Album

Since big brother Steve first recruited her to sing backing on 1991's The Hard Way, Stacey Earle's gradual career curve has included two unadorned solo albums (1999's Simple Gearle and 2000's Dancin' With Them That Brung Me) before finally sharing centre stage with 'im indoors, Mark Stuart, on 2001's Must Be Live. This new offering is simply the best thing either have ever done. Stuart's classic country voice meshes with Earle's honeyed purr superbly, but it's the bold instrumentation that truly glows.

Athens, Georgia white-trash rapper's improbably fine return

Enjoyably unhinged debut from club promoters/DJs turned recording artists

No time for rest in Godspeed's Montreal enclave, as the collective's myriad spin-offs continue to fight the capitalist hegemony with sad tunes and very long titles. Mt Zion are ostensibly the pop wing, adding vocals from guitarist Efrim and—new here—a massed choir to the usual thicket of slow guitars and chamber strings. It's debatable how necessary his croak is, since Godspeed's great gift is to disseminate radical politics by musical implication rather than explicit polemic.

Potent shoegazing electronica from Antibes, France

Greatest and not so great hits from techno pioneers

This month's disappointing Wu cash-in

Perfect '70s pop pastiche from Nashville-based singer-songwriter

First album in four years from many-aliased Michael Paradinas

Kraftwerk's first 'proper' album since 1986, plus ex-member's solo outing