Lucy Pearl: Lucy Pearl (Pookie)

Hip-hop supergroup Lucy Pearl have form, and we should be thankful for that. Dawn Robinson (En Vogue), Raphael Saddiq (Tony! Toni! Tone!) and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) have produced a bit of an unexpected gem in Lucy Pearl, an album which bounces with an assured lust for life. The component beats and rhymes are perfectly pitched and weighed for the task of joining up the dots between funk, R&B, soul and hip-hop with ease. Tracks like Trippin' and LaLa are breathtaking in their simplicity and subtlety, while Without You effortlessly throws righteous emotion into the plot and Everyday adds a few grains of grit to the groove. Whatever comes next for the trio, Lucy Pearl deserves some of your time.

Jim Carroll

Gerling: Children Of Telepathic Experience (Infectious)

Trampling over your nice, neat Savage Garden are Gerling, a weird-core trio from Sydney, Australia who mess around with post-rock, electronica and drum 'n' bass to create an unnerving blend of experimental alt. pop. There's lots of shouting, lots of bleeping and lots of scattershot guitar, but there's also a cohesive vision, as if Gerling know exactly what they want, and aren't afraid to go to pop's diverse edges to get it. The Last Traveller is the sonic swish of a bullet train in transit, Craft Werked is a paean to programmed Krautrock and A Student Eating Sushi With A Chimp On A Glass Island is reminiscent of The Residents at play. If Gerling can gather their fragmented ideas together, they might come up with something invigorating instead of merely intriguing.

Kevin Courtney