Album

Chicago-via-Kentucky multi-instrumentalist gets jiggy with the post-rock crowd

Metal box package for blues veterans' attempt to revive their illustrious past

New York weirdos make a strange, glorious noise

Early five-string outing from country-rock pioneer

Double live album by perennial sideman with star quality

Debut album from French graphic designer and film-maker

Emotive album from London-Irish laptop folkie

Beats'n'ballads nu-folk fusion

The poet laureate of hooliganism returns

To some, the Captain's 1982 No 1 romp through Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Happy Talk" was the ultimate punk sell-out. Silly beggars! It was, of course, a hilarious act of screwball subversion. Either way, its Goonish novelty was unrepresentative of the two albums that followed. As the best bits collated here show, solo Sensible traded in the same satirical Englishness as The Kinks and Madness ("Croydon", "A Nice Cup Of Tea").