaps because some of them are songwriters in their own right– one of them, Norah Jones, a fairly successful one– they emphasize the craft of these songs more than the feel of them. You have probably heard it said that great country songs are models of technical songwriting acumen, that Hank Williams was basically doing just what the Tin Pan Alley guys were doing. That shines through in these performances. The Willies stretch and bend these songs just enough to show how sturdy and expertly crafted they really are; or, they just play them with heart, proving that they never go out of style.

Pretty much everything here is a weeper; maybe all the great country songs are. The opener, Ralph Stanley’s “I Worship You,” is sung by Jones as a pure truckstop honky-tonk tearjerker. She pulls out all the loneliness and longing. She shortens the line between country and soul to where you can hardly see it. They also do “Fist City” and the original Willie’s “Permanently Lonely,” and both are ravishingly sad and straightforward.

The band members almost convince you, here and there, that they were born to cry, but of course, they also have fun. What is a Little Willies session for, if not relishing the craft and feeling of these songs? They embrace “Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves” with a certain sense of mayhem. They really get cooking, with cocktail piano and barbed-wire guitar work, to the point where you can almost imagine the whole thing derailing. There’s also a killer two-part vocal; Jones delivers her two words with such a smoky allure that you immediately realize why she’s been called in as a hook girl on so many hip-hop songs. Meanwhile, Loretta’s “Fist City” bops with a jaunty R&B attitude; it seems as ready for a sock hop as a honky tonk. Jones does it straight, but clearly get the defiance and humor in the lyric.

The album closes with “Jolene.” A friend recently commented that this song is quickly becoming the country/roots equivalent of “Hallelujah,” which is probably true– and if it is, I blame the White Stripes– but the Little Willies’ version is a great one. They let the song breath: The instrumentation is hushed and minimal, with Jones’ voice and her male harmony partners creating the drama all on their own. They reveal what the song is, but leave Dolly’s words and melody to do the heavy lifting, which is really the only sensible way of doing it, is it not? As long as the Little Willies are offering such fine takes on such stellar material, their albums will never be trifles.

I’ve read a handful of press releases and advance reviews of Come Sunday, the new collaboration from Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, and I’ve seen the material selected for this project described in several different ways. These are songs of power, we are told, and songs of freedom; they are folk songs, and American songs. I can’t disagree with any of this, yet I also can’t help but be a bit baffled that anyone could miss the more obvious point, which is that these are religious songs. They are sacred songs. They are Christian songs. Even the album’s title points to the Lord’s Day as an event, one to be awaited with hopeful anticipation.

Many of the songs here can only rightly be called hymns; several of them are what we think of as Christmas songs (“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”), and others Easter (“The Old Rugged Cross,” “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”). Hymns are folk songs in a sense, and they are treated as such here; they are songs we pass down, one generation to the next, and they are sometimes given different inflections, but always treated with reverence, because what these songs are about, and how these songs are expressed… well, these things matter. The hymns selected have power because, though this album is instrumental, we know the words. We know these songs as holiday favorites that speak to our souls year-round with a distinctly Christian hopefulness, a resurrection faith. They are given a folksy context by the presence of gospel songs, spirituals, and the title song, a Duke Ellington composition. Meanwhile, the hymns remind us that these other songs are more than just folk songs. They carry history, meaning, and power.

Bassist Haden and jazz piano legend Jones– the latter was 91, and still a touring musician, when these sessions took place, and has since deceased– collaborated in this small, intimate setting once before. The album, Steal Away, came out in 1995, and was a different sort of record than this one. Yes, it picked up on some sacred songs and spirituals, but it also had less explicitly religious folk songs, even protest songs. It was an album about a different kind of power, and it was both solemn and rousing. It scaled great heights. Come Sunday is more reverent, more introspective, more quiet. It’s a hushed, Sunday morning whisper, though not at all unworthy of a few Hosanna’s.

It’s an album that celebrates church music, but it’s also very much a jazz album, which gives it its power. The performances are reverent, yes, but hardly lifeless. There’s incredible interplay and chemistry here, making the album warm and soul-stirring. “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is a fine example of the record’s quiet strength. We all know the tune, and it takes no time at all to pick up on it here. They play it straight, but not without passion. Jones plays a verse, then Haden plays it, then the two instruments combine their voices. It’s played with great feeling; that feeling comes not from a sense of exploration so much as from the pleasure of expressing this song’s timeless beauty, giving voice to something so deep and profound. These two musicians– both giants of jazz– are doing heavy lifting here. That may seem like an odd metaphor for an album so graceful and elegant, but it’s true: They take this work seriously, and don’t shy away from the task of revealing what these songs still have to tell us.

These songs speak to our hearts, so it is fitting, I suppose, that the prevailing idea here is one of intimacy; Come Sunday never sounds like anything more or less than two men, positioned very close to one another in the same room, making beautiful music together. But the songs also speak to the external: Hymns and spirituals are not only about what goes on inside us, but also outside and around us. So it’s equally fitting that this album is a shared experience– moments held closely between two musicians, and the listener, who is blessed with an invitation into this sacred space.

Christianity Today‘s music reviewing staff– of which I am a member– voted on the best records of 2011, and while the CT list is hardly a carbon copy of my own, you will notice plenty of overlap. Of course I could quibble with it, as I could any list that isn’t my own, but really, I am simply delighted to see a list in which Joe Henry, Over the Rhine, Paul Simon, and Gillian Welch are rubbing elbows and bumping shoulders.

#1 on the CT list is Josh Garrels, whose album did not make my own list, though I did quite like it. I stick by my original comments about that album, I think– that it is impressively ambitious and very well-executed, as well as frequently moving; also, a bit too long and maybe a little too serious. But for CT, it’s a fine choice, no question.