Records

NEW RELEASES

Teenage Fanclub: Thirteen (Creation, CD/LP/ tape). It's here at last. The long-awaited follow- up to 1991's dazzling Bandwagonesque is not so much a step forwards as another, productive step back for the nation's top pop-classicists. It didn't seem possible that they could become better-versed in their Beatles / Big Star guitar primer, but they have. The opening 'Hang On' has a swelling violin outro that George Martin in his prime would have been proud of, and everywhere the pleasures of harmony and wistfulness are well to the fore. It would not be unfair to expect a few more new departures after such a long delay though. Glasgow's post- punk Beach Boys are a delicious confection, but if they get much softer-centred there is a danger they'll melt. Ben Thompson

Alan Skidmore Quartet: East to West (Miles Music MMCD081, CD/tape). Two live sessions with different rhythm sections make up this exemplary release from a British tenor saxophonist who began his career as a straightforward Coltrane imitator but has grown far beyond that, and is at least on a par with better- known Americans Chico Freeman and David Murray. Stan Tracey is the pianist on the first session, taped at the Hong Kong Jazz Club in 1989, provoking Skidmore into fascinating digressions on 'Green Chimneys', an obscure Thelonious Monk tune, and Tracey's own 'Funky Day in Tiger Bay'. Steve Melling takes over the keyboard at Ronnie Scott's in 1992, helping Skidmore with the hardest test of all - to take a trio of Coltrane tunes and find something new to say. They do. Richard Williams

Pat Metheny Group: The Road to You (Geffen, CD/tape). The guitarist is at his smoothest and most listener-friendly on this European tour souvenir, recorded at concerts in Italy and France. Too smooth, probably, but even so his blend of jazz-rock energy and Brazilian lyricism occasionally approaches a state of ecstasy. No one already in possession of his entire recorded work will need this recapitulation, but anyone who missed 'Last Train Home', his marvellous winter tone poem of three albums back, ought to take a second chance to investigate a piece that stands with Ellington's 'Take the A- Train', Monk's 'Little Rootie Tootie', Mingus's 'Boogie Stop Shuffle' and Mulligan's 'K4 Pacific' in the brief catalogue of jazz's railroad portraits. RW

THE IoS PLAYLIST

THE FIVE BEST DISCS OF THE MOMENT

Peter Maxwell Davies: Worldes Blis. RPO/Davies (Collins, CD only). The great, dark presence in Maxwell Davies's music of the 1960s and a landmark in modern British writing, powerfully brought to disc. MW

James Macmillan: Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. SCO/Glennie (Catalyst, CD only). The spiritually inclined percussion concerto written for Evelyn Glennie to dazzle a Proms audience last year: one of the first releases on BMG's new contemporary-music label. MW

Pet Shop Boys: Very (Parlophone, CD/LP/ tape). Heart-on-sleeve hi-energy rhapsodies. A masterpiece. BT

Al Green: Don't Look Back (RCA, CD/tape). Or rather, don't be misled by the title. Al looks back to the style that made his name, sweet Seventies soul, and yields nothing to the passing years. Tim de Lisle

Various Artists: Trance Europe Express (Volume, CD & booklet). The innovative CD magazine branches out into disco territory with style and assurance. A good buy. BT