By 1995 Pavement were already being taken for granted, so it’s easy to overlook how potent this record remains. “We Dance” is perhaps their most tender song, but their net spreads much wider to include warped Americana (“Father To A Sister Of Thought”), Meat Puppets-style rural studies (“Rattled By The Rush”), and the Neu!-meets-“Sister Ray” workout of “Half A Canyon”. Here, songs derail into unexpected territories?hear how “Grave Architecture” rises from Style Council-like repose into H

An oft-overlooked Great British Lyricist, Newell’s work is littered with a closely-observed cast of oddballs, eccentrics and losers. Helped out by XTC’s Dave Gregory on guitar, and Louis Philippe, who arranged the strings and produced the whole affair, the album took just 23 days to make. Newell’s ’60s-influenced songs provide an emotional, personal and social commentary on fin de siecle Britain. Additional tracks include two readings from Newell’s book, This Little Ziggy, and a live DVD of “The Jangling Man”.

TRUE LOVE AND HIGH ADVENTURE

BOTH BMG/GRAVITY

The first two albums from brothers Julian and Danny Wilson’s Grand Drive, both originally released on Loose, established them as leading British exponents of Americana. Last year’s third album was the band’s most assured to date, but still lacked that killer song to confer immortality. All their influences are on parade on these earlier albums, from Jayhawks to Teenage Fanclub. The harmonies are top drawer, the guitars shimmer, and all that’s missing is that indefinable extra spark. Never mind. It took the Fanclub three attempts to come up with Bandwagonesque and for the Jayhawks to arrive at Hollywood Town Hall. Listening to Grand Drive, you suspect it’s just a matter of time.

The first significant rock act to emerge from the ailing communist states, Yugoslavia (or Slovenia’s) Laibach were disconcerting to some, hilarious to others. Their militaristic posturing and musical fanfares, totalitarian iconography, gravel-scrunching backbeats and antlers drew accusations of fascism, but Laibach were explicitly anti-Nazi. In fact, their music, like “Hrava Gruda?Pldna Zemjla”, is best taken as a poker-faced, complex satire on totalitarianism. They were also wryly aware of the latent fascistic tendencies of pop music. Sadly, their version of Queen’s “One Vision” is not included, but their take on Opus’ “Life Is Life”, administered like a whip-master’s chant to the galley slaves, is here in all its

pseudo-pomp.

Though Mo’Wax and Metalheadz compilations were apparently the primary influence behind the new wave of French dance, these tracks have a spaciousness inherited from ’80s techno?basically, they reinvented French dance music in the ’90s. The first CD is by far the better: familiar tracks like Air’s “Modulor Mix” and Daft Punk’s “Musique” are joined by the ominous calm of Motorbass’ “Bad Vibes” and the distorted scrawls of guitars and film samples filling Alex Gopher’s “Mandrake”. The second CD is mostly an MOR morass, the standout being the multilayered Rubik’s Cube that is I:cube’s “Power Sandwich”.

COLTRANE

BOTH IMPULSE DELUXE EDITIONS

Just when you think you’ve collected everything by The John Coltrane Quartet, the Impulse tape fairy devises another way of reselling you Trane’s back cat. But what the hell. Truly, this music sounds even fresher today than when it was recorded at the dawn of the ’60s. Over the years, the saxman’s post-A Love Supreme spiritual quests tend to overshadow the lush, lyrical side of his work, and Ballads again focuses upon such virtues. The addition of alternate takes (Ballads includes five of “Greensleeves” and seven of “It’s Easy To Remember” while Coltrane offers four extra takes of “Tunji”) and newly discovered tracks has expanded the 12-inch albums to double CDs. Listen and marvel.

MENDOCINO

TOGETHER AFTER FIVE

ALL ACADIA

San Antonio’s Sir Doug was christened during the British Invasion but never let too much beat bother him, aside from the catchy “She’s About A Mover”. With his band of hombres, Doug Sahm sung for the hippie era, extolled the virtues of exotic cheroots and helped invent the faux cowboy renegade movement on “Mendocino” and “Lawd, I’m Just A Country Boy In This Great Big Freaky City”. His early, raucous recordings have stayed fresh, and the plethora of bonus tracks will keep fans buzzing.

Various Artists

THE ORIGINAL ELECTRO ALBUM

EMI GOLD

Various Artists

THE VERY BEST EUPHORIC OLD SKOOL BREAKDOWN

TELSTAR

Various Artists

RAVE ON! 16 RAVE CLASSICS 4 PARTY PEOPLE

DEMON

Hell is other people’s irony. You may have had one of the most enjoyable, miserable or meaningful nights of your youth as Wham! or Five Star or Blue Pearl pounded away in the background. You’d relish the tackiness of your own nostalgia except, trouble is, everyone does. You are no different for being aware of tragic-comic juxtaposition than are pop quiz hosts, or TV schedulers, or the people who bung together these compilations, which will briefly sell by the lorry-load. Your granddad’s Chuck Berry is your Paul Hardcastle, your dad’s Alvin Stardust is your Adamski. It goes on. You are a face in the crowd.

Choose 80s Dance is as good as it could be?for every staccato killer (Shannon, Tone Loc) there’s a bloated belch (Falco, Yazz). Frankie Goes To Hollywood, an idea gloriously beyond its era, transcends it. Stock, Aitken and Waterman don’t. Paula Abdul was, one feels years later, terribly underrated.

The Original Electro Album is svelte, though there have been plenty of similar ‘electroclash blueprint’ albums appearing lately. The synthespians are all here?The Human League, Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds. Japan, as ever, sound a plane above, and Ultravox’s “Thin Wall” is a much-maligned stonker. “Things were much better 10 years ago!” hollers The Very Best Euphoric Old Skool Breakdown. Can we beg to differ? The repetition is cloying; ‘euphoria’ a cheapened noun. Black Box (actually from 1989) dominate; Snap, M People and Technotronic try to, like bullies. Rave On! thumps from that irksome twit Moby to Rozalla screeching that everybody’s free to go baaah with the rest of the herd. You are advised to dance with tears in your eyes.

“The best band in the world” is how Kurt Cobain described Glasgow’s finest after hearing their 1991 landmark, Bandwagonesque. For others, TFC’s rock classicism reeks of retrograde conservatism. In their decade-plus existence, though, these Glaswegians have neither conquered the globe nor become a malign trad rock presence. Instead they’ve evolved into an alternative national institution.

Just check this pristine 21-track pop jukebox. The brilliantly realised Big Star pastiche “The Concept”, “I Need Direction” and its endless flow of hooks and harmonies, or the massive chorus of “About You”?they all show that, when it comes to richly melodic guitar pop, Teenage Fanclub have a 100 per cent strike rate.

It helps that Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley are such individually strong tunesmiths. Endowed with this much talent, it’s churlish to demand breakbeats or abstract electronica from them. Even at their most ragged and fuzzbox-charged, such as on first single “Everything Flows” and 1991’s “Starsign”, you can’t deny their innate pop sensibility. Here, the influence of Brian Wilson, The Zombies, The Byrds and Big Star doesn’t induce drab mustiness, but a vitality that ensures “What You Do To Me”, “Ain’t That Enough” and “Sparky’s Dream” sound freshly minted.

There’s little here that’s afraid of ambition and mass acceptability. After all, there is a track called “Radio”?precisely where Teenage Fanclub have always wanted, and indeed deserve, to be. Quite simply, it’s a travesty that commercial success has consistently eluded them, even with a record as perfect, and perfectly timed, as 1995’s Grand Prix. And quite why they’re not as sainted as those other classic pop alchemists, The Stone Roses and The La’s, is a mystery, too. Maybe they’re just too nice, too un-fucked-up.

Nevertheless, for Teenage Fanclub’s diehards?indie kids turned couple-bound thirtysomethings?the band make more ‘sense’ than ever. Their heart-on-sleeve romanticism and uncynical love of love resounds with the joys of monogamous bliss. Despite their name, there’s very little about the Fanclub that’s adolescent.

Best news of all is that such goggle-eyed brilliance doesn’t end here. New track “The World’ll Be OK” continues where last year’s Velvets-tinged Words Of Wisdom And Hope left off, while “Empty Space” sees bassist Love refine his knack for silvery, autumnal melancholia.

Their electroclash album, however, will have to wait. For now and forever, it’s five-part harmonies and West Coast smarts all the way. Got a problem with that?

Thought not.

It was almost genius. Capitalising on an eccentrically dedicated fan base while exploiting the fragility of the ever dwindling singles market, in 1992 The Wedding Present, hitherto tagged as “shambling”, achieved the momentous feat of 12 consecutive Top 40 hits from January to December, each limited to seven-inch vinyl, each featuring a typically lovelorn original backed with an esoteric cover.

A lone victory for romantic indie-schmindie in the age of Snap and Right Said Fred, it ensured “the Weddoes” a permanent place in the Guinness Book Of Records, their only Top 10 hit (“Come Play With Me”) and David Gedge, patron saint of the recently dumped, on Top Of The Pops practically every other month.

With a decade’s hindsight, the music itself as collated on this double CD is a rag-bag, although the highlights are sublime in their three-chord splendour. Of the A-sides, the effervescent “Flying Saucer” and the perv-grunge of “Love Slave” were both extraordinary chart coups, while Bowie’s “Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family” (incorporating The Fall’s “Bremen Nacht”) and a heart-ripping revision of Julee Cruise’s Twin Peaks theme “Falling” feature the sort of invention that, like the scam itself, is depressingly absent among today’s white indie guitar hopefuls.

THE SLEEPER

LTM

Formed by ex-Fall members Martin Bramah and Una Baines, Manchester’s The Blue Orchids cut a caustic swathe through the early ’80s with songs like 1981’s “The Greatest Hit” and 1980’s “Work”, featured here as part of a Peel session. Although more melodic and accessible than The Fall, they never quite emulated their success, though The Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets both emulated their inventive use of Hammond organ.

1993’s hitherto unreleased The Sleeper was their last word, notable mainly for the spidery funk of “NY Gargoyles” and the typically angular “The Gun Is A Coward’s Weapon”. A deceptive band whose songs have a way of stalking you.

Gene and Dean Ween pooled their love of twisted death metal, beyond-lo-fi loops and the cult of Boognish, wherein Prince and Funkadelic were ripped up Burroughs style, and still managed to make a totally listenable debut disc in 1990. Pastiching anything on the rock planet and generally snuffling about like a couple of badly behaved weasels in a chicken coop, the Ween kids offend and delight in equal measure. Later on, they polished up their act, but the nascent noise of “Common Bitch” and the sloppy hip hop of “You Fucked Up” mark the card.

Although he died too early, aged 52 in 1997, Townes Van Zandt packed in plenty. He emerged when first-hand knowledge of Elvis, Hank, Dale Watson and Roy Acuff was still possible. Schooled in Texan country blues, Townes learnt the script and added his own erudite slant. This lovingly annotated four-CD box comprises seven studio albums from 1968 to 1978, and a brief live selection from Houston’s Old Quarter. As examples of his scope, “Honky Tonkin'”, “Pancho And Lefty” (a staple of Willie Nelson’s repertoire) and the white gospel of “When He Offers His Hand” cover terrain between old country radio crackle, outlaw and modern alt.sounds. Excellent.

A follow-up to last year’s outtakes and live set, Young, Guitar Days, this companion piece tracks Forbert as he quits Nashville and heads for a YMCA in New York, where he rediscovers his country blues roots. Small-town aches and big city despondency colour the best of these reminiscences. The Jackrabbit Slim sessions throw up a couple of goodies in “Smoky Windows” and “Witch Blues”, while eco-disaster anthem “The Oil Song” retains its resonance. Modest and somewhat underrated, Forbert’s back pages are worth another look.

Ian Gomm

24 HOUR SERVICE

BOTH HUX

A member of ’70s hippie favourites Help Yourself, Morley’s solo debut (backed by forgotten pub-rockers Plummet Airlines) was recorded in 1976 but then got left on the shelf in the fall-out from the punk explosion. The tapes were recently rediscovered and reveal a superb collection of acoustic-driven ballads, blues and country rock that doesn’t sound remotely dated. In fact, Starsailor are currently striving to sound as exquisite as this.

Lost And Found was produced by Brinsley Schwarz’s Ian Gomm, whose own live album from 1979 also sees the light of day for the first time. It’s a rollicking set of juke-box rock with touches of roadhouse country, Graham Parker-style white soul and even the odd Clash influence (on Tommy Roe’s “Everybody”) that proves Nick Lowe wasn’t the only Brinsley with good tunes.

Smokey’s was always the most asexual yet varied of Motown voices, his angelic counter-tenor articulating compassion (“Ooo Baby Baby”), pain (“Tracks Of My Tears”), euphoria (“Going To A Go-Go”) and selflessness (“I Don’t Blame You At All”) via some of the most expressive words and music of the modern age. This two-CD set traces the Miracles’ ascent from their doo-wop beginnings to their Motown heyday, but also reminds us of the inventiveness of their later work. Songs like “Here I Go Again” are as adventurous as anything Norman Whitfield was doing with the Temptations. One star is docked for not representing 1967’s excellent Make It Happen, but really, everyone needs this record.

Felix Da Housecat

KITTENZ AND THEE GLITZ

CITY ROCKERS

The disturbing, disembodied sexuality of Caroline “Miss Kittin” Herve’s vocals has led to numerous collaborations with the likes of The Hacker, Felix Da Housecat and Goldenboy. On her first mix disc she delivers a series of hypnotic narrative segues between an eclectic blend of minimal house, electro and experimental electronica featuring Marshall Jefferson, Autechre, and ’80s Italian synthpopster Alexander Robotnick. Her first album as a solo artist is due out later this year. Meanwhile, Felix Da Housecat’s last, Kittin-heavy album (from 2001) is re-released with additional remixes, including an outstanding version of “What Does It Feel Like?” by R

THIS IS MADNESS

LIGHTINTHEATTIC

During 1970-1, The Last Poets recorded these two inflammatory records, inventing a genre?furiously sarcastic invective tumbling over African percussion?which would not be approached in intensity again until Public Enemy. This is outrageously uncompromising stuff, far exceeding most of today’s rap in its attitude, quite apart from its ideological content. Here we meet the white-hot anger of black separatist revolution that spills over into the pure hatred of inverted racism. What redeems it is its virtuosity and conviction. Of undeniable historical significance, this material is presented here with all texts complete.