Understated debut from Californian singer-songwriter

Yann Tiersen rose to the front rank of film composers with the irresistible Amelie, but he's keen to stress that he'd recorded for years prior to that. He's collaborated with The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, among others, and sells out the Royal Festival Hall in his own right. Goodbye Lenin!, directed by Wolfgang Becker, won awards at Berlin this spring, and Tiersen's score is a chest-swelling thing of beauty and a million violins. Actually, 17 violins—I've just checked. Yann himself plays piano, melodica and violin—so that makes 18. Claire Pichet is guest vocalist.

Debut album from NYC rap trio

Pre-Everything But The Girl solo debuts

Everybody's kung fu fighting

Much-emulated screwball comedy, directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper as the disingenuous rustic type who inherits a $20 million fortune and a new life in New York. There he's pitted against a variety of shysters, cynics and dodgy lawyers who lend the film its edge as well as material for the underlying homily against urban sophistication. Jean Arthur adds charm as the hard-bitten tabloid hack who falls for Cooper.

TV mini series from 1988 directed by David (The Sweeney) Wickes and starring Michael Caine as the police inspector investigating 'orrible murders in Whitechapel, with Lewis Collins as his sidekick. Hack melodrama with red herrings galore, but still quite watchable.

If Easy Rider spelled the end of the hippie dream, then Chainsaw provided the full-blown nightmare. A camper van full of paisley-shirted, astrology-obsessed kids pulls up in rural Texas only to discover Leatherface and his family only too willing to show them some local hospitality. The opening half-hour still remains the most unnerving in horror history.

New York punk trio surpass media hype with cataclysmic debut

First new work in six years. Todd Rundgren guests