New releases

A couple of new upcoming CDs look interesting. Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail writes snappy little reviews:

Snake Road
Bob Lanois
Cordova Bay
Rating: ***
He's heavy, and he's my brother. Bob Lanois, who describes himself as a fledgling harmonica player, hails his uber-producer bro Daniel to make an instrumental album of cinematic scope and rural charm, with slight urban affectations. The musical landscapes are French-Canadian and vaguely Romanian, with a melodic mouth harp that shimmers, quivers and sometimes makes like a squeeze box. Last track “Up Set” has a lazy roller-rink organ and the slow lope of Roy Rogers's horse. Happy trails, indeed.

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
Tom Waits
Anti-
Rating: ****
Tom Waits — surprise — has the most peculiar scrap heaps you'll ever wish to hear. The three CDs of Orphans collect batches of abandoned songs, cover tunes and songs that are written new, all grouped by style and theme. First disc “Brawlers” finds Waits bark-voiced and heavy-footed on rough-house blues and gutter-level rockabilly. “Bawlers” are sepia-toned laments, lullabies and rural ballads; on “Bastards,” things just get weird. In all, more than three hours of Waits, at turns shaking and soothing with songs that “survived the flood” and were wiped of muck — but not completely.