Karin Kaiser

After cockily shrugging off the difficult second album challenge with their hugely successful Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the Kaisers deliver yet another collection of blistering rock-pop in the shape of Off with Their Head. Producer Mark Ronson returns the band to the distilled pop potency of 2005's Employment as well as providing an all-star cast of guests: Lily Allen provides backing vocals on "Always Happens Like That", classical starlet David Arnold adds strings to "Like It Too Much" and UK grime aficionado Sway does a star turn on the unlikely yet winning "Half the Truth". Yet this is definitely the Kaiser's own show, as evinced on the wonderfully woozy "Tomato in the Rain," the catchy "Good Days, Bad Days", the feisty "You Want History" and the lovely–and somewhat surprising–finale "Remember You're a Girl". Musically, Off with Their Heads ain't rocket science, and the band's insights into contemporary urban life are superficial at best–but the Kaisers still manage to mostly hit the spot.

Not overwhelmed with the song now playing on this album? Be patient, the next track may be something more to your liking. This album is a musical smogarsboard of songs cutting across a variety of vocal genre. The play list runs from the traditional "Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child," through Hoagy Carmichael's ultimate standard "Stardust" through John Coltrane's poem-song "A Love Supreme" with a little of 1960s popsters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller thrown in. It would be unkind to say that the singer is simply trying out everything until she finds something she does well. Not so with Karen Krog, one of the finer and more inventive jazz singers of the last three decades. One on One is a compilation of three different recording sessions Krog made as part of a duo performances…

Although Karin Krog was born in Oslo and grew up in a country where Norwegian is the primary language, she is a shining example of how effectively a Scandinavian vocalist can sing English-language jazz. Raindrops, Raindrops, a best-of CD that spans 1966-1985, paints a consistently attractive picture of Krog's artistry. Assembled by a German label called Crippled Dick Hot Wax, this collection shows Krog to be an adventurous, risk-taking improviser who brings an intriguing variety of influences to the table - Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, and Jeanne Lee have affected her work, but so have less abstract vocalists like Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Krog favors an inside/outside approach (usually more inside than outside), and the Norwegian improviser is as convincing on Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage"…

By the time Karin Korg made "Gershwin with Karin Krog", from late 1973 to mid-1974, she had been making records for ten years. Indeed, her very first session, from November 1963 included two of the musicians to be heard here; pianist Egil Kapstad and drummer Jon Christensen. We also hear tenor saxophonist Bjarne Nerem and ECM bass legend Arild Andersen. This album marks the earliest occasion on which Karin set out to make a complete album devoted to a single composer.

Karin Krog is one of Europe's leading jazz singers with a career stretching back to the 1950s. She is a unique song artist with a great international reputation possessing her own recognizable style and voice. Her constant creative approach towards contemporary jazz has never been bound by tradition, even though her music bears a deep respect for its forms. Karin is equally at home with jazz standards, blues or electronic experimental techniques. Originally released by Sonet Records this reissue of a 1966 session features an all-star line-up. A young Jan Garbarek is featured on two tracks and the stellar rhytm section is made up of Kenny Drew on piano, Niels Henning-Orsted Pedersen on bass and Jon Christensen on drums.