A concept album of sorts, the second solo release from the Mekons founder and Chicago-expat charts the rise and demise of honky-tonker Lofty Deeds as a metaphor for US history. Like all things Langford, though, it’s not heavy-handed or portentous, the music rollicking like a midnight special braced against the hard wind of his uniquely British delivery. Amid the hillbilly clatter?and covers of Procol Harum (“Homburg”) and Bob Wills (“Trouble In Mind”)?the Welshman takes swipes at the US (“The Country Is Young”) while revamping past glories with both the skiffle-guitar and bar-room piano of “Over The Cliff” and a wonderful Hank Williams lament, “Nashville Radio”.

Brooklynite Jon DeRosa’s outfit are deceptive. At face value, PHAR offer little more than a sad shuffle, the odd cracked waltz and scattered flurries of noise. But give it time and these trampled-heart melodies burrow under the skin. Last year’s Uncut-endorsed These Are The New Good Times was DeRosa’s stoned-slacker take on slo-mo country mores, but here he broadens the palette with the addition of Low collaborator Marc Gartman as co-songwriter and ex-Mercury Rev pedal-steeler Gerald Menke. The tone is sepia, but softly spiralling guitars, cold shivers of banjo and the bedsit-meets-prairie duality of the two leads texture the whole like a relief painting.

Following the critical success of last summer’s “Young Liars” EP, New York’s TV On The Radio continue to come at you from all sides with their debut album. There are various precedents bundled together here?Suicide, Zappa, The Beach Boys, Sun Ra. However, a cover of the Pixies’ “Mr Grieves” on “Young Liars” suggested a lineage to which you could attach Yeah Yeah Yeahs producer David Sitek and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe’s outfit. Like the Pixies, they manage to combine a sense of raging intensity while being off-centre, rather than merely straight-ahead rock. Whereas the Pixies sometimes felt empty at heart, however, that organ is positively bursting in TV On The Radio. “I know your heart can’t breathe what your eyes won’t see,” cries Adebimpe on “Dreams”. It’s like Brian Wilson’s upper register lamentations ratcheted up yet one more notch.

Now augmented by guitarist Kyp Malone, who also adds falsetto vocals, TV On The Radio still feel more like a shock-rock proposition, a crashing alternative to the often retro, posturing New York noo rawk scene, still subsisting on punk’s trust fund. Opener “The Wrong Way”, with its motorik electro-pulse, skittering guitars and parping horns, is a far more effective transcription of frantic, funky Manhattan than the CBGBs set ever dreamt of. The soul fibres of “Don’t Love You” unravel like the relationship depicted in the lyric, and “Bomb Yourself” pumps both blood and adrenalin. The present line-up of two black to one white man ought not raise eyebrows this late on, and the band would doubtless see this as a natural coming together rather than a multi-cultural experiment. Still, with rock and pop more, not less racially polarised than 20 years ago, it is striking. “Ambulance” perhaps slyly references the (non-)issue of the band’s ethnicity.

But what grabs you by the lapels is their sonic colourisation, their rush of tangents, their melding of cool experimentalism with red-hot purpose. And what’s most frightening is that, mighty as Desperate Youth… is, their real stone killer is probably yet to come.

Grand National began life when Lawrence “La” Rudd (vocals) and Rupert Lyddon (instruments), now in their late twenties, played in a band that performed cover versions of Queen and Police songs on the west London pub circuit. The influence of “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” is less discernible on their much-delayed debut than the bleach blond boys?”Playing In the Distance”, the first track Rudd and Lyddon wrote together, has the choppy urgency of “Roxanne”, while throughout Rudd approximates Sting’s aerated yodel. Elsewhere, touches of ska (“Boner”) and ethereal dream-rock (“Litter Bin”) betray a penchant for late-’70s guitar experimentation, alchemised here by a brilliant pop sheen.

Eddy is Erin Moran, from Greenwich Village via New Jersey, who flew to Sheffield to record this with Richard Hawley producing (and his Lowedges band backing) because “the rain suited the mood of the songs”. Not just another wordy nerd or feisty fronter, Moran exhibits gorgeously gauged soul and shrewdness on a record that?and we don’t say this lightly?sounds like a new Karen Carpenter album. While the deft dolour of Cowboy Junkies or the archest alt.country filters through “Tears All Over Town” or “Somebody Hurt You”, her low voice and lyrical longing elevate “Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside” and “People Used To Dream About The Future” into Hal David-writes-for-Orbison classics. Better yet, “Golden” is a “Goodbye To Love” for this millennium.

Though he never seemed young, it’s still a shock to realise that JJ Cale is 65. But, like the breeze in his song, he keeps blowing down the road. Since regular producer Audie Ashworth quit the saloon, Cale has returned to his Tulsa roots, teaming up with a bunch of old-timers for a session of city blues and country, leavened with the light touch of an old master. Cale doesn’t often stray from his territory; the likes of “My Gal” and “Blues For Mama” are Okie without being hokey. But he’s also included a deft eco song, “Stone River”, and the wryly apolitical “The Problem”, so there’s plenty of light and shade here.

The success of Kings Of Convenience’s remarkably Simon & Garfunkel-esque 2001 debut Quiet Is The New Loud had a dramatic effect on its authors. Sick of touring, guitarist/vocalist Eirek Glambek B

There was a rumour, just before the release of the last Strokes album, that the nouveau garage band had hooked up with legendary Off The Wall/Thriller producer Quincy Jones for their follow-up to Is This it. Of course, it turned out to be yet more safe white retro CBGBs drone-rock predictably helmed by Gordon Raphael, but it did make one long for the days when indie bands would, if not call upon the services of black/electronic music auteurs, at least attempt to engage with the culture. Circa ’81/’82, the likes of Orange Juice would cover Al Green without irony, while The Human League aped Moroder, and Heaven 17 and ABC absorbed the influence of NYC clubland. To put it in current terms, imagine Franz Ferdinand joining forces with Pharrell Williams. Now, every white group pays lip service to the radical “tic time” and stutter rhythms of Timbaland and The Neptunes. But only Junior Boys?24-year-old technophile Jeremy Greenspan from Hamilton, Canada, and two buddies?have put their money where their mouth is and made an LP steeped in recent avant-dance developments. Last Exit acknowledges everything from the digital funk of Timbaland to UK garage/2-step to clicks and cuts (dance music based on machine faults). Greenspan’s real coup, however, is to combine the dry formalism of, say, Pole and labels such as Mille Plateaux with the wan melodies of his favourite groups?masters of studio confection from Steely Dan to Prefab Sprout and all synth points between?and then deliver this new kind of pop song in the sort of exquisitely forlorn whisper-murmur not heard since Paddy McAloon or Green Gartside. This is where The Wire aesthetic meets early-’80s Smash Hits.

The contrast between romanticism and sonic daring, alien time signatures and freakishly pretty tunes, is irresistible. Greenspan’s unremittingly bleak, crushed world view, put-on or otherwise, expressed on titles such as “High Come Down” and “Teach Me How To Fight”, is no less addictive. No group since New Order has so effectively communicated such pristine woe. Whether or not this signals a future dub-spacious direction for alternative pop music, or a devastating one-off, remains to be seen. But it’s hard to believe there will be a better record than Last Exit released this year.

At times, the seventh album by this San Franciscan quartet sounds like a peculiarly avant-garde episode of Sesame Street. Enchanted nursery songs are apparently splintered and reconstructed amid fragments of post-punk, prog-rock, glitch and plenty more theoretically adult, po-faced musics. On paper, it might appear a pretty sickly exercise?a whimsical Blonde Redhead, perhaps. But Deerhoof’s skittish collages always, miraculously, have a pop logic to them, and their desire to show that experimental music can be playful rather than forbidding is often heroic. Astonishingly, too, Milk Man’s quirks are charming instead of self-conscious: the eponymous Milk Man may be a masked child-snatcher with bananas gouged into his flesh, but vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki’s ingenuous squeaks make even this nightmare figure endearing.

Ikara Colt’s impassioned dealings in the gnarlier end of art-rock should by now have elevated the London-based quartet into the indie Premiership. Hampered by misfortune and incompetence (their original bassist quit, replaced by Tracy Bellaries), their second album, helmed by At The Drive-In producer Alex Newport, channels a palpable love of early Fall (check singer Paul Resende’s Smith-like vowel-mangling on “Repro/Roadshow/Nightmare”) and Daydream Nation-period Sonic Youth (“Waste Ground”) into a convincing half-hour that teeters, teasingly, on the brink of collapse. The slinky punk-pop of “Modern Feeling” proves they’ve also got chart appeal, though you suspect Top Of The Pops is not yet a priority.

Omara Portuondo is the sole female member of the Buena Vista Social Club network and, for me, her duet with Ibrahim Ferrer in the Buena Vista movie instantly gave Wim Wenders’ lugubrious film an injection of sexy Cuban attitude. On Flor De Amor (translation: “Flower Of Love”) the 74-year-old diva remains in remarkable voice, crooning in a dark, lived-in yet tender voice over a large Buena Vista backing band. The music remains the classic Cuban boleros (ballads) and hip-swinging mambo workouts of pre-revolution Cuba, while producer Nick Gold has brought in several Brazilian musicians to lend a pan-Latin flavour to the proceedings. Omara remains defiantly old-school?no attempts at salsa or Shakira-type Latin rock crossover. Instead she concentrates on singing with grace, never uttering a false note or over-emoting. In doing so, she’s created a great soundtrack for the summer, and as perfect a Latin album as you could hope to find.

Describing itself as “the evil twin to the ecstatically decadent Boogie Nights soundtrack”, the merits of this collection dwarf even Val Kilmer’s (it says here) 13-inch penis. Okay, so he was playing porn legend John Holmes. But we don’t even want to think about the method acting. Instead, let’s explain why this soundtrack is so excellent. It’s very simple: most of the songs they’ve chosen are classics. As opposed to the tired drek clueless movie producers compiling soundtracks usually think are classics (Dido, The Troggs). Wonderland is a rarity, and gets it absolutely right.

Bookended by lewd dialogue from Kilmer and cronies, and a demented version of Neil Diamond’s “Love On The Rocks” by Korn’s Jonathan Davies (which intones, “Pour me a drink, bitch”), are: T. Rex’s “20th Century Boy”, The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy”, Roxy’s. “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”, Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”. Having fun yet? Okay, throw in Bob Dylan’s “Quinn The Eskimo”, Bad Company’s “Shooting Star” (c’mon, you love it) and The Cars’ “Good Times Roll” (c’mon, you…etc). Most of these are probably among your desert island discs. Duran Duran’s “Girls On Film” is probably your desert island video. And Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” is ubiquitous whether we like it or not. Terry Reid, Ted Nugent and Billy Joel make up the numbers. But we’ll ignore them because they spoil our flow. Wonderland leaps louchely from the “world’s forgotten boy” to “friends say it’s fine, friends say it’s good”. From “G-L-O-R-I-A” to “I blew up your body, but you blew my mind”. Anybody not knowing which tracks these lines are from has no business sticking around. We’ll manage without you. By accident or design, an exhilarating set which claims it captures “sleaze, paranoia, violence, sex and drugs”, and claims well.

Sunderland’s Futureheads once claimed they started a band because their city had no cinema. As beliefs in punk’s original diktat regarding necessity’s relationship to invention go, it’s about as old-school as you could get. Their striking debut resembles a late-’70s manifesto?all nervy guitar and barked observations. But The Futureheads understand that a love of The Jam, early Clash and Gang Of Four (Andy Gill produced) means nothing without… well, meaning of one’s own. “First Day” and “The City Is Here For You To Use” match belief with bravado, marking The Futureheads out as a fresh, capable talent.

As lynchpin of Zumpano and later The New Pornographers, Vancouver’s Carl Newman has a talent for ingenious left turns. On his debut solo album, he pays homage to the quirkier balladeer school. Sunnily arranged, “Miracle Drug” whips itself into an anthem, while the orchestrated “Cloud Prayer” and the moody “Most Of Us Prize Fighters” could have been standouts on the Pornographers’ Electric Version album. Crafty and clean-cut, Newman is a credit to an overlooked art; a big, baroque fusion of sharp garage, paisley pop and ’70s sleekness, finished with a coating of Terry Jacks sentiment. “Rock with good songs” was Newman’s simple demand. He’s delivered.

Another broadly apocalyptic day at the office for Sunn O))), two Americans?Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson?with a taste for slothful riffs, feedback, organ-shuffling sub-bass and avantdoom pioneers Earth. As with last year’s superior White 1, ambient metal predominates?deeply silly and yet meditatively beautiful. Monumental hardly does it justice, since the three huge tracks move so slowly one could imagine civilisations rising from the swamps and crumbling to dust in their timespans. Sunn O))) clearly welcome such elemental associations: they play live in druids’ robes; White 1 included a sermon from Julian Cope; and “Decay2” here features satanic breathing exercises from Attila Csihar, a collaborator of murdered Norwegian black metaller Euronymous. It’s hard to take Sunn O))) as seriously, however, given Anderson’s moonlighting with that unlikely lord of misrule, Dave Grohl.

Not only a Brit comedy that’s funny, but an indie-pop soundtrack that’s in good taste. Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” and “You’re My Best Friend” are here to ensure nobody thinks this is XFM, but otherwise I Monster, Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and Ash do it for the kids. Grandmaster Flash and Man Parrish do it for the kids with rhythm. Lemon Jelly do it for the parents. The Smiths and The Specials do it for us all. And Ash teaming up with Chris Martin to cover Buzzcocks’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” is surely done with good intentions and a sense of humour. You’ll be spaced.

The Korgis’ bittersweet 1980 hit “Everybody’s Got To Learn Some Time”, and 1998’s future of rock’n’roll, Beck. What could they have in common? Well, Beck has wised up and done a cover of said narcoleptic nugget. And in this intelligent, melancholy film, it sounds every bit as affecting as intended. Jon Brion, the man behind the score to Magnolia, contributes the bulk, while The Polyphonic Spree chime in with “Light And Day”. If you enjoy the Spree un-ironically, you’ll also love ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky”, here in all its bombast.

The new Dawson’s Creek, and declared a guilty pleasure for adults by every Sunday supplement you read. To enjoy the music fully, pretend you still ask your mum and dad’s permission to stay out after nine. Having made such a leap, swoon to timid acoustic moments from Spoon, South and William Orbit. Get a bit stroppy to the Dandy Warhols or Doves, slam the door to Turin Brakes, then storm out in a huff crying to the grown-up riffs of Jet, who, in this context, sound like they shave and might piss on your barbecue. It’s called Orange County because of the colour of the actors’ skin, by the way.