Album

Emotionally resonant ambient electro from Rothko mainman and pen pal

Dedicated techno head delves into death disco on his second LP

Overlooked Ohio five-piece deliver ravaged second album

Belated but brilliant follow-up to Choochtown from one-man Angry Brigade and Uncut columnist

Re-emergence of jazz-folk classic from Chicago tunesmith

The gothic country of Frazer's '90s band Tarnation shared much with 16 Horsepower and The Handsome Family—a Georgia-raised pastor's daughter, the South inspired Frazer's poetry. While we await the follow-up to 2001's Indoor Universe, these four-track rarities provide ample nourishment. Some of these songs appeared on Gentle Creatures ('95) and Mirador ('97), but not this nakedly beautiful. Frazer's voice has a metallic-folk edge which, allied to mariachi guitar, floods "An Awful Shade Of Blue" and "The Hand" with harsh desert light.

The movie/musical of Hedwig And The Angry Inch was an East Coast cause célèbre a couple of years back; we could (and probably did) lazily describe it as the Rocky Horror of the new millennium. Its impact on middling-to-big rock people was greater than it ever was on the British public—for now, as a charity album for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home to the Harvey Milk School for gay youth, there arrives a twinkling set of Hedwig homages.

Double album of Boss cover versions

First studio outing in six years from recently-rejoined Flatlander

Recorded for pennies, her spectral, bewitching '99 debut available again