Reviews

Atmospheric debut featuring past and present members of Piano Magic

Concept album from uncompromising American singer about killing the corporate beast

It's over a decade since former actor Will Oldham took his first faltering steps in a forgotten backwater of American music. When Oldham began recording with his brother Paul in 1992 he was recovering from a nervous breakdown, staking out an area that provided a refuge for his skewed, haunted but unusually perceptive sensibility.

Don't be misled by the title. This is not Martyn's classic 1973 album Solid Air, but a best-of that isn't even really that. Yes, all his greatest songs from two decades of back catalogue are here. Yet they're not the original recordings but reinterpretations made in 1992-93 with a soft-rock, dinner party backing provided by such mates as Phil Collins and Dave Gilmour. The songs still sound pretty good and his voice is as wonderfully slurred as ever. But nobody could claim any of these 28 retreads are improvements on the originals.

Five-CD anthology from swing-era rebel

LA Confidential director brings the best out of rap king

Thomas Vinterberg christened the Dogme genre with immense style in this 1998 Danish classic with edgy docu-drama camerawork and grainy digital video helping to supercharge a time-honoured narrative progression from cosy family gathering to shock revelation. Partly inspired by a real-life radio phone-in confession, Vinterberg's jet-black farce moves from incest, suicide and racism to cathartic redemption. DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, Dogme certificate, interview/picture booklet.

Set in grunge-era Seattle, Cameron Crowe's quick-off-the-mark 1992 romantic ensemble comedy managed to corral members of Pearl Jam into the mix alongside Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon, Kyra Sedgwick and Campbell Scott. Crowe falls short of his masterful memoir Almost Famous, partly as Scott and Sedgwick are too stiff for the central rock'n'romance plot, but this is still a charming historical snapshot.

One of the greatest living exponents of American roots music teams up with leading Cuban rock guitarist for 12 examples of virtuoso twanging

Sultry debut from British newcomer with big potential