Temperamental
Everything But the Girl

For years EBTG's music seemed compulsory listening for sensitive art students everywhere, their introspective acoustic pop was the perfect soundtrack for gloomy days in cold student bedrooms. Now they've left the college dorm for an apartment in the big city and the bright lights of club music. The emotional landscape remains pretty much the same, Tracey Thorn still sounds like she could use a good laugh, her wonderful voice makes urban depression sound almost attractive. Less flashy than their previous album "Walking Wounded" but a more satisfying experience altogether, a deep groove that conjures up the feeling of walking alone across a crowded dance floor or waiting in the cold for the last bus home after the clubs have closed.

Central Reservation
Beth Orton

I know I'm not alone in thinking that the current crop of pretty young girl singers like Jewel are about as tasty as a box of stale corn flakes. Thank God then, for Beth Orton who adds some much needed snap, crackle and pop to the often weedy, skimmed-milk genre of sensitive girls with guitars. Acoustic folky music isn't usually my cup of herbal tea but Ms. Orton has a voice as strong and uplifting as a double espresso, with a songwriting talent that Jewel would sell her last designer hemp blouse for. As is usual for this genre the songs tend toward the confessional, like pages torn from a diary, but thankfully Beth avoids sounding like the aural equivalent of a 'Chicken Soup For The Soul' book. I just hope she never appears on Oprah flogging a book of her poems.

Nightlife
Pet Shop Boys

Still melancholy after all these years, over their long carrer PSB have carved a niche for themselves as the Oscar Wilde's of urban disenchantment. The camp irony and silly wigs are just the surface gloss of a band that has produced some of the finest pop records of the past 15 years with an intelligence that makes most other bands sound like retarded chimps. With a wry English detachment that suggests they'd rather be doing the washing up, PSB delve deep into the sad world of love, sex and dancing with a collection of gorgeous melodies and with "New York City Boy" they've written the best song the Village People never recorded.

On How Life Is
Macy Gray

When I first heard Macy Gray's voice I thought someone should tell her to lay off the Marlboro's, she has a rasp that Tom Waits would be proud of, delivered with a girlish twang that makes her sound like an asthmatic twelve-year-old fronting Sly and The Family Stone. Like all good soul singers Macy is both sexual and spiritual, on "Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak" she gets down, dirty and XXX, and then on "I Can't Wait To Meetchu" she says she can't wait to die so she can meet Jesus (apparently he's a very nice fellow) which may be the first song I've ever heard that treats death as a positive experience. Personally, I hope Macy doesn't get to meet Him upstairs for a while yet, I'd like a lot more records as good as this first.

Fear of Fours
Lamb

At first I thought the title of this album was a refence to some bizarre kind of numberphobia I'd never heard of before, then it finally dawned on me that the 'Four' they don't like so much is standard rock 'n' roll 4/4 rhythm. Doh! Silly me, it should have been obvious really, listening to the jerky, polyrhythmic and expansive beats that ricochet throughout this album. Lamb mix up a frothy cocktail of swirling, soaring songs held together by Louise Rhodes' elastic and soulful vocals riding over rhythms that push her back and forth, inside and out, occasionally giving her space for a quiet moment. It's a rollercoaster ride to sonic heaven and when it's over you'll want to get back in line and do the whole thing all over again.

Chrominance Decoder
April March

Ms. March is an American gal with a serious case of amour Francais,she sings mostly in French and the album sounds like she grew up on a steady diet of Francois Hardy and France Gall records. This bouncy, pop-thrilling record recalls the glory days of French 60s Yeh-Yeh pop with an added coating of cool 90s electronic edge courtesy of producer Bertrand Burgalat (of Air fame) and trendy knob-twiddlers The Dust Brothers. April skips down the Champs Elysee in her knee socks and go-go boots, a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine in one hand and a badass attitude in the other. Serge Gainsbourg would gladly have given her his last Gitane. Ooh la la! Your pants will explode with delight.