THE FUN RISES, THE FUN SETS

Van Hunt (Godless Hotspot)

Van Hunt was a rising R&B star a decade ago, with a brace of writing credits for singers such as Dionne Farris and Rahsaan Patterson and Grammy-winning music of his own. But after losing his major-label deal — in part because he resisted genre pigeon-holing — the Dayton-born singer has only become more difficult to pin down musically, and an even more fascinating artist.

His 2011 indie release, What Were You Hoping For?, touched on everything from country to hard rock. Now, his fifth studio album, The Fun Rises, the Fun Sets, narrows the focus slightly, a plunge into layered and trippy funk and soul. This is music that dances between the headphones: subtle, slinky, insinuating. It's funky — but not aggressively funky. It suggests a movie soundtrack as much as a collection of songs. The Fun Rises affirms that Hunt belongs in the conversation with master musical shape-shifters such as Kendrick Lamar and D'Angelo — artists who respect African-American traditions and then find new ways of recontextualizing them.

Hunt plays most of the instruments. He builds “Vega (Stripes On)” around wiry guitar, sandpaper percussion, and episodic bass rumble, his voice airy and dreamy in falsetto. “Old Hat” orchestrates handclaps and layered vocals over percolating rhythms. “Pedestal” whispers over undulating, finger-picked guitar until a kick drum enters. The music moves like street life, from a scene outside a diner through a back alley into a card game in a smoke-filled backroom.

The songs marinate in sexual imagery, but it’s more sensual than explicit. The leering “…Puddin'” is about as overt as things get — “I don't want nothin' in my puddin' but chocolate,” the singer declares over wah-wah guitar and squiggly new-wave keyboards. At the opposite end of the scale, there's “Headroom,” oozing vulnerability over sparse piano and strings in a way that suggests an after-hours Prince ballad. The production gets more elaborate as the album winds down, with big set pieces in “Emotional Criminal” and the title track. But it's never overbearing. Hunt knows exactly when to go for broke and, just as important, when to pull back and let the music breathe.

— GREG KOT,Chicago Tribune

UNTETHERED MOON

Built to Spill (Warner Bros.)

On the lead track of Built to Spill's latest album, Doug Martsch sighs, “And now we settle for this complicated metaphor and leave this simple truth unsaid.” His sentiment gets at the center of Untethered Moon, a record flush with blustery guitar passages, hooks and heart.

“All Our Songs” rumbles out of the gate with pounding percussion before giving way to a quip from Martsch's boyish, high register: “It’s so hard to tell a face that never rang a bell.” Along the way, three different solos torch the verses. “Living Zoo” grazes on everything from early R.E.M. to Dinosaur Jr. before settling into one of his bleary-eyed choruses that never gets old.

A few songs are grounded in a more classic Pacific Northwest sound (the band is based in Boise), but pull back or morph into chugging ramblers with psych moves and serpentine melodies around every corner. The blazing “So” seesaws between campfire ballad and towering shards of incendiary guitar.

At one point, Martsch lets on that he’s found a place where he’ll “always be tethered,” and that he’ll “be fine in Idaho, America, in the 21st century.” Eight albums deep and after a recent lineup shuffle, the simple welcome truth is, Built to Spill hasn't changed much.

 — JAKE O’CONNELL,Associated Press

STOP TIME

Jon Regen (Motema)

This 10-song set is nearly half over before pianist Jon Regen stretches out, launching into an impressive jazzy solo on the title cut.

Elsewhere Regen keeps things deceptively simple, and that's fine. His sturdy songs, pleasing tenor, and seven-foot grand are a captivating combination, even when the notes are kept to a minimum.

Regen's music is two-drink minimum material, made for late at night in a cozy club with the piano in the middle of the room. 

While his playing is free of frills, his lyrics are straightforward too as he sings about persistence, resilience, allegiance, and distance.

These are piano ballads that swing, thanks in part to Elvis Costello's rhythm section. The intimate arrangements are beautifully spare, so that on “Morning Papers,” even a single cymbal tap resonates.

At times the mix of pop and jazz recalls Bruce Hornsby, and that's meant as high praise. 

The album title refers to Regen’s wish that life could be put on pause, but these songs are made for the repeat button.

— STEVEN WINE, Associated Press

MR. WONDERFUL

Action Bronson (Vice)

Action Bronson is a big man with a big beard, a broad sense of humor, and an even grander sound on this, his major-label debut. Once menacing and off-putting, his jokes are now part of a vision in which Bronson plays the mescaline bandito/​hero “riding the Harley into the sunset,” as on the closing track, “Easy Rider,” to an arrangement of dozy samples, loping beats, and dizzying guitar solos.

With a voice part chocolate and part sand, Bronson manages his palette of laid-back beats and delirious instrumentation like Herb Jeffries on his horse: with likable, cool command. On “City Boy Blues,” Bronson mumbles weird, woeful blues over a jazz-bar groove. Hysterically fantastical lyrics (as in “Galactic Love” or “Terry”) portray how eerily expressionistic he can get. Light piano and a repetitive rhythm on the snare set the tone for “Baby Blue.” Bronson’s back-and-forth between grainy, soulful singing and rapping comes across like a modern-day Todd Rundgren circa “I Saw the Light.”

— A.D. AMOROSI,Philadelphia Inquirer

I CAN’T IMAGINE

Shelby Lynne (Rounder)

Recorded mostly in Louisiana with Shelby Lynne’s touring band, I Can’t Imagine ranges from the swampy “Paper Van Gogh” to the country-rock rave-up “Down Here” to the introspective, stripped-down “Following You.” 

It includes two songs written with Ron Sexsmith and several cameo vocals from Clarence Greenwood (Citizen Cope). But Lynne’s powerful, husky alto is the star. Her voice is world-weary and thoughtful, earnest and natural. I Can’t Imagine isn’t a surprising record, but it’s a confident, reassuring one.

— STEVE KLINGE,Philadelphia Inquirer

First Published May 7, 2015, 4:00 a.m.