Christine Lamotte

During her years with Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie only recorded one album. It was released in 1984, after Mirage had run its course and the band was taking an extended break. Given its release date, it's not surprising that Christine McVie sounds like it could have been recorded during the Mirage sessions – it's a collection of soft rock/pop and ballads that are pleasantly melodic and ingratiating. Only a handful of cuts, such as the wonderfully catchy, lightly bouncy hit single "Got a Hold on Me," work their way into the memory, but nothing on Christine McVie is anything less than agreeable. The record simply suffers from a rather predictable fate – it's a little too sweet and laid-back to be consumed in one sitting, and its best songs would have sounded even better if they were balanced by Lindsey Buckingham's insular, paranoid pop genius and Stevie Nicks' hippie-folk mysticism.

On 2018’s Chris, French singer-songwriter Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier embodied a masculine alter ego to cover a variety of subjects. With this five-track follow-up EP, Letissier leaves the Chris persona behind and gets a little more personal. On “Je disparais dans tes bras” [“I disappear in your arms”], she rejects a lover’s mixed messages over a kinetic beat—doubling down on 2019’s dance-floor sizzler with Charli XCX “Gone.” “People, I’ve been sad” and “Nada” are more measured and thoughtful, with Letissier opening up about painful childhood memories and heartbreak with vulnerability. She sings, “Voglio fare l'amore con questa canzone” [“I want to make love with this song”] in Italian on the bubbly, synth-driven title track featuring Caroline Polachek, exuding a playfulness that is hard to resist.

During her years with Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie only recorded one album. It was released in 1984, after Mirage had run its course and the band was taking an extended break. Given its release date, it's not surprising that Christine McVie sounds like it could have been recorded during the Mirage sessions – it's a collection of soft rock/pop and ballads that are pleasantly melodic and ingratiating…

Christine McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac in 2013 after a 16-year absence. In the aftermath, the classic Rumours quintet – McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood – were readying the ground to record for the first time since 1987. Nicks, however, despite public affirmations that she was on board, bailed to pursue her solo work, creating the kind of melodrama that has made Fleetwood Mac one of pop's most dysfunctional outfits. Buckingham and McVie had already written songs for the band project – together and separately – and decided to complete the record anyway with the rhythm section…

If you’re looking for an acceptable, low-cost cycle of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, this Brilliant Classics set may be of interest. Discs 1 and 2 contain all of the concertos for solo harpsichord and continuo, as well as the Concerto BWV 1060 for two harpsichords and Concerto BWV 1065 for four harpsichords, performed by the modern-instrument ensemble Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, with soloist Christine Schornsheim, joined by fellow harpsichordists Armin Thalheim, Mechtild Stark, and Violetta Liebsch in the multiple keyboard works. These performances were originally issued in the U.S. nearly 25 years ago on the now defunct Capriccio label.

The exceptional alto and soprano saxophonist from Canada releases the compelling Day Moon with her impressive quartet on Justin Time Records. The music is at turns, melancholic and ebullient, sober and playful. It’s a date where she creates an improvisational community of close friends in quartet and duo settings. “I got hit hard by the pandemic because I felt alone and was not doing what I’m supposed to do,” Jensen says. “So, I focused on my saxophones, teaching myself to present my sound, my solo voice. It’s almost like becoming the vocalist.”