Album reviews: Madonna | Mabel | Tim Minchin | Paul Vickers and the Leg

Mabel: Mabel (Polydor Records) ★★★

Tim Minchin: TimMinchinTimeMachine (BMG) ★★

Paul Vickers and the Leg: Winter at Butterfly Lake (PX4M) ★★★★

Over recent years, Madonna has been re-issuing some of her best-loved albums on limited edition silver vinyl. True Blue and Like a Prayer are already part of her Silver Collection; now her long-rumoured Ray of Light remix album joins the club with the playful title Veronica Electronica.

There is ample competition for the accolade of best Madonna album but Ray of Light, released in 1998, must be in the running for its moody pop atmospheres, euphoric dance tracks, immaculate production by William Orbit and majestic string arrangements by Glasgow-based composer Craig Armstrong.

These rare and unreleased remixes of most of the album tracks were originally intended for a companion album, but plans were shelved when Ray of Light took off, zephyr-like, rebooting Madonna’s career for the new millennium. Veronica Electronica features new edits of remixes by the likes of Orbit, the late Peter Rauhofer, Sasha, BT and Victor Calderone, who may not be able to improve on the joyful source material but can tap into its renewing spirit.

The title track is already an ecstatic invocation. The Sasha Twilo Mix Edit adds some spacey bells and galactic whistles, while Peter & Victor’s Collaboration Remix Edit of Skin - don’t those titles just trip off the tongue? - is both banging and hypnotic. The Club 69 Speed Mix of Nothing Really Matters introduces counter rhythms to the bassy beats, while Caldarone turbocharges Sky Fits Heaven with propulsive carnival percussion and irresistible electro vibrations, and Fabien Waltmann’s Good God Mix Edit of The Power of GoodBye adds a fidgety thrum over which Armstrong’s original swirling string arrangement soars.

As enjoyable as these reinterpretations are, they are no substitute for some quality new material from Madge herself. The best she can muster here is an unheard track from the original sessions called Gone Gone Gone on which she offers hymn-like lamentations over floating synthesizers and a robust disco rhythm. Unlike many an unreleased demo, this mesmeric dance pop tune deserves to see the (ray of) light of day.

Brit Award-winner Mabel’s latest release comprises nine “unfiltered” tracks recorded in her home studio in recent months. It’s pretty repetitive fare in which she wrangles with positive and negative aspects of relationships, retrofitted to present a “toxic love letter to my ten years in the industry”. Opening track Jan 19 is set at the moment when the scales are falling from her eyes. Elsewhere, she shakes a manicured finger at some disrespectful behaviour on the low-slung R&B of Run Me Down, appeals for a kinder, less judgmental approach on Love Me Gentle and advocates for people over possessions on Benz, folding in reggaeton, drum’n’bass and slow jam synths along the way.

Tim Minchin made his Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2005, arriving as an unknown cabaret pianist and leaving a comedy star. Since then he has penned global musical theatre smash Matilda among other big ticket achievements. In contrast, his latest project is a personal excavation of songs written in his “prolific-but-obscure twenties” that arguably should have stayed there, from underwhelming ballad Understand it to the jazz lounge noodling of Moment of Bliss. He crosses from sentimental songwriting to rollicking satire on Song of a Masochist but former Fringe favourites You Grow On Me and Not Perfect fall flat without the bearpit energy of a Gilded Balloon audience.

Longtime Edinburgh-based collaborators Paul Vickers and the Leg present Winter at Butterfly Lake, a “heartbreak suite” which is conventional only by their standards. Vickers’ voice and Pete Harvey’s string arrangements are powerful opposing forces but they style it out on the demented grungey bluegrass of Optical Illusions and chunky chamber pop of Contents of the Earth.

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CLASSICAL

King of Kings: JS Bach (Chandos) ★★★

The conductor Sir Andrew Davis was famous for his hearty chuckles and precious grammar school wit. Such eccentricities live on in his orchestrations of Bach organ music, ranging from the bombastic to the intricately beautiful, as witnessed in this part-posthumous album by the BBC Philharmonic. Davis, who died last year, lived to conduct four of the tracks; Martyn Brabbins stepped in to complete the project. The organ loft was where Davis began his musical life, none so lofty as his stint as organ scholar at King’s College Cambridge in the 1960s, and you imagine - certainly from his treatment here of the big Preludes, Toccatas, Fantasias and Fugues - his taste was shamelessly eclectic. Where it works - the surreal orchestral imaginings of the monumental Passacaglia and Fugue for instance - Davis’ playfulness tickles the senses, and the Chorale Preludes are mostly a confection of delights. Novelty value is the key selling point. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Marianne McGregor: Make Believe (Self Released) ★★★★

Make Believe is award-winning vocalist Marianne McGregor’ first album of her own songs. She sings with a lithe edginess, her lyrics, dealing with love, loss and recovery, accompanied by a sterling roster of players including pianist Paul Harrison, saxophonist Brian Molley, bassist Mario Caribé and drummer Max Popp. Her heart may be on her sleeve but there’s little wallowing in despondency, right from the snappy brass fanfaring of Blue Birds Fly, with bubbly organ from Harrison and trumpet from Euan Allardice. In Like a Moth to a Flame, bittersweet lyrics and vigorous scatting ride a sassy bossa shuffle with an extended flute coda from Molley. There’s a lingering ballad, Sweet in the Morning, while chiming guitar (Sam Parkinson) and softly belling alto sax (Josie Girgis) cusp the wry Never Fall in Love Again, while the album closes upbeat with the full-on horns of the title track. Jim Gilchrist

READ MORE: Sparks, Edinburgh review: 'a delightful deep-dive of a concert'