A faintly preposterous man, much of Topher “Gold Chains” LaFata’s music concerns the international pursuit of well-dressed booty. In a way, he’s a classic hip hop reinvention: a computer geek rebranded as globe-straddling love-magnet who raps, a touch emphysemically, like Tone Loc. Nothing on Young Miss America quite matches GC’s superb first two EPs. Nevertheless, he and producer Kit Clayton still filter R&B, techno, Bollywood, electro and much else through their laptops, and the elaborate raps?more serious than they first appear?make for an inventive debut.

This follow-up to 2000’s Mercury-nominated Sincere once more sees classically-trained producer MJ Cole (Matt Coleman) calling on special guests to help produce a UK garage album that people too old for Ayia Napa can buy. The finest contribution is from Jill Scott on the soulful “Perfect Pitch”, although clearly-barking dancehall star Elephant Man is great on “Madman”. Unfortunately, Cole’s production is so smooth that the album does occasionally slip off the coffee table and into wallpaper territory.

“Excuse me while I go insane,” pleads D’Arby on “Drivin’ Me Crazy”, but sadly he hasn’t gone insane here?TTD was always at his best when he gave free rein to his manias. He may now call himself Sananda Maitreya, but the name D’Arby is printed large on the cover, indicating a crisis of confidence.

There are infuriatingly large numbers of interesting ideas on this album, particularly on tracks like “Girl” and “My Dark Places” which touch on idyllic avant-psychedelia, but repeatedly his rasping ‘soul’ voice brings the project crashing back to earth. “O Divina” and the Bond-like “Shadows” may be potential hit singles, but what the album really needs is a Trevor Horn or a Neptune to elevate D’Arby beyond the status of Prince-lite to the realms of the satisfyingly peculiar or truly strange.

Finnish bands: always a good idea. They like their rock’n’roll, but they’re also a bit mad. Excitedly celebrating their record collections, the Stukas hit the ground running with a vigorous mix of Cochran and Holly, ’60s pop, ’70s Sweet, 12-bar a-go-go and a closing epic dressed in Suede. Realistically, there’s little need for the preposterous whistling solos, the sudden falsettos, the bursts of strings, the howling dogs and the maniacal laughter that arise throughout this likeable kicking-up of heels, but it comes with the turf. The Screamin’ Stukas are fun, and funny, and, naturally, “everything’s all right”. So that’s OK, then.

Formed from the ashes of bluesy experimentalists Red Red Meat, Califone’s earliest incarnation saw singer Tim Rutili knocking out ditties on an Apple Mac. After a couple of self-titled EPs, their first full-lengther?2001’s Roomsound?was built around the sequenced beats, found sounds and fuggy rock dynamic of Rutili, Ben Massarella and Brian Deck, along with a revolving door of like-minded cohorts from Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day and Fruitbats.

Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, again recorded at their own Clava Studios, raises further the tension between Roomsound’s old-time American folk and high-tech sleight of hand. At the heart of Califone’s sound is Massarella’s wildly inventive percussion, teasing improvised studio tics, hisses of static and arcane blips of noise into slowly rolling rhythms. Amid the weird loops and bowed bass thrumming like giant elastic bands, Rutili’s voice sounds dredged from the same rustic creek as Will Oldham. There are brushes with conventionality (a deep-bottomed swamp riff on the Delta bluesy “Mean Little Seed”; the strange back-porch mutation of “Stepdaughter”), but even these are thrillingly opaque. There’s plenty of beauty, too. The transfixing acoustic throb of “(Red)” and “Michigan Girls”, for instance, or the way “Horoscopic.Amputation. Honey” twists pinpricks of noise into lovely patterns.

The addition of multi-instrumentalist and walking country-folk oracle Jim Becker on mandolin, banjo and fiddle adds authenticity, particularly on the rakish “Million Dollar Funeral”. Good luck decoding Rutili’s elliptical imagery (“Early minor Japanese pitcher sidearm slow tic/A wolfish mouth/On a mouse-ish face lady from Shanghai third man/Shot wild in the house of mirrors” is one of the clearer passages), but hell, just sit back and admire titles like “When Leon Spinks Moved Into Town” and “Your Golden Ass”. This is one glorious murk.

If Gillian Welch floats your boat, chances are Laura Veirs will, too, though her take on homespun Appalachia is tempered by modernist tendencies. Anyone familiar with 1999’s eponymous guitar-and-voice-only debut will be taken aback here, ditching much of its thorny agit-folk for dreamily intoxicating balladry, sawing strings and near-perfect vocal phrasing. Opener “Lost At Seaflower Cove” and “Tiger Tattoos” are flawless backwoods country pickers, while Danny Barnes (see Roundup, right) duets on the folksy “Ballad Of John Vogelin” and jazz legend/sometime Jeff Buckley collaborator Bill Frisell provides classy fretwork. Scintillating stuff.

It’s now two years since the British music press took leave of its senses in praise of The Strokes-a band whose only mistake was being merely very good when their excessively enthusiastic champions had us believe they were the saviours of rock’n’roll. Like the belated lionisation of The White Stripes that same year, the climate The Strokes instilled?a sometimes desperate reliance on the US underground as the source of hitherto untapped rock’n’roll thrills?seems to have endured.

Which is why, after last year’s introductory self-titled EP (five cuts of sparse, sassy, twangy power-punk) and its equally brilliant follow-up single “Machine”, this first album from fellow New Yorkers the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is already the most eagerly anticipated debut of 2003. The danger of such hype, of course, is that, like The Strokes, people can expect too much.

There’s nothing shockingly new about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs formula; it’s a fairly minimalist bass-free set-up of vocals (the enigmatic Karen O, somewhere between Polly Harvey and Poly Styrene), one guitar (Nick Zinner, somewhere between Link Wray and Jon Spencer) and drums (Brian Chase, somewhere between Art Blakey and Topper Headon).

And yet, in the cold sober light of day, every hysterical column inch already thrust upon them, including Uncut’s own pledge last summer that “the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are going to be COLOSSAL”, seems justified. Reason being that Fever To Tell is, quite simply, magnificent.

Twelve tracks and not a filler among them, Fever To Tell moves with calculated stealth. The first six songs alone cumulatively rival the opening halves of Nirvana’s Nevermind and The Pixies’ Surfer Rosa in terms of punk-guitar savagery, rhythmic brutality and lyrical audacity. Zinner’s riffs are from classic rock’n’roll stock but never sound second-hand (new single “Date With The Night” and “Black Tongue” twang like Dick Dale twang genius) while the echoing harmonic bleeps heralding “Rich” and “Y-Control” are inspired. But the real joy, and surprise, is Karen O, who exceeds all “new Courtney” press tags to emerge by the end of Fever To Tell as the most electrifying female voice since Polly Harvey. One moment she’s gorgeously provocative (“Boy you’re just a stupid bitch and girl you’re just a no-good dick!”), the next she’s a gibbering harpy hyperventilating through “Tick”.

The crunch comes with the album’s final third, where O’s voice assumes an emotional honesty that’ll knock you sideways. It begins with “Maps”, her earnest address to boyfriend Angus Andrews of The Liars (“they don’t love you like I love you”) sung with crucifying tenderness; it’s got ‘Love Song For A Generation’ written all over it. “Y-Control” is a bitterer pill, though just as stirring as O yearns “I wish I could buy back the woman you stole”.

Then the show-stopping “Modern Romance”, a sleepy Galaxie 500 drone over which O chirps with a vulnerable innocence not heard since Moe Tucker on the Velvets’ “After Hours”. And just when you think it’s over comes the killer blow of poignancy, the hidden track “Poor Song”, where Karen beseeches her betrothed “don’t be scared of love” and the crack in her voice tells you she means every syllable.

This is as revitalising a debut as could be hoped for. COLOSSAL, in fact.

Whichever way you slice it, this is a banker. Langford’s recent rollicksome rip-’em-ups with The Waco Brothers are among his most inspired, while Toronto’s largely unheralded Sadies, led by brothers Travis and Dallas Good, are modern roots-rock’s best kept secret, tripping all switches from surf and chicken-scratch country to garage, psychedelia and Morricone twang. Langford leads the charge with his throaty gallop, spitting political venom (the war-baiting “What Makes Johnny Run?”), fellow ex-Mekon Sally Timms adds silver tonsils to “Shipwreck” and pedal-steel great Bob Egan is outstanding throughout.

Subtitled ‘The Bedroom Recordings’, Sadier, with sometime assistance from Pram, airs tracks assembled between 1996 and 2002. And the quality varies. At times displaying her parent band’s exquisite Kraut-MOR arrangements (“Vol De Jour”), more often Socialisme is flat and threadbare (“Un Secret Sans Importance”, “Un Express”). To her credit, Sadier moves away from familiar Stereolab territory. Nocturnal folk and wonky trombone diversions create a lulling atmosphere, while “Graine De Beaut

Michel Amato aka The Hacker is principally known outside of his native France for The First Album, created with long-term collaborator (and current electroclash superdarling) Miss Kittin.

Amato’s solo releases have always recalled early-’80s electro, and his selection here shows the extent to which that sound has mutated with 19 pristine drum-driven tracks, courtesy of amphetamine robo-funkateers Artists Unknown, The Advent, Adult., Dopplereffekt, and The Hacker himself.

Compared with the abstract, buried rhythms of 2002’s Confield, Autechre’s new album sees Sean Booth and Rob Brown cautiously reconnect with humanity. Their titles (“Tapr”, “P:Ntil”) still seem to stem from a dyslexic pharmacy, but through the scratchy fog of the opening “Xylin Room” a beat is dimly discernible. By the time we reach “Surripere” we could be listening to a toughened-up Aphex Twin, poignant harmonies battling against oblique but splintering beats.

“Theme Of Sudden Roundabout” is even danceable, and “V-Proc” would be ambient in more clueless hands, but here the repose is systematically unseated by increasingly fractious electro-blurts.

Initially it seemed like a fun, if limited, concept:four Californian high school girls, all allegedly called Donna, playing snarky bubblegum rock that resembled Joan Jett fronting The Ramones. Five albums on, The Donnas miraculously remain a great idea, legal drinking ages, a major deal and endless repetition notwithstanding.

Men continue to be objects of scorn, and the prevailing aesthetic is still of a sleepover circa 1979. Inspiration, however, has pleasingly shifted to incorporate Cheap Trick, so that Spend The Night emerges as the sharp-minded, dumb-riffed album Courtney Love tried to make with Celebrity Skin. Oh, and singer Donna A’s real name is Brett Anderson. Neat.

Tegan and Sara Quinn know all the right people. Their debut album is released on Neil Young’s Vapor label and they’ve toured in support of Ryan Adams. In truth, they have little in common musically with either of them, and If It Was You is a collection of energetic girl-pop full of surging melodies, VH1-friendly hooks and a fashionable punkiness (one song is called “Want To Be Bad”) that sounds more like Madonna’s discovery Michelle Branch or a grown-up version of Avril Lavigne. They have a more intimate side, heard on “Don’t Confess”and the banjo-laden “Living Room”, which sounds a little like the Be Good Tanyas gone pop. But mostly it’s unashamedly upbeat. And all the more welcome for that.

Following 2001’s debut Beat Your Crazy Head Against The Sky, the only band with a multi-album deal on Alan McGee’s Poptones return with another record of summer ’60s pop. The Byrds and Beach Boys influences are strong, especially on the lilting “Make My Day”and “Looking For Love”. But there is also a whiff of Drawn From Memory-era Embrace, especially in Sunday Times rock critic-turned-frontman Adam Howorth’s winsome vocals. The highlight is the towering “Last Night”, which recalls Mercury Rev’s “The Dark is Rising”. Captain Soul (itself a Byrds song title) mix up classic and contemporary influences, only they do it well.

Followers of Spunk, the all-female improv quartet of which Maria Ratjke is a founder member, will probably constitute the only audience for this, her first solo album, which, to say the least, is challenging, occasionally verging on the unlistenable. No conventional songs, indeed very few conventional vocalisings, feature on this disc in which Ratjke’s strong, attractive voice is electronically processed into firestorms of cut-up noise. Those in the market for experimentalism may find there is something to take their fancy in this uncompromising release.

KILLING TIME BETWEEN MEALS

Vendetta Red caused something of a minor sensation in 2002, with volatile live shows?singer Zach Davidson once inadvertently chewed someone’s skull while stagediving?that won them an astronomical deal with Epic. Between The Never And The Now showcases why, combining fiery, earnest emo-punk with the stadium dynamics of U2 and The Who. At The Drive-In and Sunny Day Real Estate are other plausible comparisons, but neither had quite such shameless anthemic clout. One worry for their paymasters, though: while Vendetta Red seem like a perfect hybrid to satisfy both hardcore and trad rock fans, there’s a chance they might actually alienate the conservative majorities of both tribes.

The 12 tracks on this stunning LP by Bill Halliday and Gareth Jones, labelmates of Uncut favourites The Russian Futurists, were recorded over two years “in various bedrooms in and around Toronto”. Imagine the askew, deadpan pop of early Eno blended with bucolic ’60s West Coast echoes and punctuated by proto-Neptunes breakbeats?hear how the beats on “Are You Lonesome Tonight” (not a Presley cover) suddenly leap out at you from the speakers. Pleasingly, one never knows what to expect: “This Girl And This Boy” is worthy of Brian Wilson, while “In Bloom” sounds like early Richard Carpenter trying his hand at free improv.

Recently seen supporting Arthur Lee and Love on the Forever Changes tour, the debut album from Scotland’s Draw is all fuzzy guitars and histrionics from singer Brent Proctor recalling Catherine Wheel or, more recently, JJ72. The best tracks, such as “Silver Screen”, rock pleasingly enough. Their dreamier side, displayed on “A Chance To Disappear” and “Courage”, is less convincing, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the songs aren’t quite yet good enough to encompass their ambition. One to watch?but some way short of the finished article.

Almost half a century after it headed on the road to corporate domination, rock culture’s unpredictability?in the face of formulae frauds, and trend-setting fatigue?ensures enduring fascination. Two years ago, just before the British media caught the White Stripes bandwagon, who would have thought that Jack and Meg White would be recognised as saviours.

Consider their history. In 1996 Jack Gillis, the owner of a Detroit upholstery store, already a veteran of Motorcity garage rock also-rans Goober And The Peas, The Go and Rocket 88, marries barmaid Meg White. Taking his wife’s surname and passing himself off as her brother, Jack devises a two-piece band based on minimalist but striking red and white presentation and fixated on the base musical elements of blues, punk and country.

The self-titled debut highlights Jack’s incendiary guitar riffs and Meg’s bare-boned drum accents. Alongside the Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan covers, the talent for transmuting folk narratives into rough-diamond pop shines through. A second album, De Stijl, takes its name from the back-to-basics art design school of the early 1900s and emphasises both the Stripes’ primal power and furthers Jack’s funny, thoughtful persona. He’s an out-of-time/out-of-place Southern gentleman laying down a blues code of honour for the post-Generation X kids lost and rootless on the cyber highway.

When the paparazzi on the cover shot of their 2001 major label debut White Blood Cells became reality, heavy rotation on MTV and a Top 30 single, “Hotel Yorba”, followed. The question was: how long could they stand the white heat of the spotlight? The couple had divorced in 2000 and Jack, already making plans to launch an acting career, had made it clear the group had a limited lifespan, and even acolytes thought their career was destined to be played out beneath the mass media radar.

But there was also the hint that they were still keeping some powder dry, adding to their store of mercurial brilliance, ready when the time came to unleash something even more mindblowing than “I Think I Smell A Rat”, funnier than “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)”, even more deranged than “The Big Three Killed My Baby”.

Elephant, a raging, cantankerous beast (recorded in London’s Toerag studios), is where those hints blossom into incontrovertible fact. Laced with enough blue-eyed longing (“You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket”) to make the most diehard Gram Parsons fan weep with wonder and the sort of verbal acuity that would give even Dylanologists pause for thought, Elephant is where the tabloid phenomenon of summer 2001 prove they are no flash in the pan by making a truly phenomenal record.

In its promo double vinyl incarnation, Elephant calls to mind pre-digital double albums like Blonde On Blonde, Exile On Main Street or London Calling. Like those landmarks, it features a group at their peak rejoicing in basic forms while bursting beyond their limitations.

The taut opener, “Seven Nation Army”, explodes with Jack verging on the edge of apoplectic fury. Both here and on the blistering “There’s No Home For You Here”?which climaxes in a talking-tongues outburst of contempt and features an astonishing multi-tracked, Vocodered backdrop?media clamour is a springboard for statements of faith and intent.

Elsewhere, the album’s declared theme?”the death of the sweetheart”?is fleshed out by White exploring blues lore at its most outrageously macho on “Ball And Biscuit”. Centred on a pelvis-pulsing riff overlaid with perfectly aimed bursts of Hendrix hysteria, its uproarious swagger feeds off a succession of great lines: “It’s quite possible that I’m your third man girl/But it’s a fact that I’m the seventh son” or “Tell everybody in the place to just get out and we can get clean together/And I’ll find me a soapbox where I can shout about it”.

A wracked cover version of Bacharach and David’s “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” indicates lofty songwriting intent. The gorgeous “I Want To Be With The Boy” rises to the challenge, the reverberating keyboards and worn vocal recalling the Stones in country-inflected mode. But this is no Primal Scream-style shallow homage, it’s a product of White’s individual and engaging schizophrenia.

When Meg sings the unabashedly sexy “Cold, Cold Night” accompanied by White’s suggestive bass organ pedals, the pleasure this pair take in toying with sexual role-play is palpable. The theme is replayed on the closing “It’s True That We Love One Another”, joined by Billy Childish associate Holly Golightly. The White Stripes devise a singalong love triangle that toys with their own myth. Was the marriage a con or was the divorce a put-on? Or is it simply that their musical relationship really is closer than blood brother and sister?

Such queries are the stuff of website intrigue but ultimately immaterial. The White Stripes’ zeal, the sense of newness they bring to old genres, their incandescent performances and razor-sharp songwriting put forerunners like The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in the shade.

Compared to the Stripes, The Strokes barely register, the one-note pleasures of The Hives and The Datsuns mere ripples to their big bang. They are quite simply in a league of their own. Ladies and gentlemen, your Elephant is ready and waiting.