AMBIENT JAZZ
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Promises (Luaka Bop/Inertia) ★★★★½

It’s one thing to have a 60-year career; quite another to be a force for that time. But here is Pharoah Sanders in 2021, still searching for truth, reaching for beauty and questioning the limits of his art. Electronics maestro and composer Sam Shepherd (aka Floating Points) induced Sanders back into the studio after a long hiatus dotted with live concerts and newly released material from earlier in his illustrious career. This collaboration with Shepherd and the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra offers a stunning re-contextualisation of Sanders’ titanic tenor saxophone. Shepherd’s nine-movement suite mostly wreathes the instrument in halos of misty electronics and sparse, elegiac strings, so the breadth, soulfulness and invention come into greater focus than can sometimes be the case amidst a storming rhythm section. So much was made of Sanders’ overblowing and shrieking in the wild and woolly ’60s that many people missed what was happening behind that veneer of in-your-face radicalism: one of the most sumptuous tenor saxophone sounds of all time. Here you can fully immerse yourself in that, plus some ingenious electronics and gripping string writing (notably in the dramatic 6th movement). JOHN SHAND

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SINGER-SONGWRITER
Karen Black, Dreaming of You (1971-76) (Anthology) ★★★★

When the great character actor Karen Black died in 2013, most obituaries failed to mention her credentials as a singer-songwriter. Her writing and recording of music took place firmly in the background of her film career, which included roles in Nashville, Easy Rider and, most triumphantly, Five Easy Pieces. Black’s singing came to light for a new generation when she collaborated with genius American artist Cass McCombs on his 2009 album, Catacombs. It is McCombs who has compiled this collection of Black recordings – and it’s a thing of poetry, melody and vitality. Black’s deep, melancholy-tinged voice does not stay still: sometimes she evokes the warm pop tones of Melanie Safka, elsewhere the elegant folk trill of Judy Collins, and even singers like Doris Day or Judy Garland here and there. Most tracks on Dreaming of You are scruffily recorded in the most charming way, the arrangements’ sparseness lending weight to the skilful and mature writing. Songs range from the bleak, Leonard Cohen-esque You’re Not in My Plans to the chugging folk-rock of Babe Oh Babe and the Gypsy-ish folk of Love Peddler. Black’s music is a trove of delight, and thanks to McCombs’s devotion, it can now be celebrated. BARNABY SMITH