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Artist: Kate Bush
Album: "Before the Dawn"
Songs: "Hello Earth," "Cloudbusting"

Kate Bush probably could have stood stock still at a microphone on a bare stage, and fans still would have flown in from all over the world to snap up every ticket and lap up every note of what became her 22-show run at London’s Hammersmith Apollo two years ago. Such is the devotion of her fans, devotion that only grew over the course of the 35 years since she last performed full concerts. 

But, Kate Bush being Kate Bush, she rewarded those fans with what by all accounts was a supremely ambitious and vividly imaginative feast of theater, dance, film and, of course, music of the highest order of vision and execution. It not only fully brought to life the music she’s made, sporadically, in those years away from the stage (an absence attributed in part to a combination of stage fright and near-unachievable perfectionism), but affirmed the iconic, influential place she’s held as an inspiration for generations of artists, particularly women, from Bjork through Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, among many others.

So, it goes without saying that the audio-only document of the series that has just been released can’t come close to capturing the experience. And yey, as anyone who has followed Bush, whether relative newbies or those, including this writer, who were entranced from the start (a late-night U.S. TV airing of two of her videos, before she made her who-is-that 1979 appearance on "Saturday Night Live"), would expect, the "Before the Dawn" album is a distinctly dimensional, gripping work in its own right, not a mere souvenir for those who had been lucky enough to see the shows. 

The show was structured in three acts, pointedly drawing on material released since her ’79 tour — so no "Wuthering Heights" or "Them Heavy People," songs written and recorded in her teens, when she was "discovered" by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. This is a mature, experienced work in every sense, Act I sets the stage, so to speak, with a sequence of songs spanning the years, all given an immediacy, a sense of punchy power even in the most dreamy, poetic passages — highlights include two songs from her landmark 1985 album "Hounds of Love": the title song and her biggest hit, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)." 

Act II, though, is a fully immersive experience, sonically and topically. "The Ninth Wave," as it’s titled, was a somewhat enigmatic suite when it appeared as side two of "Hounds of Love." In the concert she made it a full-blown art-theatre drama centered on a woman lost at sea, alone in the water after her boat sank. On stage, per the reports and confirmed by photos included in the album package, the visual presentation was astonishing, mixing innovate staging and lighting for a cast of performers including her son and filmed elements. She spent three days in a studio water tank shooting her ocean scenes. (A video of her singing "And Dream of Sheep," projected during the concerts, is the only visual element getting official release thus far — apparently there are no plans to release a concert film.) 

Even without the visuals it’s commanding, gripping, in its depictions of the isolation, despair, hope, hallucination and surrender the woman experiences, linking passages of spoken word and depictions of her dreams and remembrances all vivid and involving as sound alone, from the somber ballad of "And Dream of Sheep" to the raucous fright of "Waking the Witch" to the spirited Celtic fiddle tune "Jig of Life" and the sweeping embrace of "Hello Earth." It’s a remarkable achievement by a singular artist.

Act III takes a contrastingly sunnier turn — it could hardly take a darker one — in another suite, "A Sky of Honey," drawn from her stellar 2005 comeback album "Aerial." And if by comparison isn’t as gripping as "The Ninth Wave," it’s still pretty thrilling in its pastoral tour through a summer day with birds (a lot of birds) and a painter among the prominent characters encountered. From the breathtaking (literally) water peril of "Wave" to the breathtaking (figuratively) joys of air and sunshine here. 

And ending the album and concert was an encore of one more "Hounds of Love" track, "Cloudbusting," a cleansing rain leaving everything new and fresh — and maybe ready for whatever Bush may do next, whenever. As she  sings in the song, "I just know that something good is gonna happen."

Artist: The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini
Album: "The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini"
Songs: "When We Dance," "Gun" 

The shadow of Kate Bush is hard for any ambitiously artistic woman singer of recent generations to escape. Emiliana Torrini has had another one over her as well — that of her fellow Icelandian Bjork. Here’s the thing: She’s never really tried to escape it, even going back to her ‘90s sting with the band Gus Gus. Rather than worry about Bjork’s omnipresence, she’s seemingly shrugged and sung he own ways. Sure, there are some similarities in vocal tone and inflections, maybe something in the Icelandic water. But the purity of Torrini’s voice, the ease with which she trills along melodic contours, is all her own — and arguably attributes Bjork doesn’t possess. 

That’s more apparent than ever in this album, a part-studio, part-live collaboration with the Belgian outfit the Colorist Orchestra, which for a few years has made its name by interpreting the music of various artists in classical settings. Here she and the eight-piece ensemble rework eight songs from her catalog, and offer two new songs, "Nightfall," which she co-wrote with EDM veteran Kid Koala, and "When We Dance," written by her with Colorist founders Kobe Proesmans and Aarich Jespers. 
Percussive sounds are the main thread through the arrangements — glass bowls, marimba, hand drums, hammered strings — providing equal measures of brittleness and momentum. But of course it’s Torrini’s singing that marks this, her clearly delighting in exploring the possibilities the settings offer. And in the course some very new things emerge, or at least are revealed, new depths to her art, more than may have met the ear before. There’s unsettling danger in the beauty of Bjork’s art is right up front, part and parcel of it. With Torrini it’s sneakier, catches you by surprise, and is harder to put a finger on. But it is there.  

Okay, it’s not always so hidden. There is "Gun," which bring the edge right up to the front, though in its shifting rhythms also presents something of a moving target. Which is a good analogy to the teaming of these artists. 

Artist: Alkibar Junior
Album: "Jamal"
Songs:"Suka Selenon," "Soore"

Don’t know how many garages there are in the small town of Niafunke in Mali, but when the group Alkibar Gignor (pronounced "junior," more or less, and meaning the same thing) first emerged a few years back, it was calling its style "African garage." And so it was, raucous, energetic takes on West African traditions in much the same way American garage bands reworked blues, soul and rock traditions over the years. 

That said, tradition in Mali means something a bit deeper than it does in America. There, many musicians trace their lineage back through many generations, many centuries of troubadours. And as this band’s name suggests, Alkibar Junior (as it’s billing itself internationally with this album) represents a new generation.  Alkibar senior is not a person, though, but another band — the outfit that has played with Niafunke star Afel Bocoum for a couple of decades now, the name itself suggesting an unbroken flow of culture in its meaning in the Sonrai language: "messenger of the great river." 

There is a blood relation in Junior guitarist Diadlé Bocoum, Afel’s youngest brother, while singer Sekou Touré has toured with Vieux Farka Touré as well as the elder Bocoum brother. But the newer band as a whole grew as an apprentice outfit to the elder’s group, now fully matured and ready to stand on its own. 

And it comes at a time when those traditions are under peril, a time in which jihadi destruction and brutal civil wars have torn Mali apart. That seems to have given Alkibar Junior new purpose, a mission to honor and renew the traditions with fervor and force. They do that here with one of the key traditions of the West African troubadours, tribute songs, in this case honoring  those who have led the Malian communities in a time of crisis in the wake of jihadi brutality and fractious civil wars in the beleaguered nation.

And while like the older Bocoum’s Alkibar, the young one draws not just on Sonrai culture and language but also that of their region’s Tuareg and Fula people, here it takes on a sense of unity held fiercely in the face of the divisions tearing their world apart. To that end, the seven-piece band welcomes guest appearances the cross both cultures and generations to create a sound that is a coherent whole, not a collage, as electric guitar bounces with gourd percussion and the spritely vocals weave with the ancient desert fiddle known as the sokou. 

That violin, played both by band member Salah Guindo and mentor Zoumana Tereta, marks both such electric songs as opener "Suka Selenon" and the folkier closer "Soore." It’s a sound of joy, a sense of hope that what has lasted this long in West Africa, through so many times of strife, will survive whatever it faces now and come out even stronger.