Album ...

Album

Punch-Drunk Love – Nonesuch

After the steamy funk of Boogie Nights and the Aimee Mann tearjerkers of Magnolia, PT Anderson's new film basks in heady strings and wonky harmoniums, scored by regular collaborator Jon Brion. It's deliberately dizzying and disorientating, and not always pleasurable. But the borrowing of Nilsson's "He Needs Me" from Altman's Popeye, sung with sugary desire by Shelley Duvall, is inspired. Waiting to interview Anderson in a hotel lobby recently, I congratulated Emily Watson on her singing of this. It's the only thing I've ever said to Emily Watson.

Beezewax – Oh Tahoe

Radio-friendly Norwegian beat mavericks raised on R.E.M. and Teenage Fanclub

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme: Deluxe Edition

New digital version with no shortage of bonuses

Kid Loco – Another Late Night

Inveterate remixer (Pulp, St Etienne, Talvin Singh) chills out with some downtempo classics

Earl Scruggs – Classic Bluegrass Live

Cleveland County bluegrass legend and Foggy Mountain Boy wows Newport festival crowd, 1959-66

Thomson

West Country power pop brothers gonna work it out

Sizzla – Ghetto Revolution

Babylon burns on reggae superstar's nu-roots stormer

Kenso – Fabulis Mirabilibus De Bombycosis Scriptis

Japanese prog band keep genre alive

Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers – Wea

Underwhelmed as we are by franchise McBlockbusters, this score's by the really rather talented Howard Shore, who was responsible for the coolly sexy sounds which rippled under David Cronenberg's Crash. His soppy strings for the first Baggins movie won him all manner of awards and made the UK Top 10. This one is distinguished by its remarkable guest vocalists: Iceland's Emiliana Torrini and former Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser—from "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" to Gollum and Samwise: it makes a kind of sense, no?

Mary Lorson & Billy Cote – Piano Creeps

Cinematic album of moody instrumentals from Madder Rose duo
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