The Jim Jones Allstars are the third iteration of the band that began life as the Jim Jones Revue and who I last saw as Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind.

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Sharon Van Etten is my favourite female singer and her latest release, Trouble, goes straight into her top ten for me. After delving deeply into electronica she has emerged with a new band and a new sound.

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Garth Hudson was the classically trained muso of The Band, giving gravitas to the group that arguably invented the Americana genre.

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I’m not always a fan of slavishly retro sounds but I can make an exception for the funky, murky psychedelia of Project Gemini – the musical vision of Paul Osborne.

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Skinshape is a new name to me but I’ve enjoyed discovering their mostly instrumental blend of atmospheric trip-hop with ’60s and ’70s funk, reggae, soul and psych-rock.

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I’m startled to learn that Will Oldham has been making music now for 32 years – for the first four years as Palace (and variations thereon) and, after a brief interlude under his own name, as Bonnie “Prince” Billy. 

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Asian Dub Foundation team up with Iggy Pop on a new version of his  Stooges classic No Fun, recorded in Miami in 2007 and released on the ‘Punkara’ album the following year.

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Sinéad O’Connor could lend her voice to anything and it would sound beautiful to my ears. Like this collaboration with Asian Dub Foundation and Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien from 2003, produced by the great Adrian Sherwood.

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Neil Young sat on his epic 1988 recording of Ordinary People for two decades before it finally came out on Chrome Dreams II in 2007.

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