Album

As leader of Denton, Texas' Centro-Matic and its slacker country cousin, South San Gabriel, Johnson has been a prolific purveyor of all things bleak and oddly beautiful. Like 2002's solo debut Murder Of Tides, Vultures Await is a narcoleptic song suite of plucked guitar, sombre piano and drums like stuttering heartbeats. Cloaked in strings and cracked vocals, it's hardly laugh-a-minute, but absorbing nonetheless.

Listless reunion for avant-garde eggheads

The reunited Crush core blow up your speakers

Classic '67 pop-soul debut from Blue Mink chanteuse and friend of Dusty

Lost album from Eric Clapton's erstwhile mentor and sometime partner of Bonnie

A rich seam of strangeness from the velvet tinmine

Trinidadian soca selected by Damon Albarn and his Honest Jon's partners

Psychedelic pomp from east London quintet

Brilliant Latin folktronica from Argentine ex-comic

Like his contemporary Rodney Crowell, head Blaster Alvin seems to have reached a reflective career intersection. His first all-new LP in six years revisits youthful memories of the titular LA club where he became spellbound by Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker. As a result, it's his bluesiest, toughest record since '91's Blue Boulevard.