June 11, 2014

Paulinho Garcia—one of the most versatile and skilled Brazilian musicians in the Midwest—lives up to his album title. His nylon-stringed guitar playing is angelic, and his voice is cappuccino smooth. Garcia sings mostly in English, as on the sprightly 1937 standard “That Old Feeling” and the plaintive “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” But there are a few treats in Portuguese on this 15-song disc, such as the album closer “Casinha Pequenina” (“Tiny House”), a bossa-flavored heartbreaker about love that blooms and dies.

Recorded in a converted New Orleans–area church over six days, Redemption is a jambalaya of Chicago blues, New Orleans funk, and robust soul. On the standout “Chariot,” Glen David Andrews’s voice rises with gritty passion as he trails into the song’s tag, borrowed from the spiritual “Sweet Home Chariot”:

On the mostly instrumental Pieces, JoyCut takes the sonic hallmarks of the 1980s New Wave era—from shimmering, echo-plastered guitars and propulsive picked bass to dysmorphic synthesizer pads—and reconfigures them in thrilling fashion. “Save” is a peak moment; its riffing spy-thriller guitar recalls Joy Division, while the pile-driver beat sounds like it was forged somewhere between a Manchester dance club and an abandoned steel mill. As for the stark title cut, it gallops along like a lost snippet from the Blade Runner soundtrack:

Throughout this disc, Marco Di Maggio shows the versatility of a guitarist with an uncanny mastery of 1950s and ’60s surf, rockabilly, and country styles. On the lovely and gentle “Polka Dots & Moonbeams,” you’ll hear shadings of Wes Montgomery’s octave guitar riffing, along with the shifting jazz-pop chords of Chet Atkins. And Di Maggio’s fabulously dexterous fretwork on “Tiger Rag” takes the early jazz standard into pyrotechnic dimensions: