Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Roxy Music’s elegant clotheshorse has always had his nostalgic side, tripping down Tin Pan Alley to tackle Gershwin and others on 1999’s As Time Goes By. Ferry’s also done Dylan before, but goes hog wild here with an entire album of Bobsongs. Some are bad choices, including the overdone “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and Ferry’s rocking rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin.’” But “Positively 4th Street” gets some cool string embellishments and Brian Eno works his sonic magic on “If Not for You.”    

Favorites of filmmaker Sophia Coppola, the French electronica duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel scored The Virgin Suicides and contributed to Lost in Translation. Clearly influenced by the latter’s Tokyo setting, Air sounds like it’s turning Japanese on the group’s latest album. Apart from “Mer du Japon,” an ocean-swept homage to the land of the midnight sun, oriental instruments like the koto and the shamisen appear on such tracks as “One Hell of a Party,” overshadowing even Jarvis Cocker’s hung-over vocals. Mar. 6    

On the year’s most anticipated album, Montreal’s Arcade Fire lives up to its spellbinding reputation. Weaving horn, string and woodwind arrangements around the vocals of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the band continues its daring chamber-pop excursions on songs like the dread-filled “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” and the dreamlike “No Cars Go.” Then there’s the dizzying power of “Intervention,” an ominous hymn complete with pipe organ and choir that’s nothing short of breathtaking.