This week's Roots CD releases

PLAYING FOR CHANGE

Songs Around the World

Hear Records***

It's pretty easy to be cynical these days, especially for hardened hacks overexposed to optimism. Yet it is hard not to be moved by this project. Based on the belief that we can do more together than we can do apart, PFC has become a movement that uses music to cross borders and boundaries. It began in Santa Monica four years ago when street musician Roger Ridley was recorded singing Stand By Me– and then other musicians around the world joined in. This album and DVD showcases some of that wide community, in which technology enables people thousands of miles apart to share in the joy of singing. Touchingly, the Omagh Community Youth Choir are included, as is Bono on another track, but this is not about superstars, it is about people and what they share as distinct from what separates them. Check out their excellent website at www.playingforchange.com JOE BREEN

Download tracks: Stand By Me, One Love

ISRAEL NASH GRIPKA

New York Town

Lasso Records****

Israel Nash Gripka is not exactly the name of your average country singer, but then Gripka eschews anything to do with average, if this impressive debut album is any indication. She was born and raised in the midwest, and this is country soul in the spirit of Ryan Adams and Creedence Clearwater Revival, with echoes of Van Morrison in his engagingly muffled, gnarled, passionate vocals and the Hammond-soaked instrumental layers. And Gripka writes good songs as well – there is little that could be considered makeweight in the 12 tracks: the end of dreams in Evening; the baring of his soul in Confess; the bouncing bitterness of Concrete; the loser's lament of Pink Long-stem Rose. Influences might be obvious, but Gripka is a new arrival worth checking out. www.israelgripka.com JOE BREEN
Download tracks: Pink Long-stem Rose, Evening