Nightmares On Wax: Carboot Soul (Warp)
You can bet that this album will feature heavily in many, many post-club sessions in the coming months. A new definition of soul music from Leeds producer George Evelyn and friends, Carboot Soul is where the laid-back languor which dominated both Smoker's Delight and Word Of Science flirts with another 11 tracks. Whether he's reworking Summer In The City into the lush moods of Les Nuits or collaborating with Jimi Tenor for the gorgeous, jaunty Easejimi, Evelyn never disappoints. When vocalist Sarah Winton comes to the party, she adds considerable sunny delights to both Finer and Survival. If you ever wondered what the music on a Marvin Gaye album would sound like in 1999, here's your answer. By Jim Carroll
Nina Hynes: Creation (Reverb Records)
She's being touted as a Celtic cross between Bjork and P.J. Harvey, and her stark, feedback-drenched sound is as far removed from Corrs country as the Gaeltacht is from Hell's Kitchen. The diminutive Hynes has a huge following in Dublin, thanks to her modest onstage charm and coruscating live performance, and this six-track CD offers an introduction to Hynes's torn and tattered musical manifesto. William Tell grazes the emotions with twisted electronics and muffled percussion, while He Turned The Light Off strides defiantly into the dark side of the love song. With the help of Joe Chester on guitars, programming and "brilliant ideas", Hynes has wrapped her vulnerable voice in a metallic musical skeleton that stops you in its tracks. By Kevin Courtney
Various Artists: The 80's Love Album (Virgin/EMI)
This is almost too easy to hate. But just in case we don't hate it enough, the compilers of this double-CD dross-fest have chosen the prince of pap, Phil Collins, to be the first to lead the hapless listener down memory drain. Amazingly, against all odds, it gets even worse. The decade that musical taste forgot is well represented in these 39 tracks, from the overwrought rawk of Cutting Crew's I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight to the wedded blitz of Chris De Burgh's Lady In Red. Not even Soul II Soul's Back To Life can breathe life into these rotting relics from FM radio's graveyard, but at least your local supermarket has managed to shrink-wrap them and send them wafting regularly through their in-store p.a. systems. By Kevin Courtney