Singaporean blues-rock guitarist Rosli Mansor just released his sophomore instrumental guitar album, and his management scanned the review I published in my newspaper day-job and blogged about it, so I thought I’d link to the scan and blog post here. You can buy Rosli’s album from indie online music store CD Baby. We don’t get a commission here at Sonicfreakz if you buy it; just wanted to give the guy some props.

Frustrated Massive Attack fans waiting on the trip hop trio’s vaporous new album ‘LP5′, which unfortunately seems to have been shelved now that Robert Del Naja and gang are set to kick off their UK concert tour, can get a fix from the website of Mr Bongo Records.

That is the label of talented American jazz and soul artiste Terry Callier, a peer of Curtis Mayfield who has been recast in the nineties as a club music maestro. Sixty-three year old Callier, who has been a keen MA collaborator in recent years, is set to release his new album Hidden Conversations which features at least three songs touched by MA frontman Del Naja.

Click here for truncated but decent-quality song samples of the new album.

Del Naja co-wrote two songs, ‘Wings’ and ‘John Lee Hooker’, on the album, and those tracks suited Callier’s smokey and wistful vocals to a tee. It is ala Tracey Thorn with a baritone delivery.

Hidden Conversations also feature a new take on MA’s 2006 stunning ‘Live with Me’, in which Callier provided the original vocals as well. Check out this sad and disturbing music video, which featured Scottish actress Kirsty Shepheard playing a binge-drinking woman, if you have not heard the song before.

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You’d be forgiven if the prospect of listening to a rare new instrument makes you cringe. Especially so if the instrument in question is an electronic one invented early last century, with a sound most commonly associated with cheesy low-budget science fiction flicks. But the theremin really deserves to be cut some slack. What it needs is the right ambassador to re-introduce it to modern ears.

Singaporean Shueh-li Ong, half of the electronic pop duo Xenovibes, sounds like the right woman for the job. She’s got one leg in the world of geeky academia, and the other planted squarely in contemporary music, which is a perfect combination for bringing the sound of the theremin to the world without dumbing it down.

After reading all this, you might still be shocked when you spool up the new Xenovibes album, Xing Paths, because it’s so immediately appealing that you’d be hard pressed to find anything geekily esoteric about it. It certainly doesn’t conjure images of some mad scientist covered in wires creating weird noises. Well, just because something is technically interesting doesn’t mean it has to jar the ears. Admittedly, some of the best recorded music is challenging – Coltrane, Bach and Battles come to mind – but that’s hardly a pre-requisite. Accessibility and excellence aren’t mutually exclusive.

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Tonight, I am listening again to Nanci Griffith’s old album – but new to me again as I just chanced upon a near pristine copy of it in good ole LP goodness. I lost the ceedee long ago and am glad to have replaced it with an immeasurably better sounding copy.

Fans of chirpy-voiced and waif-like Nanci: remember 1988′s live acoustic album One Fair Summer Evening? I loved it so much because more than any of Nanci’s other albums, this one really showed off her charm as a story-teller. There are sweet songs, breathless banter with the crowd and a heartfelt delivery. And there is the just-right, easy-playing style. A starkly-bare acoustic performance it may be, but it is also one pregnant with musical riches.

Let me recount the ways I love Nanci on this album:

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A polished, modern production value can’t paper over a lack of spark and drive in Bruce Springsteen’s latest album Working on a Dream.

And anyway, since when does the Boss need slick choruses, big horns and fuzzy guitars to deliver a punch? On this album, the slick musical peripherals seem to confuse Springsteen. There were some bright sparks, especially with the less adorned tracks, which sound more like the Springsteen we know, but even they (The Wrestler, The Last Carnival) fell way short of the wrenching delivery we’ve heard before.

Fans of Nebraska or Ghost of Tom Joad should stay away. But one suspects even die-hard fans willing to give a new slick-sounding Springsteen a try will be disappointed: on Working on a Dream, the slick production sounds less inspired than tired. And so does Springsteen.