PRETENDERS: Relentless (Parlophone)
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LAUFEY: Bewitched (AWAL)
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Chrissie Hynde has thrown her energy into a few unexpected artistic enterprises in the past four years.
The American singer, once described by Neil Young as 'a true rock 'n' roll woman', has made one solo LP of jazz standards and another packed with Bob Dylan covers.
She returned briefly to her day job fronting The Pretenders, the group she formed in London 45 years ago, but promo activities for the band's 2020 album, Hate For Sale, were curtailed by the pandemic.
This year, however, she has been busy burnishing her rock 'n' roll credentials. The Pretenders have played intimate club shows and summer festivals.
At Glastonbury, Hynde, 72, brought on drummer Dave Grohl and guitarist Johnny Marr as guests, and even enticed a watching Paul McCartney onstage for a quick curtain call.
'In her sixth decade as a Pretender, she's still the real deal': Glasto greats Chrissie Hynde with Johnny Marr
Her band's latest album, Relentless, fits perfectly with the charismatic Hynde we've seen onstage in 2023. Produced with an old-school melodic sheen, it contains nods aplenty to her past, with Telecaster-driven pop gems in the tradition of early singles such as Stop Your Sobbing and tough yet tender ballads in the style of I'll Stand By You.
This is the second consecutive Pretenders album Chrissie has written with James Walbourne, a guitarist who has recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis and Dave Gahan. His playing adds a contemporary crunch to her soul-tinged melodies and three-minute pop songs.
Hynde has never been a particularly introspective writer -- 'you have to keep a check on that,' she cautions -- and she offers a typically hard-nosed view of lockdown on mid-tempo rocker Losing My Sense Of Taste, comparing the loss to a jaded musical palate: 'I don't even care about rock 'n' roll, all my favourites seem tired and old,' she shrugs.
Even when playing the romantic, she's candid and unsentimental. 'I don't mess with burning coal, or anything I can't control,' she admits on A Love, although she shows greater optimism on Let The Sun Come In ('They even say that we must die, I don't believe it, that's a lie').
Some of her best songs have been ballads and that's the case again here, with The Copa built on twanging guitars and I Think About You Daily lifted by an inspired string arrangement from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. 'The arrangement wrote itself because of that voice,' Greenwood insists. 'She's one of pop's greatest singers.'
A cellist, pianist and guitarist, Laufey brings her classical training to bear on her second album, Bewitched
In her sixth decade as a Pretender, she's still the real deal.
Championed by Billie Eilish, LA-based singer Laufey Lin Jonsdottir is bringing traditional jazz to a young pop audience. Born in Reykjavik to an Icelandic dad and Chinese mum, the 24-year-old -- whose name is pronounced 'Lay-Vay' -- began writing songs while studying at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston.
A cellist, pianist and guitarist, she brings her classical training to bear on her second album, Bewitched, but there's nothing formal about songs that tackle typical 20-something themes of empowerment and heartache. It's easy to see why Eilish is a fan, given that she has also incorporated jazz influences on Billie Bossa Nova and Happier Than Ever.
Laufey is in thrall to singers like Ella Fitzgerald, but she's carving her own niche. Opener Dreamer begins with a cappella harmonies before developing the feel of an old Hollywood show tune. Backed by London's Philharmonia Orchestra, California And Me finds her holding back the tears as she watches an unreliable boyfriend scurry back to his ex.
In the poignant Letter To My 13-Year-Old Self, she looks back on being a victim of bullying. 'I wish I could go back and give her a squeeze, myself at 13,' she sings. There's a nostalgic cover of jazz standard Misty, but Bewitched is otherwise a modern take on classic swing.
Laufey tours the UK next year (ticketmaster.co.uk).
CORINNE BAILEY RAE: Black Rainbows (Thirty Tigers)
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Corinne Bailey Rae paved the way for fellow British soul queens Amy Winehouse and Adele when she cracked America with her self-titled debut album in 2006.
The husky Leeds singer has since branched out into more rock-orientated material and she casts the net even wider on her fourth album Black Rainbows, an ambitious concept piece seven years in the making.
The songs here were inspired by artefacts assembled by American artist Theaster Gates and displayed at the Stony Island Arts Bank, a museum of black history in Chicago.
Before turning solo, Bailey Rae sang in indie group Helen and she revisits those rock roots on punk number New York Transit Queen, a celebration of 1950s beauty queen Audrey Smaltz. Corinne's experimental instincts sometimes get the better of her and the title track, all honking horns and improvised beats, isn't particularly accessible.
Elsewhere, Black Rainbows is a joy. Peach Velvet Sky, based on the life of former slave Harriet Jacobs, evokes Billie Holiday.
Corinne starts a residency at the Sunbeam Theatre, London, on October 25 (corinnebaileyrae.com).
BARRIOS: Guitar Pieces (Erato 5419772617)
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It was the great Australian guitarist John Williams who 'discovered' Agustin Barios for us, back in 1977.
Actually the Paraguayan guitarist-composer had never been wholly forgotten, especially in South America, but it seems that each generation has to rediscover him afresh.
This beautiful CD by Thibaut Garcia, the 'guitarist du jour', will do the trick nicely, as he has chosen 16 superb Barrios pieces, as well as three of his excellent arrangements.
Barrios (1885-1944) toured widely, playing his own pieces, and led a colourful life that entailed changing his name twice; he was probably poisoned to death by a love rival.
Garcia is closely recorded, so I suggest a slight volume adjustment; Barrios was fond of tremolo effects and his most famous composition, La Catedral, has an irresistible finale.
As a bonus, we are given a 1928 recording by the man himself, a setting of a Paraguayan song; it comes over well and makes me think his other records should be reissued.
CHESNOKOV: All-Night Vigil etc. (Naxos 8.574496)
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After the 1917 Revolution, Russian Orthodox music and its exponents were given a hard time by Lenin and Stalin.
Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) was one of the leading victims: he struggled to keep going but gave up composition and died of malnutrition towards the end of the war.
Fortunately for us, he had already composed much wonderful church music, not least the All-Night Vigil recorded by St John's Voices and Cambridge University Chamber Choir.
Conductor Graham Clark does a fine job and gets authentic-sounding sonorities out of his mixed choristers, even if they cannot quite match the organ-like rumble of Russians.
The disc begins with four miscellaneous pieces by Chesnokov and the entire CD exudes the atmosphere of the Kyiv and Znamenny chants that underpin most Russian music.
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