Carla Morrison – Mientras tú dormías… (2010)
I’m generally stiff when it comes to music about love and all its wonders, mishaps, longings, falling-outs, joys, woes, success, and failures. But there is something about Carla Morrison that is enchanting. Her sugary voice acts as long and tender arms outstretched to keep you warm and cozy as you watch the fire cackle into the dark. Her mysterious toy-box voice is the main attraction but one is not disappointed by the accompanying music. Tagging along underneath her are soft acoustic guitars and pianos and a drummer that keeps it all tight and together. Her songwriting rivals that of fellow frontwoman Annie Clark from St. Vincent, although notably much calmer. Though the album is bursting with brilliant gems, ‘Una Salida’ (‘An Exit’) stands out with a simple guitar tinkering in 6/8 accented by the sharp snap of the snare drum. The song is one of many that showcase the subtle beauty of the music. ‘Mientras tú dormías (While You Slept)’ has wonderfully crafted instrumentation.

Every note, beat, and breath carries with it expertise in placement and delivery. It mirrors the lyrical message Morrison sings, and that is the heart of the goodness of the record. It all makes sense, and it all makes sense together. – Jacob Price

David Lee Roth – Sonrisa Solvaje (1986)
As Van Halen, minus the essential and wrongly cast-off Michael Anthony, prepares to release a new album of reworked scraps from their early days, I’m more than ready to drown my disappointment in tequila and this little nugget of craziness from David Lee Roth. Feeling pretty good about his first solo outing without Van Halen, Roth decided to cut a Spanish version of the album. You might wonder why, but when it comes to David Lee Roth circa 1986, the question is why not?

The vocals sit a little high in the mix on the remixed album, but somehow, everything works incredibly well. When Steve Vai’s guitar screams “David” and he replies “Como?” at the beginning of ‘Yankee Rose’, there is no way to resist what a novel album this is going to be. Musically, Roth’s solo work never came close to this excellent album and hearing it in Spanish makes it a little more fun for a few listens. ‘That’s Life’ (‘Esi Es la Vida’) allows him to be the heavy metal Frank Sinatra he was meant to be while rockers like ‘Ladies Nite In Buffalo?’ (‘Noche de Ronda en la Ciudad’) are some of the better representations of that period of rock ‘n’ roll.

At some point, the novelty of the record will wear off but the same could be said for that entire generation of glam rock and that has shown no signs of fading into the depths of rock history. Given the choice between this album and a new Van Halen record, I’m going to keep the party going with Sonrisa Sovaje. – Jason Lent

Various Artists – Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2011)
Having just received my Drive Blu-ray, which incidentally has one of the worst covers I’ve ever seen (see: CGI jeans), it gave me good reason to revisit one of the better soundtracks of 2011. Of course the Oscars, with their ridiculous and vague regulations, have disqualified Cliff Martinez from the score category for reasons that are beyond this writer. This disqualification takes nothing away from the impeccable job Martinez did in crafting a series of tracks that mold and shape to Drive’s unique and changing pace. The bluntly named ‘Skull Crushing’ not only hits the loving embrace between the Driver and Irene, but also captures the brutal and embarrassingly gratifying nature of Gosling stomping a would-be assassin’s head into a bloody pulp. Martinez’s subtle and inventive cuts transform the Driver through his journey from human to hero, and eventually something in between. – Joe Mateo

Jan Jelinek – Loop-finding-jazz-records (2001)
Circling back — rinsing, repeating, and revisiting daily motions — scribbles the only passage forward. It’s an odd turn, but we’ve depleted the supply of pure, wanton nerve to simply blaze through brick walls in the here and now. The present’s vivacity shuttled us this far and the view we cast upon prior tracks will determine how this ultimately shakes out. We can’t bury their specters with any measure of permanence, but until we bury the hatchet, an impasse is all that lies ahead. So we make pace with them. We convince them to join our side, our cause. While the erstwhile tenders a tangled mare’s nest of scripts and sensations to sieve, an unwavering trust in the venture at hand rearranges the rummage at our feet. Woolly jazz loops milliseconds long and millions strong flicker in the shadows, fugacious to a fault, but we know damn well they’re there. A tease, a whiff, a mere glimmer of the bounty that awaits over the hill. Within the static, within the clicks and cuts and curlicues chatting up a storm, an aqueous undercurrent binds the borders of our frame of mind and reinforces our resolve. A lone wave leaves a paltry impression. That same wave on steely, sempiternal cycle, however, will erode the most steadfast of stumbling blocks.

One step forward, one ever-so-faintly-smaller step back.

Though it’s not much, we’ll take it, as the scuttle has slowly, surely revealed the willingness to play ball. That in and of itself is miles beyond the frigid stasis we’d be faced with otherwise. Over 50 minutes, this senseless mess has shifted to a glowing, single-file, single-minded monument to our travails — a startling sea change channeling a parade of the past into the kindly push we need to keep on truckin’.

We’re not there yet…but we’re getting warmer. – Vinh Cao