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Remember Ten Years After? This is the sort of ‘roots music’ that inspired that band, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Golden Earring, Little Feat, and countless others. Heavy white-boy blues, simple lyrics, extremely repetitive rock arrangements with almost no rhythmic variation, an exaggerated bottom octave, and too much slide guitar all add up to minimal interest for this reviewer, but despite its utter familiarity, or perhaps because of it, lots of blues-rock fans will likely devour this album. Opinions vary, and that’s a very good thing. Many of its songs have been done better by other bands (‘You Got To Move,’ ‘Bid You Goodnight’) and fortunately, none of them runs longer than five minutes.

There’s a beguiling immature quality in Ariel Pocock’s voice – she’s in her mid-twenties but sounds much younger – that contrasts with the sophistication of her musical arrangements and the band backing her on this recording. Her vocalisations evoke a sweet innocence that older jazz singers can’t and shouldn’t try to imitate. The title track comes off almost like a college girl’s improvisation-on-the-spot – a really good one that succeeds so well it surprises even its creator. Amusingly, she tackles more than she can handle with Cole Porter’s ‘So In Love’, but it’s a valiant attempt, and the extended instrumental break is wonderful.

Her breathy contralto and big compositions have long been the core of Diana Krall’s appeal, but this release goes in a sadly soporific direction. Her band almost starts swinging on a handful of tracks, including ‘Blue Skies’ and ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’, but it’s more tease than fulfilment. ‘Sway’ has huge interpretive potential, but here it’s given a ponderously intimate treatment loaded down by an overproduced cinematic ending. Krall’s singing isn’t quite up to the fine standard she’s set over the decades: frequently awkward phrasing made more apparent by shortness of breath on sustained notes, all while keeping the dynamic lid on tight.

Having scored her biggest international hit with her 2010 album Same Girl [ACT 9024-2], the South Korean-born singing star takes a new direction with this one – her ninth (and fourth for ACT) – recorded at Sear Sound, New York, in Dec ’16, and produced/arranged by keyboard wiz Jamie Saft – he’s also co-writer with Vanessa Saft of track 3, ‘Too Late’. Youn Sun Nah opens with her own five-minute ‘Traveller’, a characteristic blend of strength and melancholy, and goes on to offer an eclectic choice of covers, all beautifully done. Marc Ribot contributes brilliantly to several tracks, with electric and acoustic guitars, from the fast-moving Paul Simon song that’s the title tune to perfect Staples/Al Green funk on Lou Reed’s ‘Teach The Gifted Children’ and a majestic reading of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Drifting’. It’s a great album with great sound too.

Rarely heard live today, these colourful scores by Manuel de Falla have been ‘demonstration disc’ material, right from the early days of LP. Indeed, classic versions were recorded under Ernest Ansermet – his Three-Cornered Hat is still on Speakers Corner 180g vinyl. Falla described Nights (one of Arthur Rubinstein’s favourites) as ‘symphonic impressions’, a better way to think of it than as a piano concerto. The pianist here (married to Kent Nagano) is set rather forward, but so was de Larrocha [Decca].

‘World Music’ is a catch-all genre covering a wide and deep territory and Mali In Oak is among the best of the cultural hybrid variety. This gloriously happy blend of traditional Malian music is updated and westernised by performers who themselves are cross-cultural phenoms, including kora player Tunde Jegede, of Nigerian/Irish ancestry, and South African guitarist Derek Gripper. Gripper manages to interpolate melodies for the 21-string kora to the six-string western classical guitar, and also to accompany the kora when used as a lead instrument. This album is the first recording by the pair, and their interplay is marvellous to experience – simultaneously serene, contemplative, and uplifting.

Still thriving, Bologna’s Accademia Filharmonica was opened in 1666: a magnet for aspiring composers and performers. This (appropriately) 66m selection of unfamiliar concertos and sinfonias spans from primarily vocal 17th-century composers – Colonna, Perti – to followers whose music was exclusively instrumental. Director Julia Schröder proves well able to meet the technical demands of the ornate decoration in the violin concertos, and while a lot of this music will only interest the specialist collector, works such as Zavateri’s ‘A tempesta di mare’ or the dramatic first section of Perti’s Sinfonia ‘Gesù al sepolcro’ are worth investigating. As are Laurenti’s four-movement Violin Concerto and the anonymous galant tribute to Bologna’s patron saint Petronius.