The guitar wizard at the forefront of NYC late-’70s/early-’80s “No Wave”, Glenn Branca mated contemporary classical structure with ear-splitting noise-rock in a manner that served both camps equally well, influencing avant noiseniks from Sonic Youth on. Branca’s second release for NY underground label 99 (home to ESG, Liquid Liquid, etc) is reissued here in all its multi-timbral glory, as sheets of cascading guitars carefully negotiate the balance between chaos and control. Extras like a live video clip and notes from Branca sideman/future Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo sweeten the pot.

More Love Songs, Wainwright’s 11th album, was made in London in 1986 under the production auspices of Richard Thompson. The ironic title conceals a typical Wainwright, product: sardonic, self-deprecating, laced with acid social commentary. This album contains two bonus tracks, complete lyrics, a sympathetic sleevenote and a number of photos taken during the singer’s sojourn in England. Wainwright fans who don’t already own this album will want to grab it now. And newcomers to his idiosyncratic art could do much worse than start here.

Founded by Guy Manuel of Daft Punk and Eric “Rico” Ch

PRESTON 28 FEBRUARY 1980

ALCHEMY

Preston warehouse, February 1980. They’re halfway through “Heart And Soul”, a track from their as yet unrecorded second album, Closer, and things are not going well. Hooky’s bass has conked out, Sumner’s given up altogether and they’re reduced to Morris’ frantic beat and the sound of faulty jack plugs being jiggered in and out in vain. “I think everything’s falling apart,” slurs lan Curtis, and the confusion in his voice says it all. Joy Division have lost control again.

It sounds like chaos, yet listening to the complete warts’n’all document of that fateful Preston gig (less than 12 weeks before Curtis’ death) you can’t help wishing you were there. In spite of their superior bootleg quality, both this CD and its twin, a noticeably less shambolic show at Les Bains Douches in Paris two months earlier, are mesmerising. Where Joy Division’s studio legacy can sound distant and sombre, their spirit cryogenically frozen by Martin Hannett’s glacial production, these are performances by four irascible red-blooded males: desperate, sweaty, urgent and angry (listen to Sumner at Preston having to drop his mask of aloof isolation cursing, “Everything’s fookin’ bust!”).

Always intended as a two-part set, these were first issued separately in 1999 and 2001 in reverse chronological order, possibly to annul the despair of Preston by presenting Les Bains Douches as an optimistic sequel. Now re-released together, the new listener will inevitably honour their impulsive sense of history by turning to the latter first. Of the two, Les Bains Douches is easily the better concert with versions of “Shadowplay” and “Transmission” that are, well, fucking unbelievable. Augmented by seven tracks from two Dutch gigs in January 1980, think of it as “The Pleasure” where Preston is “The Pain”. Which is why, to fully appreciate the triumph and tragedy of Joy Division as one and the same, both are a must.

Most of us found Dylan’s conversion to Christianity in the late ’70s hard to take. Yet it’s undeniable his notorious ‘born again’ albums, Long Train Coming and Saved, contain some mighty powerful songs, whether or not you agree with the evangelical sentiments.

This compilation assembles 10 of them, covered in true testifying gospel fashion by the likes of Aaron Neville, the Mighty Clouds Of Joy and Sounds Of Blackness.

But the real reason you’re likely to want this collection is that Dylan himself guests with Mavis Staples on a gruff-but-glorious re-reading of 1979’s “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking”.

HEAVY HORSES

BOTH CHRYSALIS

A digitally enhanced reissue (with unreleased track and live excerpt) of Tull’s finest hour?when they took the Good Life route and got shit on their boots back on the land?Songs From The Wood is where Ian Anderson’s finger-in-the-ear vocalising always belonged. The hey-nonny affectations grate a little (this was issued just after “Anarchy In The UK”), but there’s no doubting the band’s ability to combine awesomely complex time signatures and effete fife-tabor-mandolin-and-bells effects while rocking out. One of prog’s most accomplished statements.

Unfortunately, the new digital version of the ’78 Tull vintage Heavy Horses that tried to replicate the success of Wood and its ultra-stylised Fairportisms, smacks of corporate opportunism. The humdrum tunes of old bluesy Tull get the Merrie England treatment, but despite some of the most breathtaking group dynamics in prog (“No Lullaby”), it’s all a bit faux. Think Morrismen and jousting tournaments and you’re almost there. And the string arrangements suck.

Good-cause albums like this are curate’s eggs but Hope might prove an exception since it includes brand new tracks, recorded off the cuff, by the likes of Travis?whose “The Beautiful Occupation” sets the agenda?Macca’s new version of “Calico Skies”, Bowie’s “Everyone Says Hi”, New Order’s spooked version of Jimmy Cliff’s “Vietnam”, Ronan Keating’s “In The Ghetto” and many more. George Michael’s “The Grave” is a sombre set piece while The Charlatans go for the anthemic vibe with “We Gotta Have Peace”. Yusuf Islam revisits his Cat Stevens persona number “Peace Train” to effect and Moby’s “Nearer” could even be a hit. Avril Lavigne’s odd version of Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” might shade the commercial vote, though. Quite an intriguing package.

The distinguishing mark of world music is that it’s sung in other languages, which makes lyric sheets and translations crucial for comprehension. This three-disc guide fails to provide any such documentation, leaving the tracks to succeed or fail as pure sound-events.

If you don’t mind not knowing what the hell a singer is singing about, you may be in the market for these themed discs (World Party, World Caf

This is a 30-year-anniversary, digitally enhanced version of what remains, for many, Bowie’s finest hour. It will remind you how, on tracks such as “Drive-In Saturday” and “Cracked Actor”, the boy from Beckenham achieved the impossible and matched, even bettered, those period benchmarks Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust for sheer screaming camp glam.

Bowie’s fifth album proper, now with bonus tracks, easily maintained its two predecessors’ garishly fractured psychedelia long after that genre was considered dead. It also preserved Bowie’s status as supremely literate auteur, not to mention pop’s premier opportunistic slap-stained vaudevillian woofter.

Of course, “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and “Jean Genie” are slight additions to the Bowie canon, but “Time” blazes forth as ringing atonement for both. CD refinement can lend little to such elemental rock; this is harsh, postmodern guitar-led eccentricity which fed into punk, disco, post-punk and grunge. Yet Aladdin Sane is so much of its time that to ‘digitally enhance’ it is to diminish it.

A piano-led “Life On Mars”, “John I’m Only Dancing” and a fantastically affecting, schizoid “Changes” appear in rarely released versions on the second CD; fine examples of cross-genre playfulness.

The miracle of ’70s Bowie is how his dislocated, kitsch futurism became so enormously influential. Listening to this record in 2003 is to remember that the Tomorrow’s World of hovercars and spacesuits never happened. And yet Aladdin’s shadow is still that of a titan.

Kitsune understand that disco and romance make ideal bedfellows. As such, this collection features slick house vibrations celebrating or commiserating love. Alan Braxe and Fred Falke’s “Love Lost” makes heartache sound fabulously glamorous, while Shakedown’s “Lovegames” deftly unites Giorgio Moroder electronics with A Certain Ratio’s wiry, wry funk. Worth buying for Gonzales’ faux cabaret version of Daft Punk’s “Too Long” alone. Unfortunately, there’s unwise filler, but this cupid-house package displays more smart thinking than any chill-out box set.

Multi-instrumental saxophonist Bartz came to wide attention in the early ’70s when Miles Davis recruited him. With roots in hard bop, Bartz so took to Davis’ Afro-funk style that he spent the late ’70s making crossover LPs in which the jazz content is almost an optional extra. Later, he returned to hard bop and cut a sequence of well-received albums in the ’80s and ’90s. Music Is My Sanctuary dates from 1977 and is a fair representation of Bartz’s less than gripping pop output.

While rap has become a platinum-plated industry behemoth in the US, the genre’s original manifesto of homespun self-belief and DIY creativity continues to flower afresh on further-flung shores. An all-female collective from Sydney, Mother Tongues exhibit some of early hip hop’s strengths and flaws, from boastful clunking and worthy feminist rhetoric on one side to sexy swagger and verbal dexterity on the other. The best tracks here are shamelessly Aussie in theme and accent, reflecting hip hop’s true roots as urban bush telegraph and street-corner party music. From Maya Jupiter’s crisply bouncy “Move” to the balmy, proud, soulful closing monologue by Phoenix, Mother Tongues is more fun and less earnestly wimmin-centric than it could have been.

Back in 2001, Chicago house don Felix Da Housecat fashioned electroclash signature tune “Silver Screen Shower Scene”, and marked year zero for the new wave of synthpoppers. But he was already laying the foundations with tracks he released as Aphrohead in the ’90s, collected here. This stuff alternates brilliantly between the cool ’80s-infused electro he’s famous for (“Days Of The Phuture ’96”), and glitzier, funkier Daft Punk-esque filter house (“Kazoo”, “Cry Baby”). Despite the fact he’s often paying homage to club heroes (Jamie Principle on the title track, the acid pioneers on “Tri-Beka”) on records which are almost 10 years old, it all still sounds fresh and filthy.

While LA was carving its rep as crucible of ’60s garage rock, the parallel Pacific Northwest scene was boiling up a mean old stonk of its own. Centred around the twin Washington scenes of Seattle and Tacoma, The Wailers’ Etiquette label threw up the raw strut’n’raunch of The Galaxies, Paul Bearer & The Hearsemen and the now legendary Sonics (see The White Stripes for details). Nestling alongside unissued takes on the latter’s “Psycho”, “The Witch” and “Shot Down” is an unreleased curio from Ron Davies (“Mistake”), whose “It Ain’t Easy” was famously covered on The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust…

Among the recent stream of gospel compilations, this one stands out for the quality of its selections and also for stressing that this music is far from limited to museum pieces. Gospel: The Essential Album serves up the expected contributions from classic acts like The Swan Silvertones, The Mighty Clouds Of Joy, The Original Five Blind Boys Of Alabama, The Dixie Hummingbirds and Mahalia Jackson, but also offers plenty of great music made in the last 30 years, including tracks by Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Norman Hutchins and Mary Mary. Highly recommended.