Better Yet

It seems strange that folks like Ray Wylie Hubbard once lived such wild lives but have been able to make solid comebacks later in life. Strange, because Hubbard, on Delirium Tremolos, sounds as good as he ever has. Better yet, the album has a nice, mellow country sound, and Hubbard has discarded, for the time being, his penchant for preachy, comic songs.

Norwegian-born violinist Vilde Frang makes her solo recording debut with Prokofiev's first Violin Concerto and Sibelius' Violin Concerto, plus three of the Finnish composer's Humoresques for violin and piano. With her sweet tone, fluent technique, and soulful interpretations, Frang's performances can stand comparison to many of the great recorded performances of the past. She digs in deep in Sibelius' outer movements and dispatches their manifold difficulties with apparent ease.

Gnidrolog are one of the more overlooked bands that took part in the progressive rock explosion in Britain around 1971-73. Intricate band, with an eclectic music that is very hard to categorize. Their music is a blend of blusy prog, with horn instruments, and intense vocals on top of it. They might appeal to Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull and VDGG fans. Still, pick up "In Spite of Harry's Toenail" or better yet, their opus "Lady Lake", and prepare to be bowled over. After a long (27 years!), Gnidrolog re-banded and made a new studio album, "Gnosis", in 2000.

Stress Assassin is the chilled electronic dub project of Henrik Jonsson. On 'Carrier Track' Henrik takes us on a journey down the dirty, dusty roads of dub, through lush, vast ambient landscapes to downbeat grooves from the Scandinavian shores. Or in his own words: "This is the 2nd Stress Assassin album for Spiral Trax. Slow music, observations, memories, sketches… The Stress Assassin project works with the states one would experience, Like when you swim in the ocean under the surface Or when exploring long concrete tunnels, Taking a walk straight into a forest, what ever. That's just what this music is about, a soundtrack, a picture in sound, Or better yet a carrier track".

If you don't already have any recordings of Beethoven's late string quartets, by all means get this one by the Alban Berg Quartet. There hasn't been a set to equal it since it was originally released in a different configuration in the early '90s - the Emerson's overly enthusiastic but not especially insightful set? oh, come on! - and there hadn't been many to equal it before the '90s, only the Quartetto Italiano's wonderfully balanced and incredibly lovely set, the Quatuor Végh's supremely intense and transcendentally sublime set, and the Berg's own earlier, extremely concentrated and austerely passionate studio set.