'L'Orfeo' turns 400 in lavish, limited-edition style

CLASSICAL

Monteverdi

L'Orfeo - Ensemble La Venexiana/Cavina

GLOSSA

Glossa's limited edition 'L'Orfeo' - with illustrated essays on the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga, a history of the Orpheus myth from Ovid to Offenbach, a libretto translation and fascinating notes - marks the 400th anniversary of the opera's first performance. Those who attended Ensemble La Venexiana's semi-staged performance at the Lufthansa Festival in May will know what to expect: an intimate, word-sensitive, occasionally subdued reading that rations percussion and recorders sparingly, and draws heavily on the group's expertise in Monteverdi's madrigals. This last has its pros and cons. The choruses, duets and trios are beautifully shaped and blended, but not all of Claudio Cavina's regular singers have the charisma and tonal brilliance for opera. Those that do have the full package include Mirko Guadagnini, a thoughtful, stylish, and moving Orfeo, and Emanuela Galli, whose Euridice is as warm and tender as her Musica is brittle and haughty. With only 3,099 available copies, of which mine is numbered 748, Glossa will soon have to release a less lavish edition to compete with other, pre-existing recordings.

Anna Picard

Download this Guadagnini's eloquent 'Possente spirito e formidabil nume'

ROCK

You Say Party! We Say Die!

Lose All the Time

PAPER BAG

You Say Party! We Say Die! have been easy to lose among the avalanche of long-named bands, but their second album proves they are a valuable part of the post-Arcade Fire new wave of Canadian music. The first 60 seconds of 'Lose All the Time' takes in Hawkwind- like cosmic rock, itchy punk-funk guitar overload and quasi-Arabic melodies, and the remainder (aside from piano slowie "You're Almost There") is similarly breakneck, sounding more often than not like The Pixies if they'd been produced by DFA instead of Steve Albini, with Siouxsie Sioux on lead vocals.

Simon Price

Download this The swooning earworm: 'Teenage Hit Wonder'

JAZZ

Charles Mingus Sextet

Cornell 1964

BLUE NOTE

A newly discovered performance from the start of the tour that climaxed in Monterey, featuring the barely recorded sextet fronted by Johnny Coles, Eric Dolphy and Clifford Jordan. It's a riot; a slow-starting but soon hotly exuberant riot in which few niceties are observed, except as a basis for wild arsing about at the Mingus end of the improv continuum. So, we get farmyard blues, Ellington/ Strayhorn, "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz". You can see why this crew didn't last long - they were exploding on a continuous basis. Happy entropy.

Nick Coleman

Download this 'Take the A Train': faster, faster, FASTER!

ROCK

I Was a King

Losing Something Good for Something Better

HAPPY SOUL

One happy by-product of the fact that it is now simpler than ever to make and distribute music is that, once in a while, an album such as this comes along. With its flippant cut-and-paste take on the previously serious business of making Crazy Horsey rock music, it's hard to tell if Norway's I Was a King sound this way - 10 snatches of addled psychedelia delivered in under 17 minutes - because they want to or because it's the only way they know how. So while we have, undoubtedly, lost something good, it remains to be seen if we have replaced it with something better. Fun for now, though.

Simmy Richman

Download this The 50-second burst of buzz-pop that is 'No Gold'

JAZZ

The Bad Plus

Prog

EMARCY

Last time out it was the kitsch theme to 'Chariots of Fire'. Here, it's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears For Fears, Burt's "This Guy's in Love With You", and a terrific version of Bowie's "Life On Mars" that will surely stop the show when they play the Jazz Cafe on Wednesday. But once you've got past the jokey covers, it's difficult to say what the point of this Minnesota piano trio - perhaps the unfunkiest band in the history of jazz - is. They're excellent live, but there's at least one track - the nine- minute long "Physical Cities" - that will make you want to hit the CD player with a brick.

Phil Johnson

Download this Deconstruction-time for 'Life On Mars'

WORLD

Taraf de Haidouks

Maskarada

CRAMWORLD

Taraf de Haidouks means "band of brigands", and initially that's how they came across: their voices and instrumental playing had the most exhilaratingly untamed quality we had ever heard, and their poetry gripped the heart. But has success tamed them? This new CD is based on an interesting idea - re-gypsifying music that classical composers like Liszt, Falla, and Khatchaturian originally drew from gypsy sources. But it's mostly too well-behaved - the best tracks are their own songs. To sample the full force of their genius, get 'Dumbala Dumba' and surrender to its charm.

Michael Church

Download this The authentic Haidouks lilt: 'De Cand Ma Aflat Multimea'

ROCK

Poppy and the Jezebels