Guitar 2024

With "Seigneur", Roberto Alagna delivers an album imbued with spirituality. Between faith, love and hope, the tenor pays a highly personal tribute to the immense cathedral of lyric art to which he regularly adds his stone.

"Each of the pieces in this programme is like an ephemeral castle that I can take refuge in when I feel like it," says Sébastien Llinares. Here, the French guitarist, who stands at the crossroads of classical, jazz and contemporary music and also produces the programme Guitare, guitares on France Musique, puts his playing at the service of every kind of music. Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made Of Sand was the inspiration for this programme; Sébastien Llinares hears in it the unchanging open string that the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos so often used. His journey continues with tributes to famous songs by Bernstein, Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart, an evocation of Rufus Wainwright and Baden Powell in the forms of the Habanera and Bossa Nova — not forgetting a tribute to Django by John Lewis as well as Leonard Cohen's eternal Hallelujah, which takes on the air of an ancient canario when played on the classical guitar. Two bagatelles and an impromptu composed by Llinares himself complete the family portrait.

I've tried a few styles of music - from folk and country songs to what one reviewer once described as "pop in a different guise". With this album, however, I feel like I'm definitely in singer-songwriter mode. The songs are about people, places, experiences - friends, Captain Cook, Mother Nature (don't worry, there's only one love song - "Once Not Twice" - and even that has a little sting at the end).

Today! is Skip James’ second album, originally released in 1966. The album features James solo on all but one track, “How Long,” which includes Russ Savakus on bass. This 180-gram LP pressed at QRP includes an obi with notes by Scott Billington, a paper-wrapped jacket and (AAA) lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab. AllMusic asserts, “wonderful vocals, superb guitar and a couple of tunes with tasty piano make this essential.”