Gallic icons rarely let you down, being so impeccably steeped in their own mythology and conscious of their dignity. Like the music world’s answer to Catherine Deneuve, honorary French muse-turned-chanteuse Birkin continues to take artistic risks without capsizing.

Here reinterpreting the songbook of former husband Serge Gainsbourg (and not the obvious pages) with Arab gypsy shadings and Algerian violinists, she reaffirms that she understands Serge’s depressive yet Dionysian urges, never lapsing into parody. “Elisa” and “Comment Te Dire Adieu” are mordantly bittersweet. Tasteful and tense.

Part of the tightening loop between Jamaican ragga and US rap, Bounty Killer prot

Ten songs recorded in 10 different cities constitute the debut from the bespectacled Dane. But Unrest is far from the acoustic strummings of his band, Kings Of Convenience (anyone remember the New Acoustic Movement?) as here

Doug McCombs and Noel Kupersmith’s (aka Brokeback’s) third LP attempts more traditional song arrangements. But true to McCombs’ Chicago-centric instincts?guest appearances from Jim O’Rourke among others?Brokeback don’t deviate from post-rock, with only a tinge of jazz noir as respite. For while silvery reverb may now predominate, slow-shifting movements and droning textures show McCombs choosing familiarity over fresh adventures. It’s hypnotic stuff, but for a side project it’s self-defeating.

Legend has it when Waterboy Mike Scott delivered Fisherman’s Blues after a long time “getting his head together”, a label boss called him in and said, “Great. You’ve spent four years off and you’ve made a fucking folk album.”

Christ knows what he’d make of Lou Reed’s latest double album, The Raven, based on POEtry, the musical founded on the peculiar life and work of Edgar Allan Poe, which Lou and Robert Wilson performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last year. You missed it? No matter. Lou commits it to CD here, on this quasi-‘life and crazy times’ of the poet.

Psychosis plagued Poe’s life. “He was no ordinary Joe,” Reed points out kindly. “If you haven’t heard of him you must be deaf or blind.” In the mood for a rock star lecture? No doubt Poe wasn’t cut from the same cloth as we mere mortals, yet one gets the feeling this sprawling, unwieldy concept, featuring poems set to music as well as some stand-alone songs, will be, at best, admired, played once and filed away. All albums are vanity projects, but this vanity may be in vain, despite its benign nature.

“The Bells” and “Annabel Lee” are influences that have always taken root in Reed’s work, and he’s never been afraid to munch a cockamamie project?Berlin, Songs For Drella, Magic And Loss. The Raven also comes with a stellar cast of musical and theatrical luvvies?Dave Bowie, the missus Laurie Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe. Obviously it’s not all pretentious.

Still, at 60 Reed’s entitled to do what he wants. If he wants to do an operatic version of “Perfect Day”, get back into his “Blind Rage” character or duet with Dave on “Hop Frog”, he can. The rest of us may prefer to score some Poe by bell, book and candle. Whatever, you will need inordinate patience to sit through something that sounds like one of Frasier’s follies with Kelsey Grammer going off on one.

What was it the raven quoth? “Nevermore.” I’m with the bird on that one.

Ever wondered where goths go in the daytime? They’re at home listening to this?on headphones, to avoid being attacked by neighbours within a two-mile range. This is monstrously heavy stuff, Norwegian black metal at its most disciplined and powerful. Often veering from the template, it also features slabs of garage rock, subtle orchestral samples, and the magnificently cold voice of Anja Garbarek, who appears on awesome 14-minute closer “Black Lava”.

It’s over a decade since former actor Will Oldham took his first faltering steps in a forgotten backwater of American music. When Oldham began recording with his brother Paul in 1992 he was recovering from a nervous breakdown, staking out an area that provided a refuge for his skewed, haunted but unusually perceptive sensibility. Initially operating out of his native Kentucky as The Palace Brothers, then Palace and Palace Music, Oldham and his collaborators drew on a rich and mysterious well of Appalachian folk, worried life blues and stern, unforgiving gospel.

But Oldham’s songs were not just genre exercises?they refashioned old forms to give a striking and original angle on the modern world. A timeless quality pervaded Oldham’s compositions, casually entwining themes of death and despair, spiritual decay and fleeting images of carnal contentment. They signalled the arrival of a unique new voice: the late 20th century literate hillbilly.

In person, Oldham would often appear furtive and distracted. With his wilfully obtuse stance he seemed either intent on hijacking his career at every turn or, more intriguingly, constructing an elaborate mystique to deal with the troublesome business of increasing fame and notoriety.

Along with the name changes, there were the monosyllabic interviews where he cast himself as a withdrawn hypochondriac or a diehard fan of Mariah Carey. Righteously bristling at any attempt to ascribe him alt.country figurehead status, Oldham seemed determined to remain an outsider, carving a niche as a genuine auteur of American song. Confirmation that his strategy had worked came when he unveiled his current persona on his astonishing 1999 album, I See A Darkness. Both this and the album that followed, Ease On Down The Road, suggested that, in Bonnie, Oldham had discovered a new sense of artistic freedom. On the Palace records, Oldham had marked out his musical and psychic landscape; the shimmering foreboding of Darkness and the jaunty. singalong merriment of Ease On Down The Road was where he explored the humanity and relationships of the characters who dwelled there.

Despite his natural inclination for sabotage, the release of Oldham’s third album in his Bonnie ‘Prince’ incarnation finds him more popular than ever. Johnny Cash’s recording of the “I See A Darkness” title track conferred respect, while liaisons with Marianne Faithfull and P J Harvey enhanced his standing and heightened his profile.

However, this increased recognition has not diverted Oldham from his singular path. Quite the opposite?stepping back from the carousing cheating songs and infidelity celebrations of its predecessor, Master And Everyone presents the Bonnie lad in his starkest incarnation to date.

Produced by Mark Nevers, the Nashville engineer who added the spooked effects and eerie sonic dimensions to Lambchop’s Nixon, the album also features ‘Chop associates Tony Crow and Matt Swanson alongside Oldham’s younger brother Paul. But the naked, demo-like quality of the recordings, complete with off-microphone background noises, snatches of rhythms tapped out by a foot on the floor or a hand slapped on the thigh, lends a weird but welcome intimacy.

The songs unfold like tentative quests. Centred on Oldham’s vastly improved voice and open-tuned guitar, they are parables that alternately puzzle over and cling to the ideal of monogamy in a turbulent world.

First is “The Way”, with its glowering cello accompaniment and a gently woozy vocal that recalls Nick Drake’s in full yearning reverie. But the Baptist imagery (“into the river we will wade”) and tender but bawdy instruction (“let your unloved parts get loved”) are inimitably Oldham?balancing lust with deep emotional commitment.

The first of two duets with veteran Nashville vocalist Marty Slayton, “Ain’t You Wealthy, Ain’t You Wise?” is a spellbinding, open-hearted declaration of faith and commitment. The immediate reference point is Gram and Emmylou, but Oldham goes further, deeper. Nevers’ swirling effects capture the fear and turmoil beneath the surface (“Now you’ve seen the evil eye/Hold onto me while I cry”) but is here banished by true love (“There’s no pain in the night/There’s no dream left undreamt”).

By turns an innocent abroad and a rogue prankster who calls the shots, the Bonnie ‘Prince’ goes places other songwriters leave uncovered, striking disarmingly frank poses throughout. On “Wolf Among Wolves” he praises his inner animal and bemoans his partner’s inability to “see me for what I am/A wolf among wolves and not a man among men”. He delivers folk parables for the modern world on “Maundering” and “Joy And Jubilee”, and a modern gospel message on “Lessons From What’s Poor”.

But the recurring theme is the nature of love and commitment: the unbearably ominous “Even If Love” edges along the brink of the abyss of loss before toppling right in. “Three Questions” plays out a pagan marriage ceremony in a post-nuclear setting. On the closing “Hard Life” he breaks away from duet-partner Slayton on the last verse: wracked by the possibility and imagined pain of a life spent alone, he ends the album moaning for release.

In just over 35 minutes, the Bonnie Prince’s mastery of form, blend of gentle awe and trembling sweetness are distilled to their essence. Who knows what Oldham will do next: cast off his regal mantle and make a Mariah Carey tribute album? Get together with a mean and dirty electric band and recast these songs as sneering, demonic pledges? The choice is his.

Meanwhile, Master And Everyone is a perfectly balanced blend of candour and heartstopping beauty.

Though Black Flag and X could match their intensity, Dead Kennedys were surely the most influential proponents of late-’70s US punk. Theirs was a remorseless blitz, topped off by the hammy vibrato of the outraged and fabulously sarcastic Jello Biafra, Feargal Sharkey’s evil twin. The vile croak of “God told me to skin you alive” before “I Kill Children” still shocks today. This is the classic debut from 1980, with a bonus CD of single edits and early B-sides, and a lyric sheet so small you’ll need a microscope. It’s worth it?really.

Edgar Froese’s Berlin electronica franchise got into gear with this 1972 double, Tangerine Dream’s third album, the reissue of which highlights their decisive move away from Baader-Meinhof guitars and into gothic liturgies of mellotron and synthesized abstraction. Not that this neuters the band’s still-extant freakout tendency, which grumbles up tectonically to shake the cloud-hung soundscape of cosmic foreboding. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, listen to “Birth Of Liquid Plejades”… This is how you do it, okay?

Those for whom A Love Supreme is a masterpiece will seize this opportunity to hear the original recording refurbished with the addition of a concert version taped at Antibes in July 1965, a month after Ascension. Further bonuses include another take of “Resolution” and the fabled sextet take of “Acknowledgement” with Archie Shepp and Art Davis. The Antibes set shows Coltrane, by now unchained from conventional aesthetics, feeling free to be ugly at some length. Stormy jazz from the height of the New Thing.

Intastella, featuring ex-members of funk-punks Laugh and fronted by glamour-puss Stella Grundy, were slightly too late for baggy and, consequently, fell quickly. Yet their blissful astral funk was often closer to Andy Weatherall or One Dove, despite often being lumped together with nu-glam merchants World Of Twist. For all their meandering groove jams, the multi-faceted bleeps and wah-wah guitars are delicately interwoven. All that’s missing are immediate pop thrills. A cover of Northern soul classic “The Night” and swan-song single “Soon We’ll Fly”, though, come close.

HOW HARD IT IS

ACADIA/EVANGELINE

Once they were rid of the mixed blessing of Janis Joplin’s Bessie Smith Jnr-isms, the West Coast rock, blues and juggery of Big Brother came back into its pre-Cheap Thrills own. Adding Quicksilver’s Nick Gravenites to the fold, they threw off some of their amiable imagery and resumed their club-forged sound, honed as house band at the Avalon Ballroom. These two early-’70s reissues will still appeal to devotees of that whole Cold Blood/Sons Of Champlin era. Guitarists Sam Andrew and Peter Albin share some Dead work-out ambition on their retread of Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Joseph’s Coat” and the riffy “Maui”, while “I’ll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle” fits in with the redneck vs hippie style wars that once seemed so important.

When Simon Reynolds coined the term “post-rock” in 1993, he was probably describing Laika. Duo Margaret Fiedler and Guy Fixsen dispensed with rock’s straitjacket and harnessed Coltrane jazz, Eno-esque ambience, programmed rattlesnake beats and skittering electronics. The outcome has been far-reaching and often astounding Yet this pair aren’t dust-dry boffins. Much of this compendium resonates with sensual heat.

The Blades Of Grass

ARE NOT FOR SMOKING

REV-OLA

West Coast ex-folksters The Sunshine Company just missed stardom when their version of newcomer Jimmy Webb’s “Up, Up And Away” was beaten into the charts by the Fifth Dimension’s in 1967. Blending a bittersweet variety of soft-pop and folk-rock influences they released material written by the likes of Tony Asher and Curt Boettcher, and saw US chart action with the Michaels and Gormann-penned “Happy” in 1967?as did East Coast soft-poppers The Blades Of Grass. The Blades’ post-Sgt Pepper psych-rock sound melded great songs with beautiful harmonies, but occasionally suffered from claustrophobic over-orchestration.

This is the first ever box set from Culture Club, although long-suffering collectors will be aware of three previous best-of collections under the byline of the flamboyantly-dressed New Popsters. Still, this sumptuously-tooled four-discer arrives fully equipped with remixes, demos and previously unreleased songs, plus a no-expense-spared colour booklet for your coffee table pleasure. It’s like grunge never happened.

It’s still the well known stuff where the real magic lies. You will need no reminding of the cosmic pop ineffability of “Karma Chameleon”, the Motown-esque “Church Of The Poisoned Mind”, the lilting white reggae of “Do You Really Want 2 [sic] Hurt Me”, not to mention spectacular recent-ish comeback hit “I Just Wanna Be Loved”. Good to hear again, too, the exquisite ballad “Black Money” from their 1983 masterpiece, Colour By Numbers.

You may blanch visibly, by contrast, at “The War Song” or “The Medal Song”, while the rap-electro-dub yawn-fest of “Kipsy” or the flaccid reggae recreation of “Time” (both the latter are from disc 4, the so-called “Drumhead Sessions”) can only hasten the occurrence of a beer bottle-CD player interface.

Among the more amusing rarities are versions of Bowie’s “Starman” and “Suffragette City”, neatly skewering the Club’s glam roots, while “Genocide Peroxide” sounds bizarrely like The Cult.

Time and again, though, the demos assembled here capture our heroes in a state of dreary competence as they tinkle away in that Carib-pop vein which remains their most identifiable imprimatur. An early take of “Kissing To Be Clever” is the perfect illustration, while there’s a “Do You Really Want 2 Hurt Me” with a drum machine instead of Jon Moss which sounds like the finished version after it’s been hung up by its ankles and bled to death.

So, er, what? Well, you take what you need and you leave the rest.

For large stretches of its 62-track length, it would be hard to imagine a better introduction to the subject than this three-disc anthology of soul classics centred on the Atlantic catalogue of the period. All the obvious choices are here, plus a generous selection of lesser-known gems like “Private Number” by William Bell and Judy Clay and Maxine Brown’s “Oh No Not My Baby”. Inevitably there’s room for doubt over some tracks which could be said to be soft-centred, but mainly this is a fine selection.

Considering that they were only together for two years?1967 to 1969?Philadelphia’s The Nazz were a hyperactive group, despite their underachievement in the marketplace. Formed in the City of Brotherly Love from the ashes of Woody’s Truck Stop, The Munchkins and Todd Rundgren’s high school band, Money, The Nazz were schooled in British Invasion shock tactics, sported post-Mod chic?a riot of cravats, paisley and bell-bottomed jumbo cords?and even borrowed their name from a Yardbirds B-side, “The Nazz Are Blue”, itself stolen from the alter ego of beatnik guru Lord Buckley. Well, Lee Marvin provided the accidental moniker for The Beatles, so the symbiosis boasted a healthy complexion.

Although he was rarely the lead singer, Rundgren wrote the songs, forged the direction?based on a blend of weirder Beatles, Cream and Who?and taught himself how to mix and match the band’s productions. Rundgren wasn’t influenced solely by his ‘I’m Backing Britain’ obsessions, since The Nazz emerged at a time when American Bandstand was a local TV staple and the nascent sounds of Philly soul were all over the radio. Rock’n’roll, R&B and clean-cut pop were all mated without fuss.

Rundgren’s accomplices were kindred spirits along the high-energy highway. There was singer Stewkey (born Robert Antoni, his nickname was an apparent corruption of the fact that he was always stewed on brew), who shared Rundgren’s preference for choreographed entertainment, drummer Thom Mooney, and ex-Woody’s bassist Carson Van Osten, who adopted the Runt’s lanky, ornate look. All were willing participants in early showings designed to leave their mark, like their debut in June 1967 when they supported The Doors on a hometown date and chucked in a few zany Motown dance steps for good measure while Jim Morrison chuckled in the wings. Suitably ambitious, The Nazz made their first album?plain Nazz?on the Screen Gems Columbia imprint (home to The Monkees), fusing glorious pop nuggets like “Open My Eyes” and “Hello It’s Me” (revisited by Rundgren on his 1972 solo album Something/Anything?) to a harder template. The greasier, guitar-driven “Back Of Your Mind”, “Lemming Song” and “She’s Going Down” reiterated the band’s love for Cream-style flash and were often performed in a fleshed-out manner, all 15-minute drum solos, bass-twirling pyrotechnics and smashed Strats: showbusiness, in other words.

In common with their late-’60s peers, The Nazz didn’t just muck about. While his pals sampled the lysergics, Rundgren stayed straight and true, masterminding a trip to London’s Trident Studios to record their second album with the whiff of their debut LP still in the air. Significantly, although one is tempted to view groups like this as one long tale of woe, there was enough money available in The Nazz’s kitty to buy time at the place where The Beatles had recorded “Hey Jude” and “Dear Prudence”.

Safely ensconced in Soho, Rundgren and company planned a double album under the working title of Fungo Bat, but fell foul of the local musician’s union. At least they had time to ransack Carnaby Street for kipper ties and visit the clubs that fired their enthusiasm in the first place.

Second album Nazz Nazz arrived in streamlined shape. By this time the other members were getting slightly sick of Rundgren, and were equally wary of his obvious solo leanings as a balladeer. Squabbling in the ranks didn’t prevent Nazz Nazz from shining. “Meridian Leeward” and the sadly groovesome “Gonna Cry Today” proved they could still cut it together, although “Letters Don’t Count”, which relied on grandiose Beach Boys harmonies, suggested Rundgren was pulling in a different direction and wasn’t going to come back.

Ironically, Nazz Nazz was scuppered by the fact that “Hello It’s Me” (from the first album) was now a minor hit. Just when they could have emerged as a headline act, Philly’s finest white-boy dudes fragmented, managerless, rudderless, and bass-less since Rundgren’s old pal Van Osten had chucked in his chips. Still, there was enough left in the can for the obligatory posthumous record company cash-in, named, with astonishing originality, Nazz III. A version of Paul Revere And The Raiders’ “Kicks”, penned by Mann and Weil, was tacked on by default, but the piano and orchestra ballad “You Are My Window” was more of a sure-fire pointer to internal tensions as Rundgren showed the others what he could do without their help.

Beyond the history lies a certain mystery. At this distance one can almost imagine The Nazz making a real splash if they’d arrived, say, five years later. Their take on Archie Bell And The Drells’ “Tighten Up” (renamed “Loosen Up”) fits into the whole ethos of early-’70s funk pop. But maybe they were destined to provide the apprenticeship for Rundgren’s much more satisfying solo life. After all, he was The Nazz, with God-given ass, and this lovingly packaged set still whets the appetite for his slew of ’70s masterpieces.

But that is all hindsight. File next to Rhino’s sleeker, more coherent best-of, invest in a cravat and flop your fringe. Maybe this Nazz weren’t part of the main text. But, then, sometimes the fascination lies in the footnotes.

The Wild Bunch are sometimes claimed to be trip hop’s source, due to influential sets at Bristol’s legendary dive/club The Dug Out, mixing reggae, hip hop, disco and funk, and members’ subsequent careers?Nellee Hooper with Soul II Soul, others with Massive Attack. But the late-night, risky mixing of races and records at The Dug Out can’t be revived by archive tape of its crowd, and this is mostly mediocre old-school hip hop, with only 1987 Wild Bunch single “The Look” (in fact by just Milo and Hooper) suggesting future greatness.

SHE EVEN WOKE ME UP TO SAY GOODBYE

BOTH RAVEN

By the late-’60s, Lewis was still reeling from the outrage following marriage to his under-age cousin. Smash Records offered salvation in a return to the country roots he couldn’t shake. Fusing sweaty R&B, gospel, hillbilly and Tin Pan Alley with teary balladry, working-man’s blues and nods to Haggard and Jimmie Rodgers, 1968’s Another Place… and She Even Woke… (1970)?bolstered by six add-ons from in between LP She Still Comes Around?find the man fired up, happily unable to resist the odd, impassioned pounding of ivories in the process.