Sure, there was plenty of great stuff at January's Consumer Electronics Show, but will any of it affect your listening life soon? Well, there's the thoroughly annoying CD+ format, which will put some multimedia visuals, accessible only via your computer's CD-ROM drive, on audio CDs. Expect the hypewave -- and enhanced speaker sets for multimedia computers -- by mid-year. Sony, meanwhile, continues to push its MiniDisc format -- visitors toured the Sony booth with personal MiniDisc players. (We report next month.) And yes, very soon you will buy one of those 100-disc CD changers, now more affordable. Meanwhile, there's plenty of new music to put on that old player. To hear free Sound Bites, call Post-Haste at 202/ 334-9000 and enter the four-digit code after each review. (Prince William residents: 690-4110.) Critics' favorites: * ROCK/POP LAURIE ANDERSON, Bright Red,Warner Bros. Drawn largely from her recent, pointedly political stage show Stories From the Nerve Bible, this is Anderson's first album in seven years. With no melody to fall back on, she makes several embarrassing tumbles, but she also pulls off several dazzling high-wire feats. The keyboards played by producer Brian Eno and Anderson fill the background with shimmering sheets of sound, embroidered with odd bleeps and chirps produced by such art-rock guitarists as Adrian Belew, Marc Ribot and even Lou Reed on one track. By itself, these atmospheric harmonies are mere background music, just as by themselves Anderson's spoken monologues are nothing more than bohemian stand-up comedy. When the two elements click, however, the result is some of the most original pop music around. 8410 -GEOFFREY HIMES * THE BOYS CHOIR OF HARLEM, The Sound of Hope, Eastwest/Atlantic Embracing slippery funk grooves, satiny R&B, spirituals, fugues, South African township anthems and more, the ensemble's first recording transcends time, culture and genre. Terrence Wright and other Choir alumni are occasionally enlisted to sing the lead vocals -- and singer Brian McKnight, saxophonist Gerald Albright and guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. also have cameos -- but in the end it's the ensemble's vocal power and finesse that create the strongest impression. Whether displayed front and center, as on the rhythmically infectious "Overjoyed" and "Bayethe Mandela," or in the background, as on the inspirational ballads "Hold On" and "Rough Crossing," the group's harmonies are by turns spirited, soothing and even startling. 8411 -MIKE JOYCE GILBY CLARKE, Pawnshop Guitars,Virgin Guns n' Roses guitarist Clarke is no Axl Rose, but he comes close enough on this solo album. Mixing a little Byrds jangle with early-'70s hard rock and late-'70s punk rock -- the album's two covers are the Stones' "Dead Flowers" and the Clash's "Jail Guitar Doors" -- Clarke gives stale macho a tuneful spin with such songs as "Cure Me . . . or Kill Me" and "Hunting Dogs." Clarke's fellow Roses play on the album. 8412 -MARK JENKINS JIM LAUDERDALE, Pretty Close to the Truth, Atlantic Lauderdale's second album suggests that he's the missing link between Dwight Yoakam and John Hiatt. Lauderdale is a California country-rocker who takes his cue not from the Eagles but from Buck Owens and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Lauderdale's trump card is his melodic gift. He has a big, powerful tenor voice, but his delivery sounds like the most natural thing in the world, whether he's reminding us of Chris Isaak on "Divide and Conquer" or Percy Sledge on "Why Do I Love You?" Lauderdale's lyrics are more clever than deep, but he has a knack for linking his rocking rhythms so closely to his honky-tonk melodies that you can barely tell them apart. 8413 -GEOFFREY HIMES THE LONDON SUEDE, Dog Man Star, Nude/Columbia Rather than move beyond the David Bowie homage of the quartet's early work, Star accentuates the similarity, while providing lyricist Brett Anderson's histrionic falsetto and bombastic lyrics with musical settings more grandiose than even Bowie would dare attempt. The album, whose title purposelessly invokes avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, sounds like a combination of Bowie's Diamond Dogs, Pink Floyd's The Wall and the London Symphony Orchestra's Rolling Stones. The effect is ridiculous. 8414 -MARK JENKINS NICK LOWE, The Impossible Bird,Upstart Pub-rocker Nick Lowe is still making strong, fascinating records nearly 20 years after the heady days of 1976-78. Lowe's latest is a low-key, easygoing album which has a lot more to do with 1956 country music than with 1978 punk. Nonetheless the 13 songs -- 10 Lowe originals and three country chestnuts -- are marked by the sort of no-frills arrangements and unpretentious passion that made pub-rock so special in the first place. When Lowe sings ballads such as "The Beast in Me," "Withered on the Vine" and "Lover Don't Go," the arrangements are so minimalist that the song lives or dies by the vocal. Fortunately, Lowe pulls off the difficult trick of sounding lonely and desperate without sounding self-pitying. 8415 -GEOFFREY HIMES * CARLY SIMON, Letters Never Sent, Arista In the liner notes, Simon reveals that in 1993 she discovered a box of old, unmailed letters in her closet. "I set a handful of them to music," she explains, "adding a rhyme here, deleting a noun or verb there, and allowing the emotions to find comfortable rhythms." Simon hasn't completely abandoned pop structure, but she has loosened its grip sufficiently to create a new kind of song that has the prose feel and specific focus of a personal letter. Not all these experiments work, but the best of them have the fresh air of something genuinely new. "Like a River," which is addressed to her dead mother, ignores ordinary pop conventions to move from paragraph to paragraph like a letter. Most of the other songs are love letters, which capture the first flush of infatuation in their giddy images. 8416 -GEOFFREY HIMES
WORLDBEAT * THE KRONOS QUARTET, Night Prayers, Elektra Nonesuch The new album gathers recent music from the margins of the former Soviet Union and enlists folk phenomena such as the Throat Singers of Tuva. Yet the album also includes compositions, such as Franghiz Ali-Zadeh's "Mugam Sayagi" and Sofia Gubaidulina's "Quartet No. 4," that skitter archly in the manner of early-20th-century modernism. Those pieces -- which, despite their slightly retro style, were both written in 1993 -- best showcase Kronos's dexterity, but the more musically satisfying tracks supplement the quartet: "Kongerei," a traditional Tuvan tune, features the Throat Singers, who eerily produce multiple vocal tones at once; the plaintive "K'Vakarat," written by an Argentine of Russian-Jewish descent, is dominated by cantor Mikhail Alexandrovich; and "Lacrymosa" is a showcase for soprano Dawn Upshaw. 8417 -MARK JENKINS
LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO, Liph' Iqiniso, Shanachie For their newest project, this South African male-harmony group has returned to the purest form of isicathamiya, the traditional style of a cappella South African choral singing the group has pursued since its founding in 1970. As always, the vocalizing -- nearly all of it in Zulu -- is astonishing in its precision and dizzying in its mix of percussive effects and breathy blends. The skimpy packaging offers no help in terms of translations, composition credits or singing credits, but this is the uncompromised township choral style which first attracted Paul Simon back in the mid-'80s. 8418 -GEOFFREY HIMES * BAABA MAAL, Firin' in Fouta, Mango West African superstar Baaba Maal recorded his new album in three distinct stages. First he returned to his Senegalese hometown of Podor. There he recorded traditional instruments and songs as they are used in everyday life. Maal then took those sound samples back to the capital of Dakar, where his long-standing band, Dande Lenol, transformed them into hot rhythm tracks. Finally, Maal took those basic tracks to Peter Gabriel's Real World Studio in England, where the young African and his British producer Simon Emmerson thickened the textures with vocals, synths, horns, programming and Celtic instruments. The result is neither authentic traditional African music nor borderless high-tech Western pop, but rather an innovative blend of the two. Maal proves that just like North American blues or Brazilian samba, West African griot music can be transformed into hypnotic dance music. 8419 -GEOFFREY HIMES
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JAZZ THE TEODROSS AVERY QUARTET, In Others Words, GRP The debut album by 21-year-old saxophonist Avery opens with an original composition called "High Hopes," a vibrant collaboration featuring guest trumpeter Roy Hargrove and Avery's capable quartet. As the album unfolds, though, and Hargrove's role is limited to an occasional cameo, Avery's talent as a player and a composer becomes increasingly apparent. The album's most evocative composition, the African-inspired "An Ancient Civilization," finds Avery playing soprano sax and projecting a tart and agile tone, but the tenor sax is his principal and more persuasive instrument. As an improviser, Avery has yet to develop a distinctive voice of his own, but his playing, combined with his impressive skills as a composer, point to a bright future indeed. 8420 -MIKE JOYCE * CLAIRE MARTIN, Old Boyfriends, Linn Though still in her mid twenties, Britain's Martin has adopted the quiet tone and conversational delivery of some of the American artists she admires most, notably Washington's own Shirley Horn, and developed a similarly intimate style and smart repertoire. The rueful title track, composed by Tom Waits, is an example of her confessional balladry at its best -- a soft-spoken, lingering blues underscored by trombone, bass and guitar. At times lively and always sure-footed, Martin's voice is capable of investing songs with high spirits and unerring scat flights, as she proves on "Chased Out" and other cuts. Yet, in the end, nothing better suits her interpretative gifts and sultry tone than haunting ballads like "Killing Time" and "I've Got News for You." 8421 -MIKE JOYCE RAP ARTIFACTS, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Big Beat The debut of Newark's Artifacts, led by El The Sensai and Tame One, has some successful moments, such as "C'Mon Wit Da Git Down," a classic MC battle track, and "Cummin' Thru Ya {Expletive} Block," which features the guest-rapping and producing of Redman. By the fourth or fifth cut, though, the monotony of blunt smoking and murdering MCs is enough to grate even the most ardent rap enthusiast, and the hardcore lyrics, at times wonderfully twisted, simply become annoying. 8422 -KENNETH CARROLL ORGANIZED KONFUSION, Stress: The Extinction Agenda, Hollywood This album finds Queens natives Pharoahe Monch and Prince Poetry dropping complex rhymes and inventive lyrics over intricately collaged samples. Exhibiting a refreshing versatility, Stress runs the gamut of emotions, from hardcore anger on the bass-heavy title cut (which expertly samples the great Charles Mingus) to subtle introspection on "Black Sunday," which utilizes a looping R&B hook while the group raps about the importance of faith. 8423 -KENNETH CARROLL
Classical Reviews in this section are by Washington Post classical music critic Joseph McLellan. * Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World. Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King, Koch 3-7293 with texts These are two of the best compositions inspired by the life and death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. -- both built on excerpts of the great civil rights martyr's speeches. Britten: Noye's Fludde; Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings,Virgin 61122, with texts This takes its text from a medieval play about Noah, his ark and the problems of getting his balky wife on board. The music is subtle and brilliant but accessible to amateur performers and unspecialized audiences. Children figure prominently in the performance, often using homemade instruments. The Serenade is one of the most sophisticated cycles for voice and orchestra. Both are beautifully performed. Marc Blitzstein: Symphony: "The Airborne" RCA 62568, with text This symphony was composed during World War II and was clearly aimed at advancing the war effort -- though its first performance was delayed until the war was over. It begins with the history and mythology of flight, includes a litany of cities attacked from the air and ends climactically with American fliers coming to join the battle. This recording, conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1946, has far more than archaeological value. It's something like a Frank Capra movie -- inspiring, in a hyped-up sort of way. * Placido Domingo Sings and Conducts Tchaikovsky, EMI 55018 I doubt that anyone in the history of music has produced a recording quite like this one. Conductor Domingo directs carefully studied, enjoyable performances of Romeo and Juliet, Capriccio Italien and the 1812 Overture with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Tenor Domingo sings "None But the Lonely Heart" and Lensky's great aria from Eugene Onegin. CAPTION: Carly Simon: A woman of Letters. CAPTION: Baaba Maal : Mixes high tech, griot.
