Fall

The indie oddballs have eight different options for you

Eels' best of and b-sides compilations celebrate a much underrated talent

With the next issue out of the way, we had a fairly constructive bash through a backlog of new releases today, hence not much here has figured on previous playlists. As usual, please let me know what you've been listening to: further to the Cave Singers tip I mentioned the other day, I've been quite taken with Health, who cropped up in one of your posts the other day.

Steve Earle, Tom Waits and Paul Weller all shape soundtrack

Watching TV over the Christmas and New Year period, chances are you might have caught Johnny Depp in a number of films. I'm pretty sure I spotted all three Pirates Of The Caribbean movies spread out across various terrestrial and satellite channels, plus the overlooked Secret Window and -- a personal favourite -- Finding Neverland, a very moving take on the relationship between author JM Barrie and the children who inspired him to write Peter Pan. In a way, these films are emblematic of the Depp's dualistic approach to his movies. In Pirates, he's performing; in Window and Neverland, he's acting.

Lifetime achievement for the legendary songwriter

Three disc box of singles, rare footage and live shows

You may have noticed that the big movie for this Christmas period is The Golden Compass, a $90 million adaptation of the first volume of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It's got talking bears, witches on broomsticks and Nicole Kidman, as the film's villain, Mrs Coulter. It's the best performance in a film that has many surprisingly smart casting choices (Tom Courtenay, Daniel Craig, Jim Carter, Derek Jacobi), despite its rather hamfisted handling of the source material.

Today: The Gossip's Beth Ditto chooses a song from Rubber Soul

Feeling a bit queasy right now, after watching five minutes of Jean Michel Jarre's new DVD while wearing 3D glasses. I can't vouch for the whole disc of "Oxygene", but Jarre seems to eschew the youthful sort of 3D stunts and go instead for shots of him and his mates playing some lovely old synths. Quite strange, not least because it seems to have had the unusual effect of making me both bored and dizzy at the same time.