Album

Egghead Over Heels

Sonic visionary's first four vocal solo albums; no extras, just untrammelled invention

Pentangle – The Lost Broadcasts 1968-1972

Long-lost session tracks retrieved from BBC transcription discs and cleaned-up AM radio broadcasts

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Greatest Hits

The cocks may no longer be in socks but the Peppers remain hyperactive kings of white-boy funk, smack survivors turned mainstream mavericks. Their blend of infantile exuberance and brooding disdain shines in these videos. There's a Busby Berkeley routine for sleazeballs ("Aeroplane"), the definitive punk-junk ballad ("Under The Bridge") and the blood-drenched "Scar Tissue". MTV regulars don't come any more cavalier, or charismatic.

Jens Lekman – Maple Leaves

The pick of two near-simultaneous EP releases from the 22-year-old Swede, the four-track Maple Leaves is little short of astounding. While its counterpart, the Rocky Dennis EP, is all soft light and strings, this one swings moods with abandon. A droll miserablist of Smiths vintage, Lekman intones like a baroque Stephin Merritt on the Left Banke-filching "Black Cab": "Oh no Goddamn/I missed the last tram/I killed the party again/Goddamn Goddamn".

Fennesz – Venice

Gorgeous digital etherealism from Vienna

Pixies – Wave Of Mutilation: Best Of Pixies

Second best-of for alt.rockers

Bob Dylan – The Classic Interviews Vol 2: The Weberman Tapes

Those infamous phone calls to the world's looniest fan

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.
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