Album

WAX CO SINGLES VOLUME 2 (1975-8) BOTH EDSEL If you hit puberty back in the '70s, your first vaguely sexual experience was, perhaps, handing over your 50p to purchase the latest must-have T. Rex single, seven inches of raucous beauty bedecked in a blue-and-red paper sleeve. Someone's had the very fine idea of re-fashioning these period gems on individual CDs and collating them into two box sets, 11 on each.

Sophomore outing for much-vaunted 'Youthgrass' Californian trio

Classic live Pump action from early '90s

Home-grown hip hop which is proud of its origins

Unlikely as he is—a white, upper-class rapper who positively revels in his Ivy Leaguery—Paul Barman offers a surprisingly fresh take on hip hop clichés. The absurd sexscapade "Cock Mobster" balances graphic detail with literary conceit ("I think of the pube I got while reading the Rubaiyat"), owing more to Woody Allen than standard rap bravado. But attempts at gravitas ("Anarchist Bookstore", "Talking Time Travel") resonate with all the panache of a student union debate.

North Mississippi blues by unknown, ageing modern masters

Chronological 73-track, four-CD anthology of avant-MOR avatars

Four-CD, 83-track box with 36-page booklet tries to summarise soul music

Lightly jazzy English pop spread thinly

Vinyl-only mini LP of stripped-down delights from Virginian chanteuse