Album

Cynical, articulate UK singer-songwriter sends home thoughts from abroad

Uncle Tupelo founder paints his masterpiece

More wonder and thunder from down under. Mick Harvey's extensive track record (Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, Crime & The City Solution) more than qualifies him to score a coming-of-age issue movie set in "a small coastal town in Australia". Interestingly, the debuting director, Paul Goldman, shot the videos for Boys Next Door's "Shiver" and The Birthday Party's "Nick The Stripper", so he and Harvey have been communing aesthetically for a while. Harvey's been getting award nominations already for this, and it seems there's little he can't turn his hand to these days.

Latest volume of 20 full-length 12-inch classics from '70s and '80s

Slung-together bargain-priced selection

Double album from DJ who gave Elvis his 30th UK No 1 last year

Derby's foremost purveyor of wounded blues and fraught emotions on fine form

Debut album from Tricky's former partner, finessed by stellar producers

Certain rarely-heard names, such as Jo Jo Gunne or Atomic Rooster, are guaranteed to induce a nostalgia rush in men of a certain age. The fact that such '70s semi-stars aren't acknowledged 'greats' makes their very mention all the more bittersweet. In a good way.

Way before Emmylou Harris or even Patsy Cline, women were singing country songs to make your heart crack. Among these 25 examples from pre-WW2, only the Carter Family and Patsy Montana will be familiar to most. But just as thrilling are the Coon Creek Girls, a kind of 1930s version of the Be Good Tanyas, and Gertrude Gossett, who sounds like an early Gillian Welch. Every track is a discovery, and you wonder how the Louisiana Lou, The Girls Of The Golden West and Moonshine Kate ever lapsed into obscurity. Sleevenotes are courtesy of The Handsome Family's Rennie Sparks.