Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

It’s been nine years since McKennitt’s last studio album. The doyenne of Celtic music retreated after the drowning death of her boyfriend and founded several charities, including one promoting water safety. She later traveled widely, exploring the Celtic connections in Greece and Turkey that inspired her latest recording. Featuring bouzoukis, ouds and other exotic instruments, moody songs like “Caravanserai” and “Sacred Shabbat” form a rich, haunting soundtrack for McKennitt’s latest mystical journey.

England’s Spice Girl successors have buried the hatchets and reunited in time to catch pop music’s current Caribbean-lite wave. Their third album, an homage to Jamaica’s Studio One label, features such ska and reggae numbers as the horn-heavy “Scar,” “Not Eazy” and the sassy title track. After making babies, solo albums and some rock-star romance (with Liams Gallagher and Howlett, for the Canadian-born Appleton sisters), the Saints now thankfully seem to treat music as something more than just a photo op.

Ryder’s one of Canada’s brightest new talents, a gifted songwriter and powerhouse vocalist. Some might think it strange that she’d make her major label debut singing so many songs by other artists. But Ryder, 23, is no fool: by including her stunning interpretations of Canadian classics like Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” and Sylvia Tyson’s “You Were On My Mind” alongside her own formidable “Weak in the Knees” and “Just Another Day,” it merely proves she belongs in such esteemed company.