Jesse Harris won a Grammy recently when “Don’t Know Why”, one of the five songs he wrote for Norah Jones’ album Come Away With Me, beat even Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” to song of the year. But don’t be confused. Harris’ own music has little in common with Jones’ smooth jazz-pop. The night after the Grammies, he was back with his band performing his folk-country-roots-rock songs for 80 people in the Living Room, the tiny Lower East Side club in New York where he plays every week.

After beginning his career as half of the duo Once Blue, who recorded an album for EMI in 1995, Harris formed the Ferdinandos and has spent the last six years making home-spun albums on his own label and selling them at gigs. He met Jones when he played the University of North Texas, where she was a student. She was sent by the faculty to pick up the band from their hotel.

Away from his eight-million-selling side project with her, The Secret Sun is Harris’ fourth album with the Ferdinandos and was made as inexpensively as its predecessors. He was about to start selling it from his living room via the Internet when Blue Thumb signed him. The songs are ridiculously catchy, but not stupidly so, spanning the panoply of American roots styles with a healthy troubadour tendency and a delivery as effortless as Neil Young or Ryan Adams. Indeed, opener “Just A Photograph” could have appeared on Heartbreaker without seeming out of place. “What Makes You” is a beguiling country duet with a sultry Jones. There are lazy Southern waltzes and bucolic ballads, while “All My Life” and “You Were On My Mind” rock with ragged glory. The traditional “Roberta” (more commonly known as “Alberta”) is the only non-original on an album that establishes Harris as one of the finest contemporary US songwriters to emerge in recent years.

SFA are everything alternative rock should be but so rarely is any more: earthy but smart, daft but entrancing, blissed-out while still politically engaged. Super Furries are the opposite of Britrock?nu-psychedelic artists carving new shapes into old rock formations.

If the big-budget Rings Around The World didn’t quite live up to its hype, and if the lo-fi Mwng deserved to be heard by millions more than did, Phantom Power is somewhere ‘twixt the two. For me the Furries are at their most affecting when least wacky, so the high points here include the mind-bender that is “The Piccolo Snare” and “Sex, War And Robots”, a pedal-steel-graced country cousin to Rings’ “Run! Christian Run!” Imagine The High Llamas reworking a lost George Harrison song and you’ll get the idea.

First single “Golden Retriever” is a splendid folk-glam romp, and the fuzz-metal “Out Of Control” almost transcends its own silliness. This side of Furry frontman Gruff Rhys is never going to move me like “Pan Ddaw’r Wawr”, but I’m happy to tag along for the ride. Ploughing a course between these are two orchestral interludes, both called “Father Father”, arranged by the Llamas’ ubiquitous Sean O’Hagan (the modern-day Jack Nitzsche?), plus a scattering of songs (the Beatleish “Hello Sunshine”, the dippy tropicalia of “Valet Parking”) that juggle whimsy with heartfelt humanity in typically Furry fashion.

An album of hope and humour and beauty, Phantom Power is frequently as deep and mysterious as its title intimates. Feel it for yourself.

Oddballs Peter Zaremba and Keith Streng bossed these Fleshtones at the tail end of the NYC No Wave, although they were less po-faced than their peers and preferred to rifle the riffs from the greasier end of the romper room. That blueprint stays in place on this modern take. Rock’n’roll

Widely known in the US for his work on MTV, Liam Lynch is recognisable over here only for his “United States Of Whatever” single, which was initially funny but quickly became irritating. The same can largely be said of his debut LP, Fake Songs. Based around some laughably accurate and truly entertaining pastiches of artists including Bj

Unsung, under-rated but undeterred, Nils Lofgren goes on making exquisitely crafted melodic rock just as he has done since his days with Grin and Crazy Horse. A double live album recorded at the Ram’s Head Tavern, Maryland probably isn’t going to convert anyone, but it’s a fine showcase for his guitar-drenched heartland rock on such classic Lofgren compositions as “Two By Two” and “White Lies”. Neil Young, Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen have all employed him. Why the rest of the world doesn’t get his talent remains a mystery.

A big hit in their homeland with the catchy but vacuous “Do It With Madonna” single, The Androids are a depressing example of what passes for ingenuity in trivia and pop culture-obsessed times. The glossed-up grunge tunes nag like a bad toothache, while “Brand New Life” manages to be simultaneously clueless and cynical. Avril Lavigne fans may find it radical, but The Androids are as potent as Junior Disprin.

It comes as something of a surprise to discover that Chris Farlowe?one of the voices of British R&B in the ’60s and singer of the original version of “Handbags And Gladrags”?is still recording and in fiery form at the age of 62. Recorded in London last year, Farlowe That! finds Farlowe working through a 14-track programme, giving it loads in every phrase.

Perhaps one for the older buyer, this raunchy album, which includes an appearance by Van Morrison, is anachronistic, but none the worse for it.

No artfully stark Johnny Cash-style reinvention here. Jones still lives in an America untouched by rock’n’roll, a working-class white truck-stop world which is now itself a kind of underground from MTV’s ‘alternative’ mainstream. He and Sherrill (begged out of retirement, and relatively restrained in the string-laden ‘countrypolitan’ arrangements he’s famed for) are both from Southern preaching families and showbiz veterans, qualities which combine in sentimental spirituality, delivered with the kind of conviction you hear in early ’70s Elvis. The pain in the songs is sublimated in Jones’ still-pure voice. Get over the culture shock, and you may feel comforted.

This post-rock outfit emerged from the ashes of Electric Company in 1994. Since then, they’ve regularly dusted down the motorik art-rock template. Promise Of Love doesn’t differ, either. Stereolab-style drones wrestle with dazed boy/girl harmonies and angular guitar lines. While nothing new, a hypnotic hum and gently insistent melody sees them through. “Continuous Hit Music”and “The Hatist”show how potent drone rock can be.

When founder member Daniel Wylie quit to pursue solo interests, fans of this melodically charged Glasgow quartet probably thought their time was up. Critical acclaim and a flirtation with the Top 40 didn’t make them household names, yet they’ve persevered. Guitarist Stephen Fleming assumes vocal duties on 14 tracks that maintain the band’s allegiance to an Eagles/Byrds template, while the close harmony work and hook-driven tunes like “Because You” and “The Need To Fly” will keep core Cosmologists happy.

A Kevin Coyne dance album? Not quite, but Carnival has as many moments of upbeat joy as pained contemplation. Tired of being consigned to a pigeonhole for troubled eccentrics, the prolific novelist/artist/musician now resident in Germany lets loose on the Bobby Parker-alike “Wobble” and gives his unique twist to the stabbing electro of “Party Party Party”. Coyne’s partnership with son Robert (co-producer/songwriter) continues to mine new territory. The spare, icy poetry of “Missing You” masterfully contrasts with a seething rearrangement of Muddy Waters’ “Rolling And Tumbling”. Only a true original could breath new life into the latter, and Coyne still fits that bill.

The Magic Band without its Captain makes surprising sense. After all, the freakish aspect of Trout Mask Replica was the way the musically limited Beefheart left its detailed creation to his talented, tyrannised group?drummer John French being charged with laboriously translating the Captain’s mental scraps of shattered blues, Ornette Coleman and poetry into playable music. Mark Boston was at those sessions, too, while Gary Lucas was around for the finish of 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow, before Beefheart transformed back into Don Van Vliet, respected painter and desert recluse.

The Magic Band’s invitation to Autechre’s All Tomorrow’s Parties, and the current running from them through Pere Ubu, Tom Waits and The Fall to today’s avant-rock, shows their continued relevance. But these rehearsals of old favourites can’t yet prove the contention of several Trout Mask veterans: that the control freak Captain hobbled as well as inspired a Band who would sometimes have been more Magic without him.

French bravely stands in on vocals, imitating but not inhabiting Beefheart’s tortured growl. Direct comparison to original tracks shows little difference in the new line-up, bar Denny Walley and Lucas’ guitars sometimes sliding into each other, and markedly better mouth organ (Beefheart’s main instrumental contribution). Listening to “Steal Softly Through The Snow”, though, the Magic Band’s specialness still shines. Its unnaturally clipped guitars and off-kilter beats sound remarkably like Four Tet’s current computer-constructed tunes out on electronica’s frontier. Tumbling, collapsing yet somehow coherent, it still travels new roads for music. Beefheart’s notorious divide-and-rule band regime surely helped create its sound of conflicted unity. But the gleeful chatter on Back To The Front shows those moods are a bad memory for this Happy Band. With a new record proper promised for later this year, we’ll see what they add to their lost leader’s legacy.

Their first album without guitarist Rob Hotchkiss hasn’t brought much change to Train’s unadventurous sonic template. Frontman Pat Monahan still writes songs that manage to sound both prosaic and pompous. How does he do that? Rhyming “lazy” and “Patrick Swayze” on “All American Girl” helps, striking petulant frat-rock poses on the title track reinforces the impression, and the windy mock-thoughtful anthem “Your Every Colour” seals the deal. Passengers for Dullsville please form an orderly queue.

A former member of Adult Rodeo, US-born/Berlin-based Kristin “Kevin Blechdom” Erickson’s debut solo album is a humorous, idiosyncratic exploration of womanhood that blends elements of Flaming Lips-style psychedelic whimsy with the more aggressive electro-punk attitude typical of the Chicks On Speed label. This spontaneous, schizophrenic, at times incoherent album of banjo-driven laptop pop includes a delightfully tuneless rendition of Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”, and comes with a fantastic hand-illustrated fold-out song sheet.

Few contemporary bands understand psychedelia’s weird mix of weightlessness and heaviosity better than Bardo Pond. Now onto their sixth album, they definitely improve with age, cutting back on the feedback murk that made their early work bracing but impenetrable. Isobel Sollenberger’s forlorn folk vocals, or her flute playing, lead the band through stark, funereal-paced reveries and onwards to grinding stoner-rock drones. Striving a little hard for cosmic resonance, perhaps, but On The Ellipse remains an excellent soundtrack for contemplating the patterns of your mildewed Turkish rug.

Comparisons are unfair. But when eldest son sounds so like father, Ziggy Marley rather invites it. Recorded in Hollywood with various Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dragonfly represents the total Americanisation of reggae. “I Get Out” borrows the riff from “Get Up Stand Up” and sounds like Matchbox Twenty messing around with a reggae rhythm during a soundcheck. “Looking” could be something Eagle-Eye Cherry might have recorded for a Bob Marley tribute. “Lost am I in my memories of my forefathers’ legacy,” Ziggy sings on “Shalom Salaam”. Quite.

As a kind of Vaudevillian busker for the post-rock cabal, multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Jacobsen is quite a phenomenon, often playing four things at once in his live shows. Unfortunately; much of the novelty is lost in the transition to CD. Lovely trinkets like “Walking To Weston’s” and “Blue Bellow” suggest a kind of sea-shanty systems music, but much here is too quirky to withstand repeat listens, even when Jacobsen drops the one-man band schtick and transforms himself into a doo wop group.

Newly energised by US/UK activities in the Gulf, Chumbawamba have chosen to re-record their 1998 album archiving the folk music of struggle. Starting with “The Cutty Wren”, written at the time of the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381, this largely a cappella album covers material relating to the Diggers, the Luddite Rebellion, the Chartist movement and the First World War, and comes (nearly) up to date with the 1984-5 miners’ strike. Sweetly sung and simply produced, these songs have a caustic political edge sadly missing from most of contemporary music.

On paper, this is a pretty good idea. Given the poise of Radiohead’s best work, one imagines they’d stand up well to this kind of treatment, but this collection of 15 reinterpretations falls short of being anything more than a curiosity. The six-string discord of songs like “Airbag” and “Subterranean Homesick Alien” is translated clumsily and unimaginatively, and O’Riley’s habit of replicating Thom Yorke’s vocal lines soon grates, having an alchemy-in-reverse effect of turning even the most affecting compositions into muzak. A spurious attempt at bestowing classical gravitas upon an already respectable oeuvre, then. Stick to the originals.

Saloon ended 2002 with their track “Girls Are The New Boys” voted No 1 in John Peel’s Festive 50. This second album features even more potential vote-winners. While reliant on Stereolab’s Kraut-Parisian sound, Saloon’s masterful blending of mournful folk violins and nocturnal acoustics casts a woozy atmospheric shadow. “Qu