In a few days, the wait is over for fans of Stile Antico, the phenomenal vocal ensemble who specialize in Tudor and Renaissance choral music (and high-profile side projects with Sting.)  They release "Media Vita," a selection of works by the sixteenth century composer John Sheppard. 

Less well-known than Thomas Tallis, Sheppard's fame has spread slowly, because his compositions only made it to the twentieth century in manuscript form and many of them are incomplete.  What survives bears all the hallmarks of greatness.  This recording provides ample evidence of his bold, rich and individual harmony, as well as an inspired knack for compositional passion, while still adhering to Archbishop Cranmer's protestant tastes for concise word setting.

The performance captured here is at the same lofty standard that Stile Antico's earlier recordings attained - almost perfect.  This group engages the listener like no other, with the purpose of soloists, the tonal evenness of an ensemble, and with a clarity that is ground-breaking.  On a few listenings, though, this perfection is itself the disc's undoing.  I don't expect my thoughts to be received well, but I'm left willing the performance to move me more than it does.

If I'm honest, I miss children in this music.   Children don't sing as well as the sopranos in Stile Antico, plain and simple.  They are slavishly subservient to the choir director in front of them, the absence of which is one of the inspired features of this group.  They also think about football while they sing and who might get the carol service solo instead of them, but when they get it right, for me, there is an experience beyond the finesse on this album.

If you doubt me, and live within a reasonable distance of New York, duck into St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, during a sung service and judge for yourself.  Profound utterances, from the young, barely conscious of what they say, has a power that was understood by Britten, Walton, Boyce, Greene, Purcell, by all the great composers of liturgical choral music, all the way back to Sheppard.  In the hands of a child, these notes and words come from a different sphere, literally.  A sphere that the rest of us have had to leave behind. -- Hugo Munday

Criticizing an album before anyone's ever heard it would be a bizarre thing to do. Bizarrely, I think I'm going do just that.

Y'see, I'm just a little concerned about one of my favorite artists.

Joanna Newsom's Ys was one of my favorite albums of the last ten years, but she's announced her follow up, Have One On Me, is going to be a triple. There's no track listing yet, but whatever it is will be released on 3xCDs, or 3xLPs.

Is there actually such a thing as a great triple album? Serious question, I'd like to know. There must be a few, but even still - wouldn't they be improved by having a few lesser tracks chopped off to make it a more manageable double album? In fact, wouldn't the vast majority of double albums be improved by being edited down to a single?

I tend to feel that 35-50 minutes is the best length for an album, because shorter than that feels a little too short, but longer is kinda tiring. But how tiring a record is depends on what kind of music it is, too.

Aphex Twin's triple LP (or double CD) Selected Ambient Works II is over two-and-a-half hours of featureless ambiance. Even though that's a long time to do anything (a long time to have headphones on, say), it's easy to let it wash through you and only pick up on the broad movements of mood. On the other hand, Tupac's double-disc All Eyez On Me is 132 minutes --  nearly two-and-a-quarter hours -- and it's exhausting, because you have to listen much closer to hip-hop, to follow the lyrics. That kind of concentration is tough to keep up!

Joanna Newsom is not exactly easy to listen to in the first place. Her voice is polarizing, but even for those of us who like it, Ys, at 55 minutes long, was quite long enough, because her lyrics are so densely arranged that you really have to focus to keep up with them. We don't yet know how long Have One On Me will be, but if it's roughly three hours then that's surely too long to digest in one sitting. And if it's not meant for one sitting, why release it at all together under one name?

Joanna Newsom's music always seems very deliberate: every syllable is carefully measured, every flourish and flair under complete control. You can be sure that there's an explanation for the placing of every antique and animal figure on that cover, above, so the length of the album itself is no half-thought or accident. I imagine she must have some complex conceptual justification, I just can't imagine what it is!

Do you agree that triple albums are a bad idea? Or are you happier to get more songs from longer albums?

Have One On Me will be released on February 23rd. A new song, "Good Intentions Paving Company," is already streaming from her label Drag City's website.

I recently had the mixed pleasure of reading the newest biography of the great Satchmo, entitled Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, by Terry Teachout. Having previously read Teachout's The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, I'd expected a reasonably satisfying read, fueled by extensive research and delivered in rather pedestrian prose. As it turns out, that's exactly what the book offers.

My fellow blogger Dave Callanan named it one of the "Best Books of December" and had the following to say by way of justification:

"Crafted with a musician's ear and an historian's eye, Pops is a vibrant biography of the iconic Louis Armstrong that resonates with the same warmth as ol' Satchmo’s distinctive voice. Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout draws from a wealth of previously unavailable material – including over 650 reels of Armstrong's own personal tape recordings – to create an engaging profile that slips behind the jazz legend's megawatt smile. Teachout reveals that the beaming visage of 'Reverend Satchelmouth' was not a mark of racial subservience, but a clear symbol of Louis's refusal to let anything cloud the joy he derived from blowing his horn. 'Faced with the terrible realities of the time and place into which he had been born,' explains Teachout, 'he didn't repine, but returned love for hatred and sought salvation in work.' Armstrong was hardly impervious to the injustices of his era, but in his mind, nothing was more sacred than the music."

Frankly, I think that's rather higher praise than the book deserves, and Teachout himself all but recommends Armstrong's own Satchmo over the book at hand. Nevertheless, there's a lot on offer here for the trumpet enthusiast, the armchair jazz scholar, or the lover of musical Americana.

Among the most interesting sub-plots is the fluctuating opinions of Armstrong held by his fellow black musicians in the States. Dizzy Gillespie, for one, for years publicly declared Armstrong as just this side of Uncle Tom before eventually recognizing his trailblazing predecessor for the inarguable giant that he remains today.

Most surprising to me, though, was the fact that Armstrong was a life-long user and advocate of marijuana, to the extent that, in his early days, he even pushed it on a number of his sidemen before going into the studio. Teachout returns again and again to Pops' marijuana use, ladeling an almost disproportionate amount of ink on the topic. To wit:

"The word muggles was one of many synonyms for marijuana used by jazz musicians in the twenties. It was also called 'tea' and 'sh[*]t,' and those who smoked it were 'vipers'... [A]ll that is known for sure is that [Armstrong] started smoking it on a regular basis in 1928 and continued to do so for the rest of his life. He would later explain to an acquaintance that it 'makes you feel good, man. It relaxes you, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you're with another tea smoker it makes you feel a special kinship.' It was also, unlike alcohol, legal, though by 1931 twenty-nine states had outlawed its sale and use."

Those looking to pursue overt references in Armstrong's music should start with "Muggles"...

     -- Jason Kirk

By the time the European avant garde had advanced to breaking china and blowing train whistles, Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck was deemed "too accessible."  Their loss, as "Notturno," op. 47, (1931-1933) is a post-romantic chamber gem.  Poems by Nikolaus Lenau, scored for string quartet and baritone are given a new reading on an ECM recording featuring the rock-solid, Rosamunde Quartet, with Christian Gerhaher.  This is attractive, meaty, but agile musicianship, showing a wonderful dynamic range.  Extra props go to Herr Gerhaher for his beautiful tone, and impeccable diction. – Hugo Munday

Download the Hope for Haiti Now benefit album featuring live performances from last night's star-studded Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon.  

All proceeds from the album sales will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the United Nations World Food Programme, and Yele Haiti Foundation.

In addition, all proceeds from the special studio version of "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" by Jay-Z, Bono, The Edge, and Rihanna will go to Partners in Health.

We’ve made use of Amazon's vast library of 30-second song samples to put together five genre quizzes which test your musical knowledge, and your reaction times. Do you think you know about pop, rock, indie, country or hip-hop? Can you tell the difference between Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato? Pearl Jam and Soundgarden? Modest Mouse and the Manic Street Preachers? Toby Keith and Brad Paisley? Jay-Z and Ludacris?

And once you’ve mastered your own specialist subject, why not try the quiz of a genre you know less about? Everything you hear is shown with links to the main SoundUnwound site, so you can find out more about any new discoveries, or add them to your SoundUnwound library.

Thanks for the first-hand account of unfolding tragedy, Jason.  It's good to have you back.

I've spent the weekend in Nashville for the 2010 Stellar Awards, as gospel celebrated their big night.

Lots of inspirational, empathetic speeches and prayers as the show began and throughout the evening for the victims of the tragedy unfolding in Haiti.  Underpinning the words, one of the evening's presenters, Kirk Franklin  put the call out earlier last week to singers assembling for the awards, to join him in recording a relief record.

Past midnight on Friday, the night before the Stellars, I packed into an overflowing, nondescript studio off Music Row, while Kirk directed a classic, wailing Mary Mary overlay.  I didn't hear the whole song, but did get a preview of some of the chorus / backup work, which was really uplifting.  I bailed just before CeCe Winans came to contribute, but they went well past 2:00 that morning.

I don't have many details, but I know the working title is "Song for Pain,"  it's in post-production and Kirk and others are working all hours to get their contribution out soon.  I will post more about the project and how they plan to funnel contributions, when I get firm details.  – Hugo Munday

Sosúa, Dominican Republic (Tuesday, January 12) -- I was on the balcony, three floors up, when suddenly I felt a powerful urge to throw up. Then my chair began to sway. When I looked across the alley and saw the laundry lines in full swing, I knew we were in trouble.

As we all fled out into the street, the air of general panic was palpable. Over the next few hours, via spotty cell phone connections, those of us huddled together in the street, half a mile from the beach, realized that the entire island had shaken. Tsunami warnings were issued for Hispaniola and Cuba.

As time passed, power was restored, and news crept in, we realized that Port-au-Prince had borne the brunt of the earthquake. The significant Haitian population in Sosúa took to weeping openly in the streets, though in the scramble to pack and gas up vehicles for a possible sprint inland, none of us yet knew how bad things really were.

Tuesday night passed in a slow haze of fatigue and disbelief. One of the lucky ones by far, I got out the next morning, leaving Santiago airport as originally planned. It wasn't until the plane landed in Miami Wednesday afternoon that I saw televised footage of the immediate aftermath in Port-au-Prince.

Back in Seattle, it was heartening to see Amazon making it easy for customers to donate directly to Mercy Corp, and I was lucky to attend a Thursday-night fundraiser at Waid's, a great local Haitian joint.

Musicians, of course, have been quick to lend their voices to the call for mass generosity in service of the nascent relief efforts. In a written public statement, Maxwell made an important point: "[S]ending cash is the best way to help right now. The easiest way to do it is through text messaging, but other ways to help include donating to organizations such as the Clinton foundation, Unicef, [and] Red Cross ... There are links to those charities here: http://www.musze.com/."

Wyclef Jean's Yéle Haiti Foundation moved with laudable speed, offering regular updates on its own efforts, three ways to donate--the easiest is to text "YELE" to 501501 (a $5 donation)--and beneficiary status for a series of emergency benefit concerts featuring Patti Smith, Living Colour, and many more at Manhattan's City Winery (January 20-25).

I recommend Catholic Relief Services, and here's why.

However you can, please give.

     --Jason Kirk

This week brought the sad news that Montreal-based singer-songwriter Lhasa De Sela passed away on New Year's Day, after a 21-month battle with breast cancer. The American-born artist had a one-of-a-kind upbringing with her Mexican father and American mother, spending most of her childhood traveling between the two countries, developing her unique and decidedly pan-cultural artistic skills that led her to sing in English, Spanish, and French. From her official site:

    "Lhasa's unusual childhood was marked by long periods of nomadic wandering through Mexico and the U.S., with her parents and sisters in the school bus which was their home.  During this period the children improvised, both theatrically and musically, performing for their parents on a nightly basis.  Lhasa grew up in a world imbued with artistic discovery, far from conventional culture."

Lhasa released three albums in her short life, La Llorona, The Living Road, and one of my favorite albums of last year, and her first in English, the beautiful, simply titled, Lhasa. If you've never heard her stunning voice, do yourself a favor and watch the video for "Rising" below. Rest In Peace, Lhasa.

--Alan Wiley