Mugison's follow-up to last year's acclaimed Lonely Mountain debut is the score to a Fridrik Thor Fridriksson film, recorded in a church and in his girlfriend's mum's front room in remote Western Iceland. Fridriksson (whose last, Falcons, boasted a song by Keith Carradine) has also used Sigur Rós and Psychic TV in the past (on Angels Of The Universe), so this isn't (quite) as wilfully obscure as you might assume. It's very rough, broken and sketchy, with minimalist acoustic guitars probing spectres of melodies till they crystallise (or don't).
Fifth solo outing for fiftysomething Nashville maestro MILLER'S MORE ILLUSTRIOUS work as guitarist/musical director with Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle has sometimes put his solo output in the shade. A pity, because there's much to discover in the Ohio native's back pages. Earle swears he's "the best country singer working today", while Robbie Fulks calls him country's only living auteur.
Stunning all-star tribute to country music's first dynasty, produced by John Carter Cash
As musical legacies go, the Carter Family takes some topping. From an obscure 100,000-watt Mexican radio station, the truly seminal recordings of Alvin Pleasant Carter, wife Sara and cousin Maybelle took country to a whole new coast-to-coast American audience in the '30s. As vocal-harmony innovators, they were as vital to the development of bluegrass as Bill Monroe.
