Famous as its title has become through Carl Orff's work of the same name, the original Carmina burana—a German manuscript collection of mostly secular songs, probably compiled in the early thirteenth century—is all but unknown to modern listeners. That it should be so is hardly surprising, since many of the pieces in the manuscript pose formidable editorial problems (inasmuch as they can be deciphered at all), and since virtually nothing is known about the manner in which they would have been performed and accompanied, nor about the circumstances under which they would have been heard.

Some albums exist outside of time or place, gently floating on their own style and sensibility. Of those, the La’s lone album may be the most beguiling, a record that consciously calls upon the hooks and harmonies of 1964 without seeming fussily retro, a trick that anticipated the cheerful classicism of the Brit-pop ’90s. But where their sons Oasis and Blur were all too eager to carry the torch of the past, Lee Mavers and the La’s exist outside of time, suggesting the ’60s in their simple, tuneful, acoustic-driven arrangements but seeming modern in their open, spacy approach, sometimes as ethereal as anything coming out of the 4AD stable but brought down to earth by their lean, no-nonsense attack, almost as sinewy as any unaffected British Invasion band.

After achieving a reluctant Top Ten hit with a rock version of the traditional Irish pub ballad "Whiskey in the Jar," Thin Lizzy began work on Vagabonds of the Western World – their third, and ultimately last album for Decca Records. The single's surprise success gave the band bargaining power to demand more money and time to record, resulting in their first sonically satisfying album. The environmentally-conscious R&B of "Mama Nature Said" kicks things off with Eric Bell leading the way on slide guitar. The overblown "The Hero and the Madman" and the tepid "Slow Blues" threaten to derail the proceedings, but all is well again when the band break into their first bona fide classic "The Rocker."

The continuation of Eliminator's synthesized blues boogie made sense on Afterburner, since it arrived two years after its predecessor. ZZ Top's choice to pursue that direction on Recycler is puzzling, since a full five years separates this from Afterburner. It's not just that they continue to follow this path; it's that they embalm it, creating a record that may be marginally ballsier than its predecessor, but lacking the sense of goofy fun and warped ambition that made Afterburner fascinating. Here, there's just a steady, relentless beat (Frank Beard is still chained to the sequencer, as he has been for a decade), topped off by processed guitars turning out licks that fall short of being true riffs.

What is so good about Sir Roger's performances are that they are alive, vibrant, full of colour, devoid of clichés, utterly musical, coherent and convincing. Like Thomson he has a reliable ear for balance and texture and an instinctive ability to gauge the correct and most effective tempi.

Chailly has radically rethought his approach to these works, re-examining the scores and returning to the recorded interpretations of a generation of conductors alive during Brahms lifetime, principally Felix Weingartner and one of his Gewandhaus predecessors Bruno Walter.

Since Bonnie Raitt didn't score any big hits during her nine-album tenure at Warner Bros., compiling a best-of from those records is largely a matter of taste, and after Raitt's commercial breakthrough on Capitol with Nick of Time in 1989, Warners decided to trust her own taste in choosing songs for this compilation. The artist's input is usually considered a good thing, but in this case it has resulted in an idiosyncratic selection that fails to be representative or to cull the real highlights from Raitt's Warners catalog. Basically, that catalog breaks down into three sections - the first three solid albums, the second three good but uneven albums, and the last three mediocre, compromised albums. Raitt has opted to try to find at least a couple of tracks from each album, which means she necessarily slights her best work in favor of her weakest…

Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, Ed Starink, Mike Oldfield, Sting, Ennio Morricone, Jan Hammer and many more. Arranged & produced by Ed Starink.

A boat from Venice to Padua? Yes, it does sound odd and, to recall Alice, it becomes curiouser and curiouser. The ill-assorted company of passengers includes a student, some lawyers from Murano, a fisherman from the Lagoon, a couple of girls whose profession is older than agriculture, a music-master from Lucca, and a Florentine bookseller who invites five singers on board. All the makings of a Ship of Fools if not of a Marx Brothers comedy. And so it turns out to be. The singers (four from different parts of Italy, the fifth an alcoholic German who passes round the bottle before the proceedings commence), begin with a couple of madrigals.

Trilogy is a box set by the German musical project Enigma. This set includes the first three studio albums by Enigma, MCMXC a.D., The Cross of Changes, and Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!, which comprises their artistic output from 1990–1996. A worldbeat dance fixture of the late 20th century and beyond, having sold tens of millions of albums worldwide, Enigma was formed in 1990 by Bucharest native Michael Cretu. The project is based in Ibiza, Spain, where Cretu has lived and recorded since the early '90s. With its 1991 hit "Sadeness," Enigma brought the new age fascination with Gregorian chants and old-world culture to the clubs; the resulting single was both unique and irresistible.

Retaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin' Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music. Simon returned to the kind of vocal pyrotechnics heard on the Simon & Garfunkel records by using gospel singers. On "Love Me Like a Rock" and "Tenderness" (which sounded as though it could have been written to Art Garfunkel), the Dixie Hummingbirds sang prominent backup vocals, and on "Take Me to the Mardi Gras," Reverend Claude Jeter contributed a falsetto part that Garfunkel could have handled, though not as warmly.

Heinrich Schiff gives a fine interpretation of both concertos and has suberb orchestral balance with two of the finest European orchestras – the Amsterdam Concergebouw under Colin Davis and the Dresden Statkapelle under Neville Marinner. Both orchestras have gorgeous sound and both conductors are extremely supportive at every turn.

In a word, stunning. Perhaps an odd word to use given that Violator continued in the general vein of the previous two studio efforts by Depeche Mode: Martin Gore's upfront lyrical emotional extremism and knack for a catchy hook filtered through Alan Wilder's ear for perfect arrangements, ably assisted by top English producer Flood. Yet the idea that this record would both dominate worldwide charts, while song for song being simply the best, most consistent effort yet from the band could only have been the wildest fantasy before its release. The opening two singles from the album, however, signaled something was up. First was "Personal Jesus," at once perversely simplistic, with a stiff, arcane funk/hip-hop beat and basic blues guitar chords, and tremendous, thanks to sharp production touches and David Gahan's echoed, snaky vocals…