Ngoc Anh has a smoky yet sleepy voice. Depend on the tune, she either sounds intoxicating or snoring. Her newest album Romance Cho Anh (Tinh Khuc Phu Quang) juggles in between.

“Trong Anh Chop So Phan” is not a bad starter. The arrangement is vigorous. Her voice is exhilarating along the rock-inflected production. But then on “Chuyen Binh Thuong So 7,” the song is as mundane as its title suggests and her voice starts to get drowsy. The classical “Romance No.1” drifts off further into sleep and the retreated arrangement doesn’t help much either. “May Xua,” a duet between Ngoc Anh and Ha Anh Tuan, is perfect for brunch music. The tune opens with elevator keyboard, and then joins by fake trumpet, wimpy guitar and airline drums to the Caribbean. Their voices are simply bland and unaffected.

“Loi Rieu” picks up where the opening track left off. On the slow-pop arrangement, she is hypnotizing. “Romance No.2” is a standout piece in which she could ride the classical wave. The closeout is another version of “Trong Anh Chop So Phan.” The classical orchestration makes this version much more powerful than the first.

With Hat De Doi Cho, Y Lan’s second album of the year, she brought in Quang Tuan for collaboration. Clever choice. Quang Tuan’s slightly raspy baritone is a perfect complement to Y Lan’s sweet vocals. On the album opener, Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Mua Thu Cho Em,” their voices blend together like champagne and orange juice. The tangy duet is accompanied by Dong Son’s light, sensual arrangement.

The album as a whole is consistent track for track. Quang Tuan delivered his solo pieces, such as Trinh Cong Son’s “Goi Ten Bon Mua” and Doan Chuan and Tinh Linh’s “La Do Muon Chieu,” the way the writers had written. Similarly, Y Lan presents the tunes like Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Mat Thu” and Le Uyen Phuong’s “Tinh Khuc Cho Em” exactly as the composers intended. No crime in that. They both have done the timeless ballads the justice. Yet, for me covering old tunes without given them a fresh new vibe isn’t good enough. I prefer musicians to be more creative and more imaginative when they do covers. I favor musicians who aren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone and to take the tunes onto a new path, something of their own.

Production wise, Hat De Doi Cho is not Dong Son’s most inspiring work. His orchestrations sound retread and laid back. Either the arrangements didn’t jump start the vocals or the vocals didn’t push the arrangements. The album is a quality work, but it just doesn’t sound like a new record.

Tieng Hat Truong Chi continues Duc Tuan’s direction in concept album. He covers Van Cao’s tunes with the accompanying of Hoai Sa’s arrangements. Hoai Sa is a young, talented musician and he is one of the top-billing producers in Viet Nam. He is also passed for a jazz, semi-classical pianist; therefore, it is not a surprise that Duc Tuan enlisted him for this release.

Like his previous albums, Duc Tuan recorded Truong Chi with a set of standards: wise song selection and quality production. Sometimes a too-careful-too-perfect album returns a reverse effect. Truong Chi is indeed a perfect album, and its perfection robs its soul. In every track the arrangement has stripped down to its basic elements, which diminishes the depth and the textures of the work. The title track, “Truong Chi,” is beautiful rendition. Hoai Sa has done a superb job of playing the piano behind Duc Tuan. The problem is that the track is six minutes long, and without variations, it gets worn out quick. Both “Thu Co Lieu” and “Buon Tan Thu” have a repetitive, mechanical drum track throughout, which doesn’t help Duc Tuan’s little fatigued and breathy vocals.

“Ben Xuan” and “Thien Thai” are good, but could have been better if Hoai Sa could add some colorization and dynamics into the harmonization—something Duc Tri has done so well in his orchestration. With an album like Truong Chi, production plays an important role in enhancing the music. If Hoai Sa could step up his game, the album would have been a great, instead of just decent, one.

I have a perfect title for Nas’s new album: Sleepmatic. I can’t get through fifteen tracks on Untitled in a straight shot. Let’s just forget about the lifeless beats. Nas doesn’t care about them. Lyricism is where his heart beats, but he is just rambling about racism, politic, Fox News, fried chicken and roaches.

Nas is a gifted lyricist when he wants to be, but on Untitled most of his rhymes are comical. In “Roach Project,” he raps as a roach: “I’m creeping and crawling / in your sink or your toilet / I’ll be drinking from your spit
/ anything cause I’m more less an insect with four legs / people come and I fake dead
/ correction I got eight legs.” Then on “Fried Chicken” (featuring Busta Rhymes) he compares women to fried chicken: “Don’t know a part of you that I love best
/ your legs or your breast.” Elsewhere he sounds like rapping while sleeping: “Then I cop, then I yatch, then I dock.”

Album-opener “Queens Get the Money” is the only exceptional track. Accompanied by just a strange-sounding keyboard ostinato, Nas packs his words into one impressive verse that runs about two minutes long. It’s actually more like an intro than a song. Nas only pushed himself to a half-assed potential.

With three tenor and two alto saxophonists, two trumpeters, two double bassists, a pianist and a drummer, John Coltrane and his big band got their freak on. Ascension, the forty-minute free jazz recorded in 1965, was Coltrane’s experimentation with dissonant tones and intensified textures.

Upon hearing country singer Willie Nelson performing with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis makes me wish I could have been at Jazz at Lincoln Center to fully experience the one-of-a-kind collaboration. Nelson’s charming baritone breathes some fresh country air into the 12-bar blues driven by Marsalis and his excellent sidemen: Walter Blanding Jr. on saxophones, Dan Nimmer on piano, Carlos Henriquez on bass and Ali Jackson on drums.

With his relaxed phrasing and impeccable timing, Nelson could maneuver his way around the slow, heartfelt blues as well as the fast, jumping swing. On the splendid opening “Bright Light Big City,” you can’t tell what city it is because the harmonica from Mickey Raphael suggests Nashville while the horns and keyboard lick suggest New York City. But it is this marvelous blend that gives the concert its distinctiveness. “Coldonia” is another perfect example. You could either do the honky-tonky or the hillbilly hoedown or even both if you have the skills.

Marsalis is a brilliant soloist and you could hear the influence of Louis Armstrong all over his big, bold blowing, particularly on “Basin Street Blues” and “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It.” Yet his most lustrous, indelible solo is on the fantastic closing “That’s All,” in which he wails a long, breathless riff on the high register. He is amazingly in control of the trumpet.

What make Two Men With the Blues a phenomenon is that both men from two different styles had found a common ground in the blues and that they were having a good old time playing together. So big up to Willie and Wynton for this rare gem and big props to Blue Note for capturing the special occasion on tape for those of us who missed the live sessions.

Tinna Tinh impressed me with her debut performance of “Tra Lai Cho Toi” on Van Son in Taiwan not because she looked kind of hot and she could rock, but she sang her own tune—something extremely rare among the young Vietnamese pop stars. Her new album strangely titled Mu Tac (Wasabi) features nothing but her original works. Although Tinna is half Vietnamese and half Czech, she writes and sings Vietnamese with confidence.

As a singer, Tinna has a strong, slightly gruff voice. In the opening track, “Hoa Lai Mau Xanh,” she knows how to maneuver her way around the upbeat drums and guitar riff. The best part is that she could make her Vietnamese lyrics flow so damn natural in a rock-up tempo. In the self-reflecting “Xin Loi Cuoc Doi,” she starts off by trading sentimental thoughts with a strumming guitar, but progresses into a hypnotic rock chorus.

The album actually gets a bit weary with the pop-rock flavors, but the closeout “Co May” stands out. The track begins with the street noise, follows by a simply strumming guitar, and proceeds with heavy rain and children’s laughter. A minute and thirty seconds into the song, she pours her heart out on a story of an abandon kid in the middle of the big world, in which she observed, “Mot lan di dao pho thay nha cao cua rong xe hoi, net mat sang trong / Lai thay mot dua be nam tren chieu tran truon co ro / Giua the gian menh mong trong be, nho be, cang be.” It’s quite a heartfelt tune.

Tinna has definitely stepped into the right direction. Keep up the passion and rock on.

In Thuy Nga’s last year talent show, Trinh Lam came in first and Quynh Vi came in second, but I concluded it the other way around. Need some proof? Listen no further than their new duo release Tinh Con Vuong Van, in which Quynh Vi is the one who picks him up where he doesn’t deliver.

Trinh Lam has a strong voice, but he doesn’t have the flow. He sings with the same tone on every track. His low register is so boring. His solos, “Don Coi” and “Mua Buon,” are snore-worthies. Even on the bossa-nova “Coi Mong” he could hardly ride the beat. He also tries too hard in his enunciation, which gets a bit irritating.

In contrast, Quynh Vi has less strength in her voice, but the clear and sweet qualities make up for it. Her intonation, of course, is impeccable. She knows how not to over dramatize a pop tune like “Em Da Tung Yeu.” But then on “Han Tinh Trong Mua,” she couldn’t reach the depth of the tune’s sorrow.

Nevertheless, Quynh Vi saves Trinh Lam’s ass not once, but twice on their duets. She starts off “Nua Vang Trang” so damn lovely. Her voice floats like clouds over the moonlight until Trinh Lam comes in and makes everything disappear. On “Nuoi Tiec,” Trinh Lam’s low notes sound so flat that making me wish the male part could have performed by Trinh Nam Son, the writer himself.

Cecil Taylor’s Silent Tongues is a mind-boggling masterpiece. His piano solos are delirious yet delicious, chaotic yet hypnotic. He has an amazing sense of rhythmic structure and his percussive attacks are simply crazy. (Imagine playing the drums on a piano.) His angularity and virtuosity are unexplainable. You just have to experience the album yourself. I am on my third spin and still getting high off his frenzied sounds.

If Lil Wayne is not the best rapper alive like he claims himself to be, he is definitely the most eccentric one. On his new album, Tha Cater III, Weezy (his nickname) doesn’t flow the same way twice. Sometimes he lands ahead of the beat and other times he rides behind. His raspy voice falls, rises and distorts (courtesy of Auto-Tune) as he spits in streams of conscious, in which he invites listeners to swallow his words and taste his thoughts, but if they are too nasty, spit them back at him.

Most of the time, he lets his drugs do the talking. On the bizarre opener, “3 Peat,” he raps all over the place from shooting grandmother to kidnapping the baby to Viagra to Adam Sandler to ESPN to sex. Sometimes his intoxicating, surrealistic style comes off brilliant. On “Dr. Carter,” for example, Weezy rhymed over a groovy jazz-inflected beat describing his cure for hip-hop: “As I put the light down his throat / I can only see flow / His blood’s starting to flow / His lungs starting to grow.”

Among a handful of guest appearances, Jay-Z is a perfect match even though their styles are completely opposite. On “Mr. Carter,” one can hear that both are virtuoso of flow. The different is that while Weezy is letting loose, Jiggaman is in total control. It’s quite rare to see Jay-Z shares his heir with another: “Young Carter go farther, go further, go harder. Is that not why we came? And if not, then why bother?”

Even with a bunch of radio-friendly misses like “Got Money,” “Comfortable” and “Lollipop,” Tha Cater III is a strong work. “Tie My Hands” is a chilling track about Hurricane Katrina, and the album-closer “Don’tGetIt” is a fantastic sample off Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” in which he rambling about jail and Al Sharpton.