Reviews

Kate Rusby – Live From Leeds

Listen to Kate Rusby's records and her brand of folk revivalism suggests a rather serious and high-minded young woman. Yet in concert she's a revelation, interspersing sublime versions of traditional folk ballads with rambling but engaging introductions full of homely Yorkshire warmth and wit. Rusby makes folk music seem like fun again, and the feeling never flags throughout this 90-minute set.

The Mendoza Line – Fortune

If 2002's wonderful Lost In Revelry was Blonde On Blonde rescrambled by Westerberg and barbed by Costello, the more buoyant Fortune thrashes to the classic American assembly-line rock of Springsteen and the choppy pop of early Nick Lowe/Joe Jackson.

This Month In Soundtracks

The mighty Nyman's 60th birthday has been marked by six remastered re-releases. One, Decay Music, was produced by Brian Eno in 1976 and has never been available on CD before. Eno's written sleevenotes. It was one of the first significant contributions to 'minimalism', a word which Nyman, writing in The Spectator in the late '60s, was the first to apply to music. After mastering this means of expression, Nyman decided: "I don't believe that the best film scores are the ones you don't notice. I refuse to provide just background.

Bill Fay – From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock

Demos for Fay's eponymous 1970 Decca LP and rarely-heard late-'60s outtakes

Brian Auger – Get Auger-Nized! The Brian Auger Anthology

London muso's rise from mod-bod to jazz-head across two CDs

Spirited Away

Just when you thought that Pixar had colonised the universe of Western kids' imaginations, here came something fabulously rich and strange from the East. Spirited Away is an apt title for an animation classic that literally transports the viewer into a parallel visual world of gods and magic. Whether it's an allegory of greed and innocence or merely a psychedelic feast, this implicitly anti-Disney epic is never cosy or sanitised. And its decorative detail is breathtaking.

As The Crowe Flies

Subtle seafaring actioner set during the Napoleonic wars

Lali Puna – Faking The Books

Third fantastic album by the Swiss glitch situationists

Summer Hymns – Value Series Vol 1: Fool’s Gold

Athens, GA septet deliver eloquently dreamscaped stopgap LP

Super Furry Animals – Phantom Phorce

Welsh neo-psych gang's most recent album gets the remix treatment
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