It’s fun to hear Willie Nelson sing such words as “ninja,” “fishmonger” and “absinthe,” which are among the many pleasures found in the songbook of influential country songwriter Rodney Crowell.

“Oh What A Beautiful World” is Nelson’s latest album devoted to the songs of a specific songwriter, and in Crowell, he’s interpreting a kindred spirit. While Crowell has a slightly different lyric vocabulary, both are Texans with a deep love of Hank Williams.

The pairing — great songs and a great singer — works beautifully.

He has long sounded ageless, but more than ever, Nelson, 92, sings like a sage. His reedy tenor can be whispery, but he displays surprising vocal range. His relaxed, conversational delivery is filled with warmth and wisdom. He’ll start a phrase late, end it early and make it seem perfect.

When he reminisces about childhood on “Banks of the Old Bandera” — originally recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker — Nelson sounds just like he did in 1976, the year the song was written. Other material ranges from “Shame on the Moon,” a 1982 pop hit for Bob Seger, to Crowell’s overlooked gem “She’s Back in Town.”

Longtime Nelson collaborator Buddy Cannon produced the record, and the backing musicians provide graceful, tasteful support. Nelson’s beloved guitar Trigger plays a significant role, including on a careening, don’t- try-this-at-home solo on the title cut, a duet with Crowell.

Also among the highlights is “The Fly Boy & The Kid,” a prayerlike shuffle with playful lyrics that Nelson lean into. He’s equally frisky doing roadhouse blues on “She’s Back in Town,” while elsewhere the mood tends toward contemplative. “The days go by like flying bricks,” Nelson sings on the handsome ballad “Open Season On My Heart.”

More than any other song in the set, “Still Learning How to Fly” seems as if it was written for Nelson. Nearing the end of the album — Nelson’s 154th, according to Texas Monthly’s herculean ranking of his prolific discography — he sings: “I’ve got a past that I won’t soon forget/ And you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He sounds as if he means it. — Steven Wine, Associated Press

Electro-poppers Sofi Tukker’s third studio album, “Bread,” is an acronym for “Be Really Energetic and Dance,” a mantra that the Grammy- nominated American duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern have long embraced.

But before it was an abbreviation, “Bread” was a literal reference. They view the food as a kind of physical embodiment of energy; the carbohydrates keep them moving. And on “Bread,” they want their music to do the same for their listeners.

Sofi Tukker is known to animate. Festival crowds have been drawn to the dynamic, colorful sets and multilingual, genre- agnostic sounds since 2017, when Sofi Tukker first played Coachella — a year before the release of the duo’s debut album “Treehouse.” And while creating bossa-nova, jungle- and house-inspired pop has always been their bread and butter, they’re also trusted DJs with repeat gigs in the party capitals of Las Vegas and Ibiza, Spain.

With “Be Really Energetic and Dance” as a thesis statement, the new album is joyful even when it references less-than- optimistic subjects. Take “Throw Some Ass,” the album’s lead single.

“Hey Doctor? Can you give me something stronger?/ I’ve tried everything you’ve offered,” Hawley-Weld lists the remedies she’s tried until landing on what works. “Throw some ass, free the mind,” she sings before the beat drops. There’s a deeper truth behind the feel-good approach — there’s a pain the dance masks.

And it works: The song pairs Hawley-Weld’s soft-sung, winking lyrics with chants and electric dance breaks by Halpern, to push forward their salve for suffering.

Nothing is predictable in Sofi Tukker’s collaged jungle-pop, but the creations are also intentionally accessible, as good dance music must be.

“Woof,” which features Nigerian singer- songwriter Kah-Lo, is another example: Halpern repeats the song’s central refrain, “I’ll make you woof,” in his lowest register. Hawley-Weld’s lyrics grab phrases from English, French, German and Portuguese; Kah-Lo provides a verse in English and Yoruba, and the underlying track unites the seemingly-disparate vocal sections into a sort of controlled chaos.

“Don’t need the alphabet to say I want you,” Hawley-Weld croons. They’ll draw from their own instead. And it will be a good time. — Elise Ryan, Associated Press