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.
Even if you remain immune to the dark charms of Joss Whedon's mighty Buffy The Vampire Slayer, you'll have noticed that some of us drone on about The Musical Episode from season six like it was the second coming of Abbey Road, Diamond Dogs and Closer. It is absolutely that and no less. The soundtrack, my most prized possession since someone burned it off a mobile MP3 laptop duck-billed web-pager for me (or whatever), is now officially released by popular demand, the first authentic use of the phrase 'by popular demand' since Disraeli's era.
