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It’s an unlikely pairing in anyone’s book: Billie Joe Armstrong, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of Californian punk band Green Day, teamed up with indie jazz/pop princess Norah Jones. Their Foreverly collaboration is a reinterpretation of Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, a 1958 Everly Brothers’ album of traditional country songs. Foreverly was released four weeks before Christmas: I doubt they ever imagined it might serve as something of a valedictory to Phil Everly, who sadly passed away on January 3rd at the age of 74. It’s a charmingly playful recreation of the Everly’s rootsy ballads famously characterised by closely entwined vocal harmonies, Jones’ honeyed and breathy vocal quality marrying surprisingly well with Armstrong’s more aggressive, nasal style.

96KHZ/24-BIT ALAC/FLAC/WAV, Polydor Records 531 825-2 (supplied by www. hdtracks. com) Slowhand needs no introduction to rockers above a certain age, since it contains three of Clapton’s best-known signature songs: ‘Lay Down Sally’, ‘Wonderful Tonight’ and his perennial cover of JJ Cale’s ‘Cocaine’. Moreover the album’s other songs are far from just fillers.

192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, Linn Records CKD 432 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) This second Linn album by the young Japanese artist Kuniko Kato comprises arrangements, mostly for marimba, of well-known minimalist pieces by Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. She also plays a solo work by Hywell Davies, Purl Ground, premiered by Kuniko at Cheltenham in 2011.

The trio’s first full-length album from 1990 is delightfully presented despite the sampling issues (below), whether Cole’s preparatory throat-clearing on opener ‘My Foolish Heart’ or the fine ‘live to two-track’ mix which leaves Ms Cole’s vocal thrillingly tactile, warmed by only the lightest of reverb. Her team is terrific – it takes confidence to barrel-bang the keys as Aaron Davis does on ‘Girl Talk’ and to vamp so sympathetically as on ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ (this immediacy is well worth the occasional fluff and vocal pop). And on the slower numbers his softly recorded piano augmentations slide into synchronicity with David Piltch on bass, whose own spotlight comes when slam-dunking the dem-room delight of ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ and giving good wood for Smokey Robinson’s ‘Cruisin’’, with a sax solo from John Johnson. A tight trio tackled with integrity.