Album

Enjoyable debut by 'female Dizzee'

Three years ago, Skyscraper National Park heralded the arrival of Hayden Desser as heir to the mumbling miserablism of Smog's Bill Callahan. Like the latter, Toronto-born Hayden's nagging melodies and deadpan delivery occupy their own peculiar kingdom. His fourth LP finds him applying sonic bluster to the usual sad-slow creep. "Hollywood Ending", for example, is a raucous tale of being caught up in a blockbuster outside his front door.

Norwegian newcomers'magical debut

Mega-rock festival staged in Toronto in July 2003, where a bizarre line-up included The Isley Brothers, AC/DC, Justin Timberlake and The Rolling Stones. A voiceover drones on about how Toronto needed a "big idea" to restore its confidence after the city's SARS crisis, but this event is pretty average, and Timberlake's duet with Jagger on "Miss You" is, weirdly, the highlight.

Archive anthology of blues greats recorded on historic European visits

Treasures unearthed from '80s Beeb archives

Second solo album from former Squeeze man

Second irony-heavy opus from leaders' wives

Already Uncut-endorsed via two fine LPs as head of wistful country types Horse Stories, Burke's solo debut finds him in intimate, hushed repose. His acoustic guitar fingering is highly expressive, be it woven into delicate sound webs on the love-torn "Cigarettes", delving into the country-blues of "Long Face" or lighting up "Which Train's She On?" with flashes of slide. Burke's voice remains his crowning glory, though, wringing nuance from the simplest of melodies.

The Crowded House siblings back together for the first time in nine years