Andrew Tuttle
Alexandra
(Room40)
★★★★

THE FOURTH album from Aussie songwriter Andrew Tuttle is focused on Redlands, Queensland, where he grew up.

A kind of musical psychogeography, the all-instrumental tracks are named after locations in the city, such as Platypus Corridor and Vienna Intersection.

Tuttle plays banjo, resonator guitar, acoustic guitar and piano and is accompanied by a skilled set of musicians. Slow-burn opener Sun At 5 In 4161 includes some wonderful saxophone, while Scribbly Gums Park is all moody atmospherics.

The Australian setting may be central but Tuttle’s expansive sounds also bring to mind widescreen US and the work of guitar maestros William Tyler and Toby Hay.

Scribbly Gums Trail has a banjo workout that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Deliverance soundtrack and the pedal-steel guitar on Hilliard Creek, Finucane Road gives the song a gorgeous country-music feel.

Neil Young
Homegrown
(Reprise)
★★★★

ORIGINALLY set for a 1975 release, Neil Young canned Homegrown in favour of putting out the now legendary Tonight’s The Night.

45 years later and fans get to hear the lost album — made up of unreleased cuts and some songs, like the title track, which ended up rerecorded and put out on later albums.

And what a treat it is. Apparently some of the songs relate to Young’s break-up with Carrie Snodgress, with acoustic opener Separate Ways the most direct.

There are echoes of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s recent work, with many of the musicians who played on 1972 mega hit Harvest returning, while tracks like Kansas sound like outtakes from On The Beach. Intense rocker Vacancy is another highlight.

Homegrown is a set of strung-out country folk that confirms Young’s 70s artistic peak was even more fertile than previously understood.

Marcin Wasilewski Trio with Joe Lovano
Arctic Riff
(ECM Records)
★★★

RECORDED in the south of France, Arctic Riff brings together two ECM regulars —US tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Polish Marcin Wasilewski Trio.

On opener Glimmer of Hope, Wasilewski’s brilliant piano work echoes that of Bill Evans at his early 1960s peak — quiet, expressive and soulful. With Michal Miskiewicz’s drums barely there, Lovano enters the track with his relaxed and fulsome playing, creating a mesmerising and beautiful sound.

Elsewhere they have two goes at Carla Bley’s Vashkar, both knotty, intricate and occasionally stormy tracks, and work up a delightful improvisation on the nine-minute Cadenza.

At over 60 minutes long, it’s an immersive, sometimes beautiful and  sometimes difficult, listen. Those new to Wasilewski might be better off starting with his trio’s sublime 2007 album January or the accessible 2013 Forever Young record, on which they back Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young.