Uncut

Patchy selection from the man Quentin Tarantino called "a musical journalist, a chronicler of his time"

Re-release of NY punk-funk debut, with bonus disc

Latest instalments in sister"I-bet-you-didn't-expect-me-to-like-that" series

Fine compilation from influential soul legend who wrote "It's All Over Now"

Re-release of albums by legendary '80s Factory band featuring 808 State's Graham Massey

Lost '70s soul classic from Marvin Gaye songwriter and acolyte

Lee Perry-produced reggae diva's 1977 classic

Before the sex pistols there was New York's Lower East Side: trash aesthetes with short hair and kinky vixens in B-movie stilettos. Kids with minor drug habits and slim volumes of symbolist verse. Pre-punk 'punk' was Gotham's reaction to smug denim California and prog-pomp stadium blow-out. The new Bowery Bop was about immaculate posing, street-corner nihilism. It was railroad-apartment art-rock out of the Velvets, Stooges, Dolls, with a side order of Nuggets garage psychedelics.

As detailed in Uncut (see Strange Days, Take 76), this 1974 debut from the super-effete Smiley has been rotting in obscurity for nearly 30 years. Unashamedly over-produced by Loog Oldham (who saw Brett as "the British Jobriath" rather than a pale Bowie), it's clear on the glam-baroque of "Queen Of Hearts" alone that Smiley had superstar potential. Just listen to his angelic cover of Neil Sedaka's "Solitaire" and mourn the career that might have been.

Gorgeous, ethereal folk, recommended to Uncut by Devendra Banhart