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Good Golly Miss Polly

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PJ Harvey/Elbow EDEN PROJECT, CORNWALL Friday August 15, 2003 PJ Harvey TATE MODERN, LONDON Monday September 1, 2003 Polly harvey's first uk appearance in almost two years?and her absence has established her as one of our few home-grown stars in possession of charisma and mystique?takes place ...

PJ Harvey/Elbow

EDEN PROJECT, CORNWALL

Friday August 15, 2003

PJ Harvey

TATE MODERN, LONDON

Monday September 1, 2003

Polly harvey’s first uk appearance in almost two years?and her absence has established her as one of our few home-grown stars in possession of charisma and mystique?takes place at one of our most peculiar venues. Standing within the bowels of the Eden Project, you can’t help but imagine you’re on the set of a ’70s sci-fi movie in which they envisaged the future a little too enthusiastically. Huge bubble-shaped domes, strictly “biomes”, dominate the landscape around the stage, and as the sun sets everything turns a fluorescent green. The design’s intended as a homage to timeless nature, but you feel as if you’re in Dr Evil’s gigantic outdoor lab: possibly aliens are set to invade any minute. When PJ enters wearing something that’s half Aladdin Sane smock, half straight-outta-Essex micro-skirt (is she shooting for postmodern glam icon or ‘ironic’ lad-mag ‘stunna’?), the all-round gaucheness is bewildering, if entertaining.

Perversely, given this’d be a great venue for, say, Kraftwerk, she plays a stripped-down, harsh, retro-bluesy set as part of just a three-piece band, back to basics, ditching the slicker gloss adopted around the Stories From The City…album, and electing to show that she was doing raw and ravaged before The White Stripes were a twinkle in Ren

The Hi-Lo Country

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Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings SHEPHERD'S BUSH EMPIRE Wednesday September 3, 2003 When the heady drug-like spell cast by this captivating show began to fade, it got me thinking. Perhaps the greatest vindication of the music created by the dirt-poor founding fathers (and mothers) of country is the way their influence has reached out across the years and class barriers to a place where, to quote the late, great Sam Phillips, "the soul of man never dies". With just their acoustic guitars and the occasional banjo for accompaniment, David and Gillian are stripped down to the core essentials of melody and harmony, loss and wonder, longing and loveliness. They make The White Stripes seem overdressed, but the idea that these former Berklee Academy students are interlopers or revivalists is beneath contempt. Hank Williams, Ralph Stanley and The Carter Family may have known privation, but the contributions made to the endless river of song by well-heeled lads like Townes, Gram and Kristofferson are just as lasting. Right now the "it's not where you're from but where you're at" principle applies to no one as much as it does to Rawlings and Welch. They play so softly that early on Gillian asks the photographers to leave the pit because they can hear the shutters better than they can hear themselves. This is indicative of the tender chemistry that binds their voices together as they describe the seductive wantonness of "Look At Miss Ohio" or revel in "Elvis Presley Blues", which is even more open and allusive than the version they recorded for Time (The Revelator). Amid their corny asides and bone-dry humour ("Thanks," said Dave returning to the stage and his mic stand and quieting the rapturous applause for Gillian's solo spot), it's obvious this pair have found the key to a timeless, haunted realm. Their songs?for vagabonds of the heart and wounded soul searchers?inhabit an idealised jukebox of the type you might think only accessible in Dreamland. "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor" offers prayerful contemplation; "Wrecking Ball" follows a trail of destruction until it becomes a powerful statement of freedom and self-expression. Their "Manic Depression" eerily captures the highs and nagging futility of the condition and makes you think?Welch does Hendrix? I'd buy that. Then Dave's ornery solo spot on cowboy ballad "Diamond Joe" suggests an album of Rawlings' campfire classics would be a treat, too. But signs are that such a parting is a long way off. One of best things they do all night is a new, untitled song that is a miraculous blend of wound-healing and Everlys Dreamland harmonies. Then came the epic finale "I Dream A Highway" in all its gilded wonder. You could see it stretching far beyond this west London night into the nether land of thrilling and foreboding American dreams and nightmares. Awesome.

Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings

SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE

Wednesday September 3, 2003

When the heady drug-like spell cast by this captivating show began to fade, it got me thinking. Perhaps the greatest vindication of the music created by the dirt-poor founding fathers (and mothers) of country is the way their influence has reached out across the years and class barriers to a place where, to quote the late, great Sam Phillips, “the soul of man never dies”.

With just their acoustic guitars and the occasional banjo for accompaniment, David and Gillian are stripped down to the core essentials of melody and harmony, loss and wonder, longing and loveliness. They make The White Stripes seem overdressed, but the idea that these former Berklee Academy students are interlopers or revivalists is beneath contempt.

Hank Williams, Ralph Stanley and The Carter Family may have known privation, but the contributions made to the endless river of song by well-heeled lads like Townes, Gram and Kristofferson are just as lasting. Right now the “it’s not where you’re from but where you’re at” principle applies to no one as much as it does to Rawlings and Welch.

They play so softly that early on Gillian asks the photographers to leave the pit because they can hear the shutters better than they can hear themselves. This is indicative of the tender chemistry that binds their voices together as they describe the seductive wantonness of “Look At Miss Ohio” or revel in “Elvis Presley Blues”, which is even more open and allusive than the version they recorded for Time (The Revelator).

Amid their corny asides and bone-dry humour (“Thanks,” said Dave returning to the stage and his mic stand and quieting the rapturous applause for Gillian’s solo spot), it’s obvious this pair have found the key to a timeless, haunted realm. Their songs?for vagabonds of the heart and wounded soul searchers?inhabit an idealised jukebox of the type you might think only accessible in Dreamland.

“Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor” offers prayerful contemplation; “Wrecking Ball” follows a trail of destruction until it becomes a powerful statement of freedom and self-expression. Their “Manic Depression” eerily captures the highs and nagging futility of the condition and makes you think?Welch does Hendrix? I’d buy that. Then Dave’s ornery solo spot on cowboy ballad “Diamond Joe” suggests an album of Rawlings’ campfire classics would be a treat, too.

But signs are that such a parting is a long way off. One of best things they do all night is a new, untitled song that is a miraculous blend of wound-healing and Everlys Dreamland harmonies. Then came the epic finale “I Dream A Highway” in all its gilded wonder. You could see it stretching far beyond this west London night into the nether land of thrilling and foreboding American dreams and nightmares. Awesome.

Willard Grant Conspiracy, Grand Drive, Horse Stories – Union Chapel, London

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From Melbourne via LA, Horse Stories' frontman Toby Burke stands alone, and sends his lovely voice soaring up into the Union Chapel's vaulted darkness. He's essentially a singer-songwriter dressed in country raiment, but it fits him well. His is an elegant melancholy; peals of electric guitar lapping against his songs like a mournful tide. You feel he deserves an orchestra. Grand Drive's Julian and Danny Wilson were originally from Australia, but grew up in south London. They take the "alt" out of alt.country to make music reminiscent of Nashville at its commercial worst, music that belongs on the soundtrack to Dawson's Creek. It reaches its nadir on the cornball fluff of "Harmony", a song which conjures the unholy memory of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney as it offers the definition "when two people sing as one", which isn't even musically correct. Even the charm of an early song like "Wrong Notes" has soured into schmaltz. There is something oddly narcissistic about the Wilsons' helium harmonies; they billow gassily rather in the manner of Clannad, which isn't at all what the doctor ordered. "You'll be happy to know the [new] record is a meditation on mortality," Robert Fisher deadpans as Willard Grant Conspiracy take the stage, "which is another word for death." A perfectly timed comic pause. "You won't be required to do much dancing." "River In The Pines" sets the tone, a traditional song in which, quips Fisher, "boy meets girl, they fall in love, then they die tragically." Uncut's Album Of The Month for July, Regard The End, from which the bulk of tonight's set is taken, is certainly sombre. But as the descending notes of "Ghost Of The Girl In The Well" swell its wordless chorus, it suggests transcendence. Fisher is blessed with a voice that has all the gravity of a Cash, a Cohen or a Cale. This isn't simply a maudlin exercise in classicism, however. This is a tradition whose relevance couldn't be more sharply felt. "People have called this our anti-war song," says Fisher of "Another Man Is Gone", "which is okay as there aren't enough of those." "Day Is Passed And Gone" is introduced as "a lullaby, and like many lullabies, it features death prominently." Fisher tells us his mother thought" you should sing children to bed reminding them that they are mortal: they wake up grateful." The majestic "Suffering Song" reminds us that what unites us is our painful humanity. We walk out grateful.

From Melbourne via LA, Horse Stories’ frontman Toby Burke stands alone, and sends his lovely voice soaring up into the Union Chapel’s vaulted darkness. He’s essentially a singer-songwriter dressed in country raiment, but it fits him well. His is an elegant melancholy; peals of electric guitar lapping against his songs like a mournful tide. You feel he deserves an orchestra.

Grand Drive’s Julian and Danny Wilson were originally from Australia, but grew up in south London. They take the “alt” out of alt.country to make music reminiscent of Nashville at its commercial worst, music that belongs on the soundtrack to Dawson’s Creek. It reaches its nadir on the cornball fluff of “Harmony”, a song which conjures the unholy memory of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney as it offers the definition “when two people sing as one”, which isn’t even musically correct. Even the charm of an early song like “Wrong Notes” has soured into schmaltz. There is something oddly narcissistic about the Wilsons’ helium harmonies; they billow gassily rather in the manner of Clannad, which isn’t at all what the doctor ordered.

“You’ll be happy to know the [new] record is a meditation on mortality,” Robert Fisher deadpans as Willard Grant Conspiracy take the stage, “which is another word for death.” A perfectly timed comic pause. “You won’t be required to do much dancing.” “River In The Pines” sets the tone, a traditional song in which, quips Fisher, “boy meets girl, they fall in love, then they die tragically.” Uncut’s Album Of The Month for July, Regard The End, from which the bulk of tonight’s set is taken, is certainly sombre. But as the descending notes of “Ghost Of The Girl In The Well” swell its wordless chorus, it suggests transcendence. Fisher is blessed with a voice that has all the gravity of a Cash, a Cohen or a Cale. This isn’t simply a maudlin exercise in classicism, however. This is a tradition whose relevance couldn’t be more sharply felt. “People have called this our anti-war song,” says Fisher of “Another Man Is Gone”, “which is okay as there aren’t enough of those.” “Day Is Passed And Gone” is introduced as “a lullaby, and like many lullabies, it features death prominently.” Fisher tells us his mother thought” you should sing children to bed reminding them that they are mortal: they wake up grateful.” The majestic “Suffering Song” reminds us that what unites us is our painful humanity. We walk out grateful.

Jeff Beck – Jeff

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With hindsight, all that '60s brouhaha about who was the fastest guitar-slinger in town now seems pretty silly. Yet it was always clear that Jeff Beck could coax more extraordinary sounds out of his instrument than just about anyone other than Hendrix. Beck's new album ranges from vintage blues-rock to an orchestrated version of a Bulgarian folk tune. His playing is as tasty as you would expect, and his unique guitar style provides a coherent thread that binds the diverse material together. But the hi-tech beats added to several tracks by producers Apollo 440 are gratuitous and can't disguise the need for a few songs to give greater focus to his high-class noodling.

With hindsight, all that ’60s brouhaha about who was the fastest guitar-slinger in town now seems pretty silly. Yet it was always clear that Jeff Beck could coax more extraordinary sounds out of his instrument than just about anyone other than Hendrix. Beck’s new album ranges from vintage blues-rock to an orchestrated version of a Bulgarian folk tune. His playing is as tasty as you would expect, and his unique guitar style provides a coherent thread that binds the diverse material together. But the hi-tech beats added to several tracks by producers Apollo 440 are gratuitous and can’t disguise the need for a few songs to give greater focus to his high-class noodling.

The Wisdom Of Harry – Torch Division

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There's a fine line between winsome and wet, eccentric and affected, but Pete Astor is clearly a skillful tightrope walker. Together with multi-instrumentalist David Sheppard, he's crafted another album of perfectly pitched DIY pop. On Torch Division, the pair have dispensed with the lo-fi electronica that distinguished their previous House Of Binary album to the margins, where it fizzes and twitters only intermittently. The emphasis is now on Astor's songs?sweetly mournful snapshots of the mundane and the miraculous fleshed out with idiosyncratic instrumentation. "Chicken" recalls a malevolent Tom Waits, while elsewhere Neil Young, Calexico and Mazzy Star make their presence felt. An album of great warmth, engaging oddness and real, ramshackle charm.

There’s a fine line between winsome and wet, eccentric and affected, but Pete Astor is clearly a skillful tightrope walker. Together with multi-instrumentalist David Sheppard, he’s crafted another album of perfectly pitched DIY pop.

On Torch Division, the pair have dispensed with the lo-fi electronica that distinguished their previous House Of Binary album to the margins, where it fizzes and twitters only intermittently. The emphasis is now on Astor’s songs?sweetly mournful snapshots of the mundane and the miraculous fleshed out with idiosyncratic instrumentation. “Chicken” recalls a malevolent Tom Waits, while elsewhere Neil Young, Calexico and Mazzy Star make their presence felt.

An album of great warmth, engaging oddness and real, ramshackle charm.

Sigmatropic – Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories

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Originally released in Greek early last year, Boyatzis' musical adaptation of the poetry of Nobel Laureate/compatriot George Seferis undergoes an international makeover. Eighteen guest vocalists from both sides of the pond (including Robert Wyatt, Alejandro Escovedo, Mark Eitzel, Steve Wynn and Howe Gelb) add English translation to power-popper-cum-sound-collagist Boyatzis' delicate noise paintings. Superb offerings from The Czars' John Grant ("Haiku 14B") and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo ("Haiku 12") are the most linear, but Cat Power's "Haiku 10" and Carla (Walkabouts) Torgerson's "Haiku 5" are softer and more smearily beautiful.

Originally released in Greek early last year, Boyatzis’ musical adaptation of the poetry of Nobel Laureate/compatriot George Seferis undergoes an international makeover. Eighteen guest vocalists from both sides of the pond (including Robert Wyatt, Alejandro Escovedo, Mark Eitzel, Steve Wynn and Howe Gelb) add English translation to power-popper-cum-sound-collagist Boyatzis’ delicate noise paintings. Superb offerings from The Czars’ John Grant (“Haiku 14B”) and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo (“Haiku 12”) are the most linear, but Cat Power’s “Haiku 10” and Carla (Walkabouts) Torgerson’s “Haiku 5” are softer and more smearily beautiful.

Alice Cooper – The Eyes Of Alice Cooper

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With the comparative youngsters of the so-called New Rock Revolution currently kicking ass, it seems appropriate that panto-rock's ultimate ugly sister should see fit to try his hand at some old-fashioned, stripped-down rock action. Recorded over a month with Godsmack producer Mudrock and a bare-bones band, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper finds the great man thoroughly revitalised. That said, while the rollicking "Detroit City" (Uncle Alice tells it like it is to the neophytes) and the whispery ghost story "This House Is Haunted" are enormous fun, there's also some FM filler, and whether the kids will be won over remains to be seen.

With the comparative youngsters of the so-called New Rock Revolution currently kicking ass, it seems appropriate that panto-rock’s ultimate ugly sister should see fit to try his hand at some old-fashioned, stripped-down rock action. Recorded over a month with Godsmack producer Mudrock and a bare-bones band, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper finds the great man thoroughly revitalised. That said, while the rollicking “Detroit City” (Uncle Alice tells it like it is to the neophytes) and the whispery ghost story “This House Is Haunted” are enormous fun, there’s also some FM filler, and whether the kids will be won over remains to be seen.

Parsley Sound – Parsley Sounds

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With their somnambulistic folk shanties and spliffed-out beeps and blips, Parsley Sounds seem an unlikely acquisition to James Lavelle's Mo'Wax empire. Neither trip nor hip hop, duo Danny Sargassa and Preston Mead drift in a melodic haze of wistful innocence, sounding like cub scout Stone Roses or wide-eyed Shack wannabes. That's no bad thing either: even without electronic squelch and burp, tracks like the serenely sullen "Ocean House" stand unencumbered as great songs with proper tunes.

With their somnambulistic folk shanties and spliffed-out beeps and blips, Parsley Sounds seem an unlikely acquisition to James Lavelle’s Mo’Wax empire. Neither trip nor hip hop, duo Danny Sargassa and Preston Mead drift in a melodic haze of wistful innocence, sounding like cub scout Stone Roses or wide-eyed Shack wannabes. That’s no bad thing either: even without electronic squelch and burp, tracks like the serenely sullen “Ocean House” stand unencumbered as great songs with proper tunes.

Jet – Get Born

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Four bruisers from Melbourne, this band have spent the past year conscientiously building a legend for themselves as fighting, bad-mouthing rock'n'roll archetypes. Perhaps inevitably, their debut album doesn't measure up to the rhetoric, being an efficient if fairly joyless hybrid of the Stones, AC/DC and Oasis. Unlike Antipodean contemporaries The Datsuns, Jet seem bereft of either wit or self-knowledge: it's telling that the most impassioned song here is "Rollover DJ", an attack on the supposed evils of dance music that's more laughable than inflammatory.

Four bruisers from Melbourne, this band have spent the past year conscientiously building a legend for themselves as fighting, bad-mouthing rock’n’roll archetypes. Perhaps inevitably, their debut album doesn’t measure up to the rhetoric, being an efficient if fairly joyless hybrid of the Stones, AC/DC and Oasis. Unlike Antipodean contemporaries The Datsuns, Jet seem bereft of either wit or self-knowledge: it’s telling that the most impassioned song here is “Rollover DJ”, an attack on the supposed evils of dance music that’s more laughable than inflammatory.

Ursula Rucker – Silver Or Lead

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"Don't underestimate me 'cos I do poetry?my rhyme is sweet but deadly," Ursula Rucker warns us on "Untitled Flow". After emerging from Philadelphia's fertile spoken-word scene, she first grabbed public attention through her work with fellow citizens The Roots, later refining her soulful blending of rap, poetry and scat on her 2001 debut album, Supa Sista. Her follow-up record, Silver Or Lead, follows a similarly rootsy and righteous path, with Rucker's fluid rhymes set against musical backdrops that range from ambient house to Afro-Latin as crafted by the likes of Jazzanova, 4 Hero and The Roots. Rucker's boldly conscious poetics do occasionally smack of self-righteousness, but Silver Or Lead nevertheless confirms her status as a vibrant and refreshingly forthright voice from the hip hop underground.

“Don’t underestimate me ‘cos I do poetry?my rhyme is sweet but deadly,” Ursula Rucker warns us on “Untitled Flow”. After emerging from Philadelphia’s fertile spoken-word scene, she first grabbed public attention through her work with fellow citizens The Roots, later refining her soulful blending of rap, poetry and scat on her 2001 debut album, Supa Sista.

Her follow-up record, Silver Or Lead, follows a similarly rootsy and righteous path, with Rucker’s fluid rhymes set against musical backdrops that range from ambient house to Afro-Latin as crafted by the likes of Jazzanova, 4 Hero and The Roots. Rucker’s boldly conscious poetics do occasionally smack of self-righteousness, but Silver Or Lead nevertheless confirms her status as a vibrant and refreshingly forthright voice from the hip hop underground.

Van Morrison – What’s Wrong With This Picture?

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A new label but business as usual for George Ivan Morrison, erstwhile mystic and vocal giant, as he covers familiar territory with customary tenacity and still manages to unearth some fresh delights. The lazy, bucolic loveliness of "Somerset" and the spry, curious musing of "Little Village" are standouts, while the iniquities of life lived in the media goldfish remain an abiding concern for Morrison?somewhat laughably, since he's hardly in the Posh'n'Becks league. But his blistering performance on "Fame" (no relation to Bowie's) is the sound of a man with a righteous bee in his bonnet.

A new label but business as usual for George Ivan Morrison, erstwhile mystic and vocal giant, as he covers familiar territory with customary tenacity and still manages to unearth some fresh delights.

The lazy, bucolic loveliness of “Somerset” and the spry, curious musing of “Little Village” are standouts, while the iniquities of life lived in the media goldfish remain an abiding concern for Morrison?somewhat laughably, since he’s hardly in the Posh’n’Becks league. But his blistering performance on “Fame” (no relation to Bowie’s) is the sound of a man with a righteous bee in his bonnet.

This Month In Americana

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Apparently descended from Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe, Melbourne native Burke took inspiration from fellow Aussie Paul Kelly, swiping the Horse Stories banner from a Dirty Three album and hitting the local circuit in the late '90s. Disillusioned and suffocated by his hometown scene, he fled to LA in 1999 to hole up with his similarly ex-pat attorney brother and try out as a TV writer. Beginning to dabble again with guitar and eight-track, he was soon bolstered by power-popping Texan ace Clinton Stapleton (drums, ex-National) and dub-punker Jeff Holmes (guitar, ex-Dingees). Last year's debut, Travelling Mercies (For Troubled Paths), was a triumph, serving notice of smouldering talent. For its follow-up, the trio headed for John Barrymore's old Pacific mountain hideaway, Indigo Ranch, and fashioned an impressionistic mood piece, substituting blacktop metaphor for all things ocean spray. Burke mines the duality of the sea, finding both freedom and no escape in its vastness. With Son Volt's Eric Heywood adding banks of pedal steel, the painterly approach on curtain-raiser "Push My Buttons" is typical:softly churning guitars, a strain of harmonica and Burke's keening, skyward falsetto. Comparisons with Thom Yorke are inevitable, but Burke's gentler, less corrosive tone is closer to Jacob Golden or Ben Christophers. Light and shadow are provided by the sidelong skip of "Bottled Train", accordion/piano-led instrumental "The Calming Effects... Of Rum And True Friendship" and the vocal tour de force "The Rocks And The Waves". If it all gets too much, there's "Chanty (For A Drowning Sinner)"?a rum-choked hornpipe replete with shakers, squeezeboxes and rail spikes. Nice.

Apparently descended from Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe, Melbourne native Burke took inspiration from fellow Aussie Paul Kelly, swiping the Horse Stories banner from a Dirty Three album and hitting the local circuit in the late ’90s. Disillusioned and suffocated by his hometown scene, he fled to LA in 1999 to hole up with his similarly ex-pat attorney brother and try out as a TV writer. Beginning to dabble again with guitar and eight-track, he was soon bolstered by power-popping Texan ace Clinton Stapleton (drums, ex-National) and dub-punker Jeff Holmes (guitar, ex-Dingees).

Last year’s debut, Travelling Mercies (For Troubled Paths), was a triumph, serving notice of smouldering talent. For its follow-up, the trio headed for John Barrymore’s old Pacific mountain hideaway, Indigo Ranch, and fashioned an impressionistic mood piece, substituting blacktop metaphor for all things ocean spray. Burke mines the duality of the sea, finding both freedom and no escape in its vastness.

With Son Volt’s Eric Heywood adding banks of pedal steel, the painterly approach on curtain-raiser “Push My Buttons” is typical:softly churning guitars, a strain of harmonica and Burke’s keening, skyward falsetto. Comparisons with Thom Yorke are inevitable, but Burke’s gentler, less corrosive tone is closer to Jacob Golden or Ben Christophers. Light and shadow are provided by the sidelong skip of “Bottled Train”, accordion/piano-led instrumental “The Calming Effects… Of Rum And True Friendship” and the vocal tour de force “The Rocks And The Waves”. If it all gets too much, there’s “Chanty (For A Drowning Sinner)”?a rum-choked hornpipe replete with shakers, squeezeboxes and rail spikes. Nice.

Last But Not Least

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Joe Strummer's sudden death last December seemingly brought the career of one of our greatest rockers to an abrupt end. But what makes Streetcore, the album he'd all but completed at the time of his death, so thrilling and fulfilling is that it brings both closure and new meaning to the man's life and work. Its 10 songs?seven Strummer originals, one co-write with Danny Sabre ("All In A Day") and two covers, Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" and Bobby Charles' "Silver And Gold"?embrace the full span of Joe's musical journey. There's the heartfelt folkie troubadour inspired by Dylan and Woody Guthrie ("Long Shadow"), the possessed missionary on the electric bush telegraph ("Midnight Jam"), the hippie dreamer, acid prankster and punk Godfather ("Ramshackle Day Parade", "Burnin' Streets") and the rocking tribal warrior ("Arms Aloft"). Streetcore negotiates a resolution between the ethnocentric beats that hallmarked the two previous Mescaleros albums and the classic Clash sound that remained pivotal to Joe's live performances. It also contains some of the most revealing songs he ever recorded, making it an essential, if ill-starred, trip. "Coma Girl", driven by his unmistakable engine-revving rhythm guitar, is classic Strummer, swept along by a Jamaican offbeat; bruising punk clatter collides with reggae-inflected prophesy on "Get Down Moses", presenting an activist call to arms ("Who's sponsoring the crack ghettoes?/We got to take the walls of Jericho.") Unsurprisingly, these songs are often informed by world-weary experience and the battle-hardened wisdom of a rock'n'roll veteran. "May I remind you of that scene/The spirit is our gasoline" is the rallying cry of "Arms Aloft", recalling the heyday of "Clash City Rockers", when anything seemed possible. But elsewhere that spirit is besieged and under fire. On the extraordinary "Ramshackle Day Parade" the funereal synthesizer and baleful chorus describe a post-9/11 march of flailed souls, a toast to "all those lost, unborn and unmade". "All In A Day" captures an inspired mix of uncertainty, mania and exhilaration, while on "Burnin' Streets" images of urban decay are suffused with outrage and sorrow. Even greater is the Rick Rubin-produced "Redemption Song", a magisterial reinterpretation, Joe's affinity with Marley's lyric absolute. The similarly sparse "Long Shadow", originally written for Johnny Cash, is, as Strummer's biographer Chris Salewicz indentified, Joe's own "Redemption Song". This cowboy ballad is a righteous testament linking Westway anarchists and rocking desperadoes with US Depression-era hobos and chain gangs. It's a song as deep and lasting as "White Man In Hammersmith Palais", or any other previous Strummer composition. Of course there's a sadness here:a man is gone, and no one can take his place. But Mescaleros Scott Shields and Martin Slattery have served Strummer's memory well, and Streetcore is something to celebrate, proof that, right up to his death, Joe Strummer was working at the peak of his powers.

Joe Strummer’s sudden death last December seemingly brought the career of one of our greatest rockers to an abrupt end. But what makes Streetcore, the album he’d all but completed at the time of his death, so thrilling and fulfilling is that it brings both closure and new meaning to the man’s life and work.

Its 10 songs?seven Strummer originals, one co-write with Danny Sabre (“All In A Day”) and two covers, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” and Bobby Charles’ “Silver And Gold”?embrace the full span of Joe’s musical journey. There’s the heartfelt folkie troubadour inspired by Dylan and Woody Guthrie (“Long Shadow”), the possessed missionary on the electric bush telegraph (“Midnight Jam”), the hippie dreamer, acid prankster and punk Godfather (“Ramshackle Day Parade”, “Burnin’ Streets”) and the rocking tribal warrior (“Arms Aloft”).

Streetcore negotiates a resolution between the ethnocentric beats that hallmarked the two previous Mescaleros albums and the classic Clash sound that remained pivotal to Joe’s live performances. It also contains some of the most revealing songs he ever recorded, making it an essential, if ill-starred, trip.

“Coma Girl”, driven by his unmistakable engine-revving rhythm guitar, is classic Strummer, swept along by a Jamaican offbeat; bruising punk clatter collides with reggae-inflected prophesy on “Get Down Moses”, presenting an activist call to arms (“Who’s sponsoring the crack ghettoes?/We got to take the walls of Jericho.”)

Unsurprisingly, these songs are often informed by world-weary experience and the battle-hardened wisdom of a rock’n’roll veteran.

“May I remind you of that scene/The spirit is our gasoline” is the rallying cry of “Arms Aloft”, recalling the heyday of “Clash City Rockers”, when anything seemed possible. But elsewhere that spirit is besieged and under fire. On the extraordinary “Ramshackle Day Parade” the funereal synthesizer and baleful chorus describe a post-9/11 march of flailed souls, a toast to “all those lost, unborn and unmade”. “All In A Day” captures an inspired mix of uncertainty, mania and exhilaration, while on “Burnin’ Streets” images of urban decay are suffused with outrage and sorrow.

Even greater is the Rick Rubin-produced “Redemption Song”, a magisterial reinterpretation, Joe’s affinity with Marley’s lyric absolute. The similarly sparse “Long Shadow”, originally written for Johnny Cash, is, as Strummer’s biographer Chris Salewicz indentified, Joe’s own “Redemption Song”. This cowboy ballad is a righteous testament linking Westway anarchists and rocking desperadoes with US Depression-era hobos and chain gangs. It’s a song as deep and lasting as “White Man In Hammersmith Palais”, or any other previous Strummer composition.

Of course there’s a sadness here:a man is gone, and no one can take his place. But Mescaleros Scott Shields and Martin Slattery have served Strummer’s memory well, and Streetcore is something to celebrate, proof that, right up to his death, Joe Strummer was working at the peak of his powers.

Blondie – The Curse Of Blondie

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Seventeen years passed between Blondie's sixth and seventh albums. The eighth has taken a mere four. Even so, its protracted gestation involved record company calamities and lost tapes, hence the tongue-in-cheek title. Standard practice for the New York nonpareils, whose work with long-time cohort Craig Leon here is, despite everything, a pop masterclass from raunch-rock to reggae to boho jazz. The opener, "Shakedown", with Harry rapping of New Jersey roots and witches in ditches, is so powerful and beguiling?"signed: don't forget me, lots of love from Adrenalin"?that the tide's high the minute you dip your toe in. "Good Boys" and "Undone" are inch-perfect and sky-large. The whole thing tingles: you're in the presence of diamond-hard greatness. They make it sound easy.

Seventeen years passed between Blondie’s sixth and seventh albums. The eighth has taken a mere four. Even so, its protracted gestation involved record company calamities and lost tapes, hence the tongue-in-cheek title. Standard practice for the New York nonpareils, whose work with long-time cohort Craig Leon here is, despite everything, a pop masterclass from raunch-rock to reggae to boho jazz. The opener, “Shakedown”, with Harry rapping of New Jersey roots and witches in ditches, is so powerful and beguiling?”signed: don’t forget me, lots of love from Adrenalin”?that the tide’s high the minute you dip your toe in. “Good Boys” and “Undone” are inch-perfect and sky-large. The whole thing tingles: you’re in the presence of diamond-hard greatness. They make it sound easy.

Plaid – Spokes

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Despite recording together for 14 years (much of that as part of The Black Dog), Ed Handley and Andy Turner still explore the syntax of electronica with awe and excitement. Tracks like "Crumax Rins" or the haunting synth fugue "Cedar City" may hint at the tenebrous dissonance of their earlier incarnation, but generally Spokes is passionate and optimistic. A remarkable selection of sound sculptures hewn from taut percussive textures ("Buns"), iridescent stabs of melody ("Get What You Gave"), crunchy beats ("Even Spring") and quirky bouncing electro ("Upona"), this is intelligent and addictive.

Despite recording together for 14 years (much of that as part of The Black Dog), Ed Handley and Andy Turner still explore the syntax of electronica with awe and excitement. Tracks like “Crumax Rins” or the haunting synth fugue “Cedar City” may hint at the tenebrous dissonance of their earlier incarnation, but generally Spokes is passionate and optimistic. A remarkable selection of sound sculptures hewn from taut percussive textures (“Buns”), iridescent stabs of melody (“Get What You Gave”), crunchy beats (“Even Spring”) and quirky bouncing electro (“Upona”), this is intelligent and addictive.

Alfie – Do You Imagine Things?

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Touted as the next big stink a couple of years ago, Alfie never quite made it. To detractors, they were too twee?too, well, nice. Eighteen months on, after breaking with old label Twisted Nerve and with Coldplay producer Ken Nelson at the helm, they've put their backs into it. The pastorale remains (as does singer Lee Gorton's muggy sweetness), but the album also distills Barrett-era Floyd, Flaming Lips and the psychedelic headspin of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band into a flurry of brass, strings and folk-choir harmonies. Of their UK peers, only the Super Furries do this stuff better.

Touted as the next big stink a couple of years ago, Alfie never quite made it. To detractors, they were too twee?too, well, nice. Eighteen months on, after breaking with old label Twisted Nerve and with Coldplay producer Ken Nelson at the helm, they’ve put their backs into it. The pastorale remains (as does singer Lee Gorton’s muggy sweetness), but the album also distills Barrett-era Floyd, Flaming Lips and the psychedelic headspin of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band into a flurry of brass, strings and folk-choir harmonies. Of their UK peers, only the Super Furries do this stuff better.

Joe Henry – Tiny Voices

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Returning to his day job having picked up a Grammy for producing and writing on Solomon Burke's excellent Don't Give Up On Me comeback, Tiny Voices has an even greater concentration on mod con jazz (Ornette Coleman appeared on his last) thanks to clarinettist Don Byron's sinuous contributions. But Henry's original incarnation as a North Carolina pop merchant still emerges on tracks like the eye-popping "Dirty Magazines" and the fully-scoped "Animal Skin". Big melodies, soothing rhythms and some neat jazz jerks: Tiny Voices makes a quiet noise that's worth investigating.

Returning to his day job having picked up a Grammy for producing and writing on Solomon Burke’s excellent Don’t Give Up On Me comeback, Tiny Voices has an even greater concentration on mod con jazz (Ornette Coleman appeared on his last) thanks to clarinettist Don Byron’s sinuous contributions. But Henry’s original incarnation as a North Carolina pop merchant still emerges on tracks like the eye-popping “Dirty Magazines” and the fully-scoped “Animal Skin”.

Big melodies, soothing rhythms and some neat jazz jerks: Tiny Voices makes a quiet noise that’s worth investigating.

Flight Fantastic

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Gentleman, internationalist, humanitarian, and one of the most moving singers Britain has ever produced, Robert Wyatt doesn't make anywhere near enough records. Cuckooland is only his eighth solo album in the 32 years since he was drummed out of Soft Machine, and the first since 1997's Shleep. Cuckooland reflects the care and long labour which went into it. A quilted, intricate and absorbing collection of songs that moves Shleep's fluttering textures into darker territory, it finds Wyatt observing the world with love and bewilderment. He has always been an unusually sensitive political artist, and two songs composed with his wife, the poet Alfreda Benge?"Forest", about gypsies, and "Lullaby For Hamza", about Iraq?characteristically avoid didactics and concentrate on the reality of suffering. "Forest", in particular, is magnificent, a bleary and looping chorale that showcases two of Wyatt's greatest assets. There's his ability to write songs with sophisticated historical perspectives, so that here the treatment of Eastern European gypsy asylum-seekers is compared with the plight of their ancestors in Nazi extermination camps. And there's his uncanny empathy with the disenfranchised, wherever they may come from. Perhaps it's because Wyatt himself has never fitted in musically?at least not since the Canterbury scene's demise. Consequently, Cuckooland remains happily adrift of conventional genres. The disparate clutch of guest musicians, including Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Dave Gilmour, fine Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, singer and harmonica player Karen Mantler, sound way out of context, sublimated to Wyatt's idiosyncratic vision. As he admits, Cuckooland is a refinement of the music he has always made?although his love of jazz is more pronounced than usual. Wyatt plays plenty of trumpet as a result, in much the same way as he sings, drums and plays his piano and gauzy synths: tentative, without affectation, within a tight tonal range. The trumpet helps out with the high notes he can no longer reach with his voice, since age has cut his range by half an octave. But it's that voice which is still the most remarkable thing. On 1974's classic Rock Bottom, its frailty echoed the mood of a man trying to come to terms with both profound love and physical disability. Now, gracefully disintegrated further, it's the tool of one approaching 60 whose concern for the world, and desire to improve it, is stronger than ever.

Gentleman, internationalist, humanitarian, and one of the most moving singers Britain has ever produced, Robert Wyatt doesn’t make anywhere near enough records. Cuckooland is only his eighth solo album in the 32 years since he was drummed out of Soft Machine, and the first since 1997’s Shleep.

Cuckooland reflects the care and long labour which went into it. A quilted, intricate and absorbing collection of songs that moves Shleep’s fluttering textures into darker territory, it finds Wyatt observing the world with love and bewilderment. He has always been an unusually sensitive political artist, and two songs composed with his wife, the poet Alfreda Benge?”Forest”, about gypsies, and “Lullaby For Hamza”, about Iraq?characteristically avoid didactics and concentrate on the reality of suffering. “Forest”, in particular, is magnificent, a bleary and looping chorale that showcases two of Wyatt’s greatest assets. There’s his ability to write songs with sophisticated historical perspectives, so that here the treatment of Eastern European gypsy asylum-seekers is compared with the plight of their ancestors in Nazi extermination camps. And there’s his uncanny empathy with the disenfranchised, wherever they may come from.

Perhaps it’s because Wyatt himself has never fitted in musically?at least not since the Canterbury scene’s demise. Consequently, Cuckooland remains happily adrift of conventional genres. The disparate clutch of guest musicians, including Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Dave Gilmour, fine Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, singer and harmonica player Karen Mantler, sound way out of context, sublimated to Wyatt’s idiosyncratic vision. As he admits, Cuckooland is a refinement of the music he has always made?although his love of jazz is more pronounced than usual. Wyatt plays plenty of trumpet as a result, in much the same way as he sings, drums and plays his piano and gauzy synths: tentative, without affectation, within a tight tonal range. The trumpet helps out with the high notes he can no longer reach with his voice, since age has cut his range by half an octave. But it’s that voice which is still the most remarkable thing. On 1974’s classic Rock Bottom, its frailty echoed the mood of a man trying to come to terms with both profound love and physical disability. Now, gracefully disintegrated further, it’s the tool of one approaching 60 whose concern for the world, and desire to improve it, is stronger than ever.

Dashboard Confessional – A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

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Emocore?or emotional hardcore?is currently a big deal. It invariably entails girlfriend-free teens in skinny T-shirts bawling about their luckless love lives over a sub-Fugazi punkish racket. In songwriter Christopher Carraba's case, he's dispensed with the grittier elements and plumped for a straightforward US college rock backing, with dismal results. "Ghost Of A Good Thing" and "Carve Your Heart Out Yourself" come across not as works of tortured genius but as the mitherings of someone who could do with getting laid. He's also 27, so he should probably know better.

Emocore?or emotional hardcore?is currently a big deal. It invariably entails girlfriend-free teens in skinny T-shirts bawling about their luckless love lives over a sub-Fugazi punkish racket. In songwriter Christopher Carraba’s case, he’s dispensed with the grittier elements and plumped for a straightforward US college rock backing, with dismal results. “Ghost Of A Good Thing” and “Carve Your Heart Out Yourself” come across not as works of tortured genius but as the mitherings of someone who could do with getting laid. He’s also 27, so he should probably know better.

Elvis Costello – North

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Only Elvis Costello could release a jazz album on the august Deutsche Grammophon label. Not exactly "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", is it? Why does he bother? This drab sequence of Rodgers & Hart-style ballads is so arid and mannered you just wanna yell, "Stop farting about with old dead forms and write something NEW!" Or at least something from the heart rather than the ageing fanboy head. Collaborating with Bacharach, a real genius, was one thing. Offering up what is essentially the same mopey, major-to-minor song 11 times?complete with very samey vocal lines and that gratingly strained vibrato?is another entirely.

Only Elvis Costello could release a jazz album on the august Deutsche Grammophon label. Not exactly “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”, is it? Why does he bother? This drab sequence of Rodgers & Hart-style ballads is so arid and mannered you just wanna yell, “Stop farting about with old dead forms and write something NEW!” Or at least something from the heart rather than the ageing fanboy head.

Collaborating with Bacharach, a real genius, was one thing. Offering up what is essentially the same mopey, major-to-minor song 11 times?complete with very samey vocal lines and that gratingly strained vibrato?is another entirely.

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