Oh Susanna’s first two albums displayed Suzie Ungerleider’s diversity. Johnstown (1999) was a stark piece of folk-blues storytelling, while Sleepy Little Sailor (2001) was a lyrical and dreamy alt.country record. Her third album is different again with a roots-rock flavour that on songs such as “Cain Is Rising”, “Little White Lie” and “Unknown Land” finds her sounding like Neko Case backed by Crazy Horse. A ripping take of “I’ll Keep It With Mine”, which wouldn’t have been out of place on Uncut’s compilation of Dylan covers (Take 61, June 2002), is the icing on the cake.

Is the best and most adventurous contemporary pop music coming out of France? Here’s more evidence with the second album by Tahiti 80. With the possible exception of Fleetwood Mac’s Say You Will and Cody Chesnutt’s The Headphone Masterpiece, this is the pop album of 2003 which everyone else will have to beat.

As with Phoenix’s brilliant debut of two years ago, Tahiti 80 have succeeded in marrying blissful ’70s/’80s AOR with up-to-the-minute techniques. One Andy Chase contributes human beatbox to the ballad “Open Book”, but you would hardly notice he was there, such is the alchemy achieved by the group’s leader, Xavier Boyer, who sings and plays guitar, keyboards, piano and bass. Their music is both timeless and timely.

The title song could be this year’s best opening album track. With its chorus of “Wallpaper for the soul/Like the one you stole/A long time ago,” and its alternating between Kid A electro-bleeps and nagging minimalist string lines, it is both disturbing and seductive. Crucial to the music’s success is the Urban Soul Orchestra, with arrangements by veteran Brit Richard Hewson, former Rah Band leader. Uptempo tracks like “1,000 Times” could almost be a non-earnest Style Council. Consider also Hewson’s cleverly bitonal orchestral lines subverting the angst of “The Other Side”.

Straighter pop-rock tracks like “Get Yourself Together”, coupled with Boyer’s affecting choirboy vocals, suggest the route The Boo Radleys should have taken after Wake Up!: deliciously poisoned pop. Note also the subtle contributions of lost pop genius Eric Matthews?the breathy harmony vocals on “Open Book” or the piano maintaining order amid the distended psychedelia of “Fun Fair”. Best of all is “The Train”, which suggests Prefab Sprout as produced by Thomas Bangalter, all breezy chord changes with an avant-electro undertow.

Boyer’s muse is troubled but always vulnerable, and never less than compelling.

Palmer’s contribution to the recent Robert Johnson tribute disc Hellhound On My Trail inspired this stripped-down, spontaneous album completely at odds with the extravagantly produced material which brought him such fame in the mid-’80s. Akin to his eclectic earlier albums such as 1974’s New Orleans-inflected Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley or 1980’s Gary Numan team-up Clues, here he mixes up R&B, funk, cajun and rock with this mixture of self-penned new songs and covers (including “It Hurts Me Too”, “Mama Talk To Your Daughter”, “Hound Dog”, and?bizarrely?ZZ Top’s “TV Dinners”). Self-produced and with Palmer on bass throughout, this is more like it.

Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players

Gospel-loving, sax-playing, ex-fashion model Dana Glover possesses a stunning blue-eyed soul voice and looks to die for in a combination to rival the original Delta Lady, Rita Coolidge. She’s also a powerful writer of classy pop-soul ballads, as she proves on songs such as “Thinking Over” and “Almost Had It All”. But her debut album is ruined by the bombastic production of Matthew Wilder (who helmed No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom). If Glover was given room to breathe, Testimony could have been a Southern classic. Instead, the production forces her hopelessly over the top, like some second-rate, histrionic diva.

The Streets upped the stakes for British beats, but few have successfully followed in Skinner’s wake. After Audio Bullys, 24-year-old Brixton-bred Daniel “Fallacy” Fahey is probably the best bet. What sets his debut apart is the broadness of producer Fusion’s sonic references: “Big ‘N Bashy” is Brithop spiced with dancehall rhythms and ’60s girl-group samples, while “Square Beamer” kicks off like Art Of Noise before stripping down to little more than hand claps and garage bass. Over the top of these thrilling ‘Sarf Lahndan’ soundclashes Fallacy snarls soundbite raps with a ragga twist. These kids will try anything (“Ooh” is a shameless Neptunes rip-off, but it works), and it makes for a gripping listen.

Had this record been released in 1988, it would have been hailed a masterpiece. But memories of the glory days of “Headhunter” have receded, and the rest of the world has long since caught up with and overtaken Front 242.

With half an ear on the electroclash market, they appear to have decided their sound requires no updating so tracks like “Together” and “Matrix” beat the old pulse, complete with growling sub-Dieter Meier vocals. “SEQ 666” is an interminable meditation on a moribund Moroder riff. “So little left to talk about,” they declare on “Triple X Girlfriend”. Well, they said it…

There are records so predicated on mood they can sound dire or wonderful, depending on the circumstances in which you hear them. The first time I listened to Universal Hall was in the car, rushing to an appointment, trying to avoid a parking ticket and generally taking life at a thoroughly unhealthy rush. My immediate conclusion was that Mike Scott had lost it on a bunch of meandering, dirge-like songs lacking any proper tunes and with none of the power or energy of The Waterboys’ 2000 comeback, A Rock In The Weary Land. At least I didn’t get a parking ticket. But I couldn’t face the record again on the drive home.

With trepidation I returned to the album late one night. And a revelation awaited. Suddenly it sounded magical. Tunes that had previously seemed to meander aimlessly somehow found subtle shape and form. The vibe was certainly very different from the more worldly A Rock In The Weary Land. But it still surged with energy and spiritual intensity.

The difference between the two records is simple but profound. Whereas that last Waterboys LP explored darkness, Universal Hall finds Scott stepping back into the light. The titles say it all?”This Light Is For The World”, “The Christ In You”, “Seek The Light”. The predominantly acoustic performances are enhanced by the return of fiddle player Steve Wickham for the first time since 1990’s Room To Roam. His magnificent playing’s perfectly matched by Scott’s soft and ethereal delivery as the album swells to an understated climax on the transporting born-again Celtic soul of the title track, which will put you in mind of Astral Weeks. A magical, mystical record. But its qualities are precious. Be careful where and when you play it.

Given the romantic movement began in Germany, it’s odd that the country is today known for electronic experimentalism rather than emotional warmth. Maximilian Hecker’s name may not belong in the same breath as Beethoven or Go

Italian-American Reed’s time in Berlin has seen her conquer the same scene as Peaches and Chilli Gonzales. The Best Of Barbra Brockhaus is a stream-of-consciousness confessional detailing a bored secretary’s finger-sucking sexual fantasies set to a mixture of lo-fi electronica and garage rock. On the less offensive end of the electro-sleaze spectrum, the album succeeds by dint of Reed’s witty lyrics and faux naif delivery. Two video clips are included on the disc.

Ray Wilson, in case you had forgotten, is the unfortunate soul who replaced Phil Collins in Genesis. On Change, he attempts to reinvent himself as a sensitive singer-songwriter. Needless to say, it’s better than Collins’ recent stinker?but that’s not saying much. The opening tracks, “Goodbye Baby Blue” and “Change”, are pleasant but forgettable, like a couple of Eagle-Eye Cherry B-sides. Things look up once the attempts to get on the Radio Two playlist are out of the way. But by then, it’s a bit late.

Though the Fabulous Thunderbird’s ’80s hits veered close to ZZ Top territory, the band’s live show has always been an old-school blues revue nonpareil. T-Birds singer/harmonica man Kim Wilson’s solo career has continued in that vein, and Lookin’ For Trouble is steeped in the tradition, from Chicago blues to New Orleans R&B flavouring. Wilson moves the clock forward by including a fair amount of original material, but renderings of gems by old masters such as Jimmy Rogers, Snooky Pryor, and Willie Dixon lend the proceedings the timeless quality that blues connoisseurs demand.

This has already been a vintage year for male singer-songwriters, with impressive albums from Ed Harcourt, Tom McRae, Ian McCulloch and Daniel Lanois. What chance, then, for a precocious 22-year-old in such esteemed company?

Actually, Adam Masterson has made an album worthy of any of the above. He has the right pedigree: his second gig was in support of the Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones at the Irving Plaza in New York, his producer is Mick Glossop and his backing band includes Kate St John and Johnny Scott?all collaborators with Van Morrison.

One Tale Too Many’s eight tracks are all shimmering, end-of-summer songs imbued with a voice that’s half Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz and, on “What Yesterday Brings”, half Richard Ashcroft. Indeed, this is the sort of record that Ashcroft really ought to be making?epic in ambition yet warm and intimate.

It’s Masterson’s voice that captivates throughout. The fags-and-whiskey croak of “We’re The Last” is far removed from the delicate lament of “Into Nowhere Land”. “Sunlight Song” and “Same Sad Story” are the highlights, the former a simple but beautiful lyric set to an almost entirely acoustic backing, while the latter, on which Masterson manages a passable imitation of Bruce Springsteen, features an enormous chorus. “Sarah Queen Of England” is the one occasion on which the lyrics fail to hold the song by descending into mawkishness.

It’s easy to see why Masterson cites Ryan Adams as an influence?both write accomplished songs without giving a damn about hit singles. One Tale Too Many could be the first step towards Ryan Adams-style success.

A sparkling debut.

In the mid-’90s, Medicine’s ravishing dream-pop filled the void vacated by MBV. Alan McGee even licensed them to Creation. Now on maverick dance label Wall Of Sound, Medicine are radically different if no less remarkable. Lynchpin Brad Laner has teamed up with Shannon Lee, breathy vocalist and daughter of Bruce Lee. They’ve devised a weird but workable collision of Beach Boys/West Coast harmonies with beats’n’glitches electronica and mangled sci-fi noise. The love and sex theme is earthy, but everything else sounds beamed in from another galaxy. “Wet On Wet”, “Astral Gravy” and “Negative Capability”?studio physics times plastic harmonics?are stunning futurist pop. Even the hollow feeling in parts accentuates the surface thrills. Sexy and strange.

Nastasia crept to prominence last year with her superb second album, The Blackened Air. For Run To Ruin, the formula remains broadly similar: a creaky but precise gypsy orchestra; sensitive production by Steve Albini; doleful vocals that recall a superficially composed Kristin Hersh. Nastasia, though, writes better songs than Hersh has in years, and this time they’re less couched in rustic whimsy, more intimate and needling. Witness the sexual tension-packed “You Her And Me”, where a road trip turns into an unnerving psychodrama. Spare, beautiful, outstanding.

Thank God for The Cramps. Though a quarter-century old, singer Erick “Lux Interior” Purkhiser and guitarist Kirsty “Poison Ivy Rorschach” Wallace’s unique musical Molotov cocktail of ’50s rock’n’roll riffs shaken and stirred with comic book imbecility and B-movie vulgarity is as window-rattlingly grand as ever. “Dr Fucker MD” and “Elvis Fucking Christ!” really are as good as their titles deserve, while “Fissure Of Rolando” is as frisky as anything from 1986’s career high, A Date With Elvis. You thought they didn’t make them like this any more? The Cramps just have!

Imagine the quiet experimentation of Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock developed further, but with Morten Harket on vocals. There is the same blurred angst familiar from A-Ha, but in a chamber jazz setting (acknowledged lyrically on “Polder One”) with tendencies towards systems music and minimalism. The gorgeous chord changes of “The Gap” coexist with the weeping cyclical guitar motif that lights up “Plainfield” or the restless freeform drumming on “Nightsweeping”. Surface tranquillity is balanced out by elements of lyrical disturbance, most clearly on “Waterspace”. (“I could break your spine”). The sort of record David Sylvian should be making.

After his collaboration with Simon Wickham-Smith yielded the semi-legendary Lake in the early ’90s, subsequent hook-ups with Acid Mothers Temple and Damon & Naomi have compounded Youngs’ reputation as one of the foremost toilers in the avant-garde underground. Recorded in his adopted Glasgow, his fifth solo outing employs a bag of tricks from 12-string acoustic through five-string banjo, ring modulator, square wave generator and theremin, sometimes within the same song (see 17-minute closer “Machaut’s Dream”). Youngs’ voice, fragile yet tough, is the perfect warp to the hypnotic weft of Eastern drones, circular riffs and raga-like meditations.

Man, this is awesome. Sunn O))) are two druidic Americans who play crushingly slow doom chords much in the style of their mentors (and Kurt Cobain associates) Earth. White 1 is an hour-long, three-track exploration of the transformative properties of monolithic drone rituals and bowel-quaking sub-bass, a little like Black Sabbath with all the tunes, energy and humanity ruthlessly purged. By Sunn O)))’s standards, it’s actually quite accessible. So spluttery drum programs propel “The Gates Of Ballard”, while “My Wall” features a Wodanist invocation from Julian Cope, who perfectly vocalises this wonderful band’s might and inherent daftness.