Plastic Ono Band: Between My Head and the Sky

(Chimera Music)

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Though her iconic status comes from being John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono’s music “stands on its own,” said Jason Heller in The Onion. With the help of son Sean she has revived the Plastic Ono Band, the experimental project she and Lennon began in the late 1960s and put to rest in 1975. Between My Head and the Sky is a wildly diverse collection of “brawny, brainy avant-rock with a heart of icy pop.” Yoko slips in her infamous yelps and occasional birdcalls, but “this isn’t just rock as spoken word,” said Thom Jurek in All Music Guide. It is a “deeply focused, wonderfully colorful, and deeply expressive work.” “Memory of Footsteps” evokes pathos through a bluesy trumpet. “I’m Going Away Smiling” is a quietly melancholic piece of her soul. “I’m Alive” is 20 seconds of pure poetry, said Will Hermes in Rolling Stone. At 76, Ono proves capable of producing music that’s “truly vital: unsettling, touching, funny, undeniable.”