Aut aut

Fifth album from enigmatic New York songstress

Both Jim Krewson and Jennie Benford were raised in tradition-steeped communities (in Pennsylvania and Vermont respectively), rebelling into punk before reconnecting with roots years later. Their third album smudges the boundaries of bluegrass and old-time (fixin' a party between Scruggs-style, three-finger banjo and orthodox clawhammer) to strike a picture of high'n' lonesome authenticity. Aided by the Pinetops' propulsively rhythmic playing, the marriage of Benford's clear mountain preen and Krewson's hickory yelp is life-enhancing.

Intensely moving, Simon Raymonde-co-produced follow-up to 2001's Lido

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.

Three Hollywood favourites starring the silver-tongued man of style

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.

Scorsese's much-anticipated, brutal epic blazes beautifully across the screen

An authentic children's band from Lewes, East Sussex, Hunkydory signed to that safe haven for eccentrics, él records, in 1988. These five precocious children sang and played all their own instruments, with the bulk of the material being written and arranged by one of the band's dads. When él's funders Cherry Red heard the material they got cold feet, and withdrew funding. Fifteen years on, this time capsule is a perfect, irony-free companion to the bubblegum escapist fantasies of sibling Siesta acts Death By Chocolate and Lollipop Train.

Frothy Spielberg caper wastes classy cast

Polanski's heartfelt hymn to Polish suffering in WWII Warsaw