Despite COVID there are new music albums, and one is co-produced by Sturgill Simpson

We’re taking a time out from the coronavirus pandemic this week to offer some sound suggestions in escaping COVID-mania for at least the running duration of a CD.

Presented here are eight recordings that have been released since the lockdown kicked in over the spring. At least two of them, the Joe Ely and Richard Thompson entries, were recorded entirely during lockdown conditions, serving as encouraging signs that COVID-19 never silenced the globe completely.

Several picks had to be dropped for space, so another list will follow before season’s end. Until then, here are some cool summer sounds to help you chill during these pandemic days.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: “Just Coolin’”

Amazingly, this outing from jazz giant Blakey and a band lineup that includes trumpeter Lee Morgan and saxophonist Hank Mobley has been sitting unheard in the Blue Note Records vaults since 1959. But the single day recording and its rich sense of sleek, assured bop (Morgan has seldom played better) sounds fresh enough to have been cut last week. And talk about a title. In one of the most surreal summertimes of our lives, leave it a long-departed jazz guru to come up with the perfect way to go coolin.’

Bob Dylan: “Rough and Rowdy Ways”

For his first album of new songs in eight years, Dylan delights in working from the shadows. The mood in ruminative, whether it’s through storylines where mortality becomes as askew as morality, or the noir-esque soundscapes Dylan’s band applies to them. The wordplay is as devilish as ever, be it during the wary redemption of “My Own Version of You” (“I will bring someone to life in more ways than one; don’t matter how long it takes, it’ll be done when it’s done”) or the feckless celebrity status of the rocking “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” (“I need you like my head needs a noose”).

California Guitar Trio: “Elegy”

Nearly three decades on, the California Guitar Trio remains a relentlessly inventive enterprise with an instrumental sound that borrows from pop accessibility, classical composition and prog-inspired dynamics. Their records have also consistently presented that blend with gorgeous clarity. Recorded on tour but offstage in a series of Airbnb rooms, “Elegy” is no exception as it followed the group through the group composed “Gaudela Trilogy,” the delicacy and drama of “Shining Road” by Italian guitarist Fabio Mittino (who mixed and mastered all of “Elegy”) or a suitably playful take of the Beatles classic “Get Back.” Ideal summertime listening.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: “Reunions”

One of the reasons Isbell remains an artist who still lives up to his monumental hype is that his songwriting never looks for easy exits. In listening to “Reunions, one has to believe the demons that surrounded him during years of addiction remain visitors not always kept at a safe distance. The opening “What’ve I Done to Help” sets the mood with the simple addition of three words to the title in the song’s chorus (“… but not myself”). The whole record sounds like a dream, though, with a wistful lyricism that orchestrates the record’s reflections and an electricity that galvanizes rockier terrain like “Be Afraid.” One of the year’s best, so far.

Joe Ely: “Love in the Midst of Mayhem”

When the pandemic shut down the music industry in March, veteran Texas song stylist Ely sifted through a set of new and unfinished compositions. Since touring was kaput, he recorded these fragments of what were predominantly love songs with touches of Tex Mex seasoning and Lone Star longing. What distinguishes this quarantine record, though, is the concluding “Glare of Glory,” an oddity inspired by Ely’s youthful exploits as a circus performer. The calliope like orchestration may take you to the Big Top, but the mix of reflection and confession places Ely on solid ground: “If anyone wonders what kept me going… if they don’t know by now, it ain’t worth knowing.”

Margo Price: “That’s How Rumors Get Started”

The honky tonk spirit prevalent on Price’s two previous albums takes a back seat to a broader country-pop sweep on “That’s How Rumors Gets Started,” a shift the album-opening title tune sets in motion with an obvious vocal nod to Stevie Nicks. But anyone viewing the record as a sellout needs to grasp a bigger picture. With co-production help from Kentuckian Sturgill Simpson, another country renegade who set sail for rock and pop pastures, Price cracks open the thematic and stylistic reach of her music, whether it’s through the Go Go’s-esque swirl of “Restless Heart” or the churchier strut of “Prisoner of the Highway.” The concluding “I’d Die for You” sets all of this terrain ablaze with a chunky, anthemic drive that crescendos with the kind of vocal bravado indicative of serious rock ‘n roll drama.

Neil Young: “Homegrown”

In listening to the archived songs that make up “Homegrown” one is left with a curious realization – namely, there was a period in Young’s career where his expert output was so prolific that he could afford to discard music of this quality. “Homegrown” was recorded during sessions that fell between two of Young’s greatest and most underappreciated albums (1974’s “On the Beach” and 1975’s “Zuma”). Several of its songs would eventually surface, in different versions, on later albums. But having the original takes together, along with such unsettled country excavations as “Vacancy” and “Separate Ways,” transports us back to the creative heyday of a storied career. Arguably the finest of Young’s recent string of archival albums.

Richard Thompson: “Bloody Noses”

On “As Soon As You Hear the Bell,” the opening song of longstanding British guitarist/songwriter Thompson’s new digital-only EP, we hear a blend of world-weary sentiment (“Just make sure you come out swinging”) and traditionally spiked folk lyricism that echoes his early days with Fairport Convention. But that’s one of the many musical profiles revealed during these predominantly acoustic songs cut during the early lockdown days. “She’s a Hard Girl to Know” echoes the more volatile romantic waters that have long run through Thompson’s songs, “The Fortress” summons a heady, electric reckoning and “What’s Up With You?” sounds like Buddy Holly bopping down a dark London alley. In other words, typically sublime Thompson music.