Finley Quaye - Vanguard - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The title track InchMaverick A StrikeInch leans strong to his reggae roots taking a reggae ideal, and fusing it with popular music to make something unique, although not authentic reggae. Finley is a great vocalist and an original song writer. The album is almost as if every track is a radio tune. With the starter InchUltra StimulationInch the sunny tone is set for the album, a lazy groove with massed female backing vocals, swirling organ and bursts of rock guitar. Finley Quaye won the Best British Male Solo Artist at the BRIT's in 1998 and 'Maverick A Strike' went double-platinum. Although the only lasting souvenir of his commercial and artistic success, it remains a great album, full of quirkiness, sophistication and well-written tunes.

Christmas is constant, says Ben Folds. InchAllowing you to take stock of what's different, to understand who you are and all the ways you've grown and changed.Inch That notion lies at the heart of Folds' brilliantly titled new holiday collection, Sleigher. Built on an eclectic mix of originals and reimagined classics, the album examines the passage of time through the lens of Christmas, reflecting on memory, loss, and longing as it explores the variety of ways the yuletide season marks the chapters of our lives. The songs are playful here, full of humor and cheer, but they're also laced with an inescapable sense of melancholy, a looming darkness that always seems to hover around the periphery of those late December nights. Folds' performances, meanwhile, flirt with the standards while stretching the boundaries of tradition, at times offering up flashes of Vince Guaraldi and Burt Bacharach while still remaining true to Folds' singularly virtuosic brand of off-kilter indie pop. The result is not so much a Ben Folds Christmas record as it is a Ben Folds record set at Christmas, a meditation on the inexorable turning of the calendar and our ever changing selves as observed at the most wonderful-and challenging-time of the year.

Artistic involvement with contemporary music is of prime importance for the three musicians of the Absolut Trio, which is why they commission works at regular intervals. Eight works for piano trio (some with live electronics) have come into being in that way and they are integrated into richly evocative programs that deserve to be exposed to the light of day.