IMPERIAL BEDROOM MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE ALL DEMON Two ideas seem to connect these albums: production and fascism, emotional or otherwise. Armed Forces (1979) was Costello's commercial peak, the home of "Accidents Will Happen" and "Oliver's Army", the latter still sounding like a natural anthem for "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne", despite or because of the Northern Irish unease that inspired it. Costello's sleevenotes reveal the tour infidelities and numb celebrity that fuelled the (self-)disgust in his work at this time, as much as the violence and creeping fascism of late-'70s Britain. He's right, though, to now note his "mistake" in equating the two too heavily (the lyrics mention "lampshades" and "final solutions"), and first attempts at sonic sophistication don't disguise Costello's most simplistic yet superficially enjoyable early album. The Geoff Emerick-produced Imperial Bedroom (1982) is the one where musical ambition and emotional force combined. It was hailed as his best to date; today, starved of such Sgt Pepper-style richness, its baroque majesty still thrills. "Man Out Of Time" sums up a shabby kind of British political disgrace?it was also, Costello reveals, about his collapsing, deception-riddled marriage. Elegant, expansive, knotted with concealed emotional conflict, exciting, beautiful?more like this, please. Mighty Like A Rose (1991) is Imperial Bedroom's even more ambitious sequel, the quasi-classical arrangements and most of the Attractions giving weight to songs now divided between those addressing disappointed love and those criticising our obsession with celebrity and consumer culture. You might not be able to tell, but this is. Costello's angriest record. You also get some fascinating chamber-synth demos and an excellent unreleased track.

LIVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT VIRGIN (2CD) NEAPOLIS VIRGIN GOOD NEWS FROM THE NEXT WORLD VIRGIN STREET FIGHTING YEARS VIRGIN Kerr and co arose from a post-punk landscape where minimalism and lack were sovereign; when burgeoning fan appeal required them to present this as arena spectacle, simply reverbing and over-amping the jangly guitars destroyed the crude charm of a track like "Promised You A Miracle". And by this time, Simple Minds had been found out; that early, gawky simplicity had given way to congenial dullness.

During the early-'60s The Pretty Things were promoted as still more outrageous than The Rolling Stones, and their wild R&B strove manfully to live up to this image. Hits like "Rosalyn", "Don't Bring Me Down", and "Midnight To Six Man" did the business for the band before they went psychedelic in 1967 with the flower-power classic "Defecting Grey" and the concept album S.F. Sorrow. This three-disc set follows their career, through various line-up changes, to 1999.

WAX CO SINGLES VOLUME 2 (1975-8) BOTH EDSEL If you hit puberty back in the '70s, your first vaguely sexual experience was, perhaps, handing over your 50p to purchase the latest must-have T. Rex single, seven inches of raucous beauty bedecked in a blue-and-red paper sleeve. Someone's had the very fine idea of re-fashioning these period gems on individual CDs and collating them into two box sets, 11 on each. The first roars from "Telegram Sam" through "Solid Gold Easy Action" and "20th Century Boy" to "Teenage Dream", with a bonus outtake from Zinc Alloy to round it off; the second swaggers through "New York City" and "Laser Love", adding a Bolan duet with Gloria Jones. The early B-sides?"Thunderwing", "Cadillac"?are rock at its most supple. Ever.

Ex-Miaow frontwoman Cath Carroll possesses an extraordinary voice. Sensuous, dreamy and capable of uniting diverse influences with a cool grace, here acid folk, Smiths-esque pop, hippie rock and Latino club romps are blessed with Carroll's hypnotic understatement and literate guile. Even the 1980s MOR sheen can't crack the serene spell. Yet beneath the fractured haziness, this is grown-up pop resounding with heartfelt warmth and steely seriousness.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry WONDERMAN YEARS TROJAN Various Artists FLASHING ECHO TROJAN Studio One Story focuses on the label once called 'the Motown of Jamaica'. Featuring the productions of label founder Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd, this is available on CD or vinyl and comes with a 100-page booklet and a three-hour DVD featuring documentary and performance footage. Wonderman Years spotlights Lee 'Scratch' Perry's output between his years of jobbing at Studio One and the foundation of his own legendary Black Ark Studios, capturing the era when roots reggae mutated into dub. Flashing Echo, meanwhile, documents the experimental heyday of dub from 1970 to 1980, with 41 tracks over two CDs.

A trolley-dash of Purple treasures: quad remixes, B-sides, bootleg live tapes, pre-Purple beat boom embarrassments and much more. Few comparable products better illustrate a band's growth, and this is the ultimate testament to just what made Deep Purple that little bit classier than their metallic compadres, Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy aside. "Highway Star" and "Lazy" remind one just how unflaggingly inventive an improviser Ritchie Blackmore could be, and how lan Paice was probably Britain's finest straight rock drummer ever. Flamboyant, excessive, expensive, but never less than compelling. Very Purple, really.

The Beatles, The Doors, The Bee Gees, Curtis, Kris and Willie etc, are treated to a first-class passage to heaven thanks to Green's matchless ability to inhabit his material. Buy it for yourself, soul brothers and sisters. The Prisoners IN FROM THE COLD BIG BEAT The Prisoners spearheaded an early '80s Medway garage scene that spat in the eye of synth-pop ubiquity. Their fourth LP was released just as their parent label, Stiff, went bust in 1986. A souped-up basement sweat where Dexys' Stax meets The Hives' urgent swagger. The Charlatans, for one, were eternally indebted. Hamell On Trial MERCUROYALE: THE BEST OF THE MERCURY YEARS EVANGELINE Hamell, with his stinging vocal attack, takes prisoners and then invites them to walk on scorched earth. He's not all spleen; there are black comic moments here. If an anarcho-punk with a Bill Hicks sense of absurdity appeals then Ed's waiting down a dark alley for you. Joe Gibbs & The Professionals NO BONES FOR THE DOGS PRESSURE SOUNDS Combining heavy rhythms with a surprisingly light touch, the powerhouse production duo of Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson found success with Dennis Brown and Althea and Donna. No Bones..., though, draws on earlier dubs ('74-'79), with Culture's classic "Two Sevens Clash" rhythms forming the backbone. Aim STARS ON 33 FAT CITY Barrow's Andy Turner rolls out his debut mix CD and, true to his production style, it's full of chunky jazz-laced instrumentals. Despite an over-reliance on sister label Grand Central's catalogue, it's the washed-out psychedelia of "We All Together" and "King Biscuit" which prove the pick. Stereo MCs RETROACTIVE ISLAND Retroactive traces Stereo MCs' career from hip hop wannabes to crusty-edged funk apostles. "Lost In Music" is the key track, bridging the transition from their ill-advised early incarnation to the heyday of "Connected" and the triumph of their loose-limbed shuffle.

The abiding concern of the Marsalis brothers has always been that jazz be recognised as the classical music of black culture. Thus it's only natural the first release on their own label should be this homage to classic pieces by four jazz modernists: Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and John Lewis. The scope is ambitious (Rollins' "The Freedom Suite", Coltrane's "A Love Supreme") and the approach intense. Music to admire, perhaps, more than enjoy.

Horace Andy got fed up waiting five years for Massive Attack to make the follow-up to Mezzanine, so he took himself off to Jamaica to make his own album of classic, ganja-fuelled '70s-style 'conscious' reggae with felicitous echoes of even earlier ska. There's a magnificent cover of Gregory Isaacs' "Night Nurse" which puts Mick Hucknall to shame, and an improbable but enjoyable version of America's "Horse With No Name". For the rest, it's Horace's original one-drop roots rockers (co-written with producer 'Stepper' Braird), as if dancehall and ragga had never been invented.

Tom Paxton was there back in the 1960s in Greenwich Village with Dylan, Ochs et al. Yet despite songs such as "Last Thing On My Mind" and "Ramblin' Boy", he always seemed a lightweight talent in comparison. Perhaps it's because there are so few originals from the era remaining that we're now able to appreciate him more. Whatever the reason, Looking For The Moon is a lovely, understated record full of relaxed folk and country-tinged tunes with a simple and easy charm. We probably didn't need "The Bravest"?yet another 9/11 tribute. But "Homebound Train" and the title track are fine songs in anyone's book.

The press release refers to Lerche's "almost Bowie-esque vocal style", although in reality it's far closer to Neil Hannon. Indeed, if you stripped The Divine Comedy of everything that made them interesting, you might end up with something like Faces Down, an unremarkable collection of acoustic/indie...

Groomed for mainstream success, Big Brovaz?an eight-strong London collective?rival their transatlantic contemporaries for marketing ambition and bling-bling blarney. The concept is shameless, too, matching up two producers, three male rappers and three female singers to create a lucrative hybrid of OutKast and Destiny's Child. Sadly, the music doesn't measure up. While the women sing decently, the rapping is unexceptional: it would have helped had they understood there was more to OutKast than flash and clowning. There's little here to give their US idols sleepless nights.

Between 2000 and 2001, French DJ Bob Sinclar (the brains behind Jane Fonda-sampling "Gym Tonic") and his buddies (including British act Liquid People, who also featured on Sinclar's fine Cerrone remix package) put out a series of ethnic-influenced singles, crossing African rhythms with digital futurism. Although over 100,000 copies of this album have already been sold abroad, the UK is being treated to a deluxe edition with an additional disc mixed by DJ Gregory. Superb.

Hoggboy's physical home is Sheffield, but their spiritual mecca is a hybrid of MC5's Detroit and Ramones'New York. Their credentials are suitably top-notch, both sartorial (scuffed-up leathers and denim, unruly mops) and musical (Pistols legend Chris Thomas produces eight numbers; Uncut favourite Richard Hawley the other three), and there's enough sneering garage bluster on show?the wildly crashing "Urgh!!!" and "So Young"; the feedback snarl of "Mile High Club"?for justification. The tunes sometimes lose their way, but there's just enough belligerent suss left poking through the rubble.

Williams' seventh solo outing is no less than a romantic, star-canopied waltz through a cluster of timeless classics wrung from the rose-tinted golden dawn of Broadway and beyond. Cosying up to the likes of "Moon River", "Over The Rainbow" and "Blue Skies" in her own imperfect, easy-on-the-helium warble (somewhere between Minnie Mouse and Mary Margaret O'Hara), Williams suffuses these old chestnuts with warmth and wide-eyed wonder, like a child tumbling into love with the world for the first time. Wrapped up in gorgeous, velvety jazz arrangements, moments like "My Funny Valentine" caress the ear like sonnets. Williams' awkward grace proves irresistible. "Over The Rainbow" features affecting piano notes and Petra Haden's lovely strings, while "Keep Sweeping Cobwebs Off The Moon" is like something The Handsome Family might creep around: a farting tuba, clarinet and tin-pot drums painting a picture of '40s authenticity so striking that you can almost see that neon carnival pulling into town through rain-smeared windows. Of course, Williams' wavering vibrato isn't to everyone's palate, but for those already smitten, this is rewarding stuff. Try listening to the closer, "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" (conjuring up memories of visiting her Judy Garland/Hoagy Carmichael-loving maternal grandmother back home) without weeping like a baby.

Since their eponymous 2000 debut, Nickel Creek seem to have undergone a Popstars-esque makeover, all tousled barnets, wide-leg denims and moody photo ops. The vision, however, remains gloriously unaffected. To believe music this steeped in warm country earth yet determinedly shorn of revivalism flows from three sprites barely out of their teens is some feat. Again guided by producer Alison Krauss, This Side expands on their intricate acoustic shanties by occasionally plugging in the amps and stretching bluegrass, indie and folk over a thrillingly realised canvas. And still not a banjo in sight.