Jocelyn Pook is the viola player and jingle composer who gave us the music for the Delta Airlines and Orange adverts, the latter featuring the sampled voice of Kathleen Ferrier singing "Blow the Wind Southerly". Five of the 11 tracks on her latest album, Untold Things, are also built around samples, in this case world musics of a mostly middle eastern flavour. Pook's contribution on these tracks is to extend the inflections of the sample, colour in the background, mimic the nasal singing and underpin it with a ubiquitous drone. Born of the samples, Pook's music is folksy and modal. Even the six tracks not governed by sampling sound as if they are. The drone and the flattened seconds and sevenths are still there. One of the constant factors is the haunting, breathy voice of Melanie Pappenheim, who spends most of her life in recording studios. She sings an invented, meaningless language, a sort of lazy scat, so that it is only possible to identify tracks by the instruments used. Yet this proves difficult because in "Butterfly Song" a hefty bass is heard but not listed and in "Saints and Sinners" a wind instrument like a crumhorn is clearly audible yet uncredited. In fact you cannot be sure that you are listening to what you are listening to at all. [+]

Back in 1997, Warp Records released a quirky mini-album of rare material from its newest signings, a little known experimental pop band from Birmingham called Broadcast. Eyebrows were raised. Why had Warp-a hard-edged techno label famed for its avant-garde output from electronic pioneers like Aphex Twin signed this quirky, retro- obsessed West-Midlands five-piece? The reason is simple: Broadcast are a very talented band. This much is proved by their brilliant debut, The Noise Made By People. The album's skewed electronic pop and retro-futurism most resembles the analogue styling of Stereolab and original Krautrock musicians such as Can and Neu! Yet Broadcast's sound is wonderfully unique; an enchanting mixture of analogue synth sounds and west coast psychedelia fused with nineties electronica and indie-pop sensibilities. With the addition of haunting and occasionally chilling vocals from singer Trish Keenan, the effect is at times mesmerising. The Noise Made By People is an eerie, uplifting and enchanting debut album from one of Britain's best-kept secrets. -Matt Anniss.

Statistics are a baffling thing. They tell us that Sweden enjoys Europe's highest standard of living and its highest suicide rate. Statistics also tell us that The Cardigans are the country's most successful musical export since Abba. This actually makes perfect sense, for the quintet's music is an uncannily accurate microcosm of the country that spawned it-deliciously breezy pop melodies lent just enough bite by Nina Persson's fatalistic vocals. It's a recipe they perfected with unnerving confidence on Life, which exhibits an instinctive familiarity with the pantheon of timeless pop. Burt Bacharach's shadow looms unmistakably over the pensive autumnal strains of "Celia Inside" and "Tomorrow", whilst fragrant indie-pop nuggets such as "Rise And Shine" and "Gordon's Gardenparty" suggest that guitarist/songwriter Peter Svensson spent more than the occasional evening learning his craft from old Smiths records. It is, of course, impossible to discuss intuitive 90s female-fronted pop acts without mentioning Saint Etienne. The appreciation, in this case, is mutual; so impressed were the Etienne with the airy pristine sound of Life, that they were inspired to record 1997's Good Humor in the same Malmo studios. -Peter Paphides These days it's getting harder to tell the real pop twerps from the hip parodists-both of whom make music sweeter and more dizzying than cherry wine. Take Sweden's Cardigans, for example: On one hand, they work the same delicious Bacharach lounge jazz and gooey '60s girl swoons as Pizzicato Five, a group whose retrokitsch is delivered with a big, fake-eyelashed wink. [+]

Delerium's Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb lighten up their sound on Chimera, as the darker fixations of early albums like Morpheus retreat yet further into the background. After Sarah McLachlan's lovely turn on the single "Silence", and the success of 1997's Karma, the duo have dutifully embraced their winning combination of ethereal female vocalists and ambient dance-pop. On Chimera, the formula yields a few worthy singles, such as the limber and catchy "Love" and "Run For It" (featuring Sixpence None the Richer's Leigh Nash). And while the record too often settles for bland, disposable pop ("Touched" and "Magic", for instance), it also delivers potent hooks and moments of inspiration that will keep the band's fans happy. -Matthew Cooke.

Reformed jazz buff Harold Budd has played with a variety of musicians ranging from tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler to Brian Eno. Raised near the Mojave Desert, Budd developed an great appreciation for expansive silence and unconventional sounds. This record includes instrumental contributions from guitarist Bill Nelson, pedal-steel guitarist B. J. Cole, harpist Susan Allen, and viola player Mabel Wong, who adds a particularly dramatic tone to the recording. Budd plays keyboards, interspersing his contemplative soundscapes with delicate poems ("The Place of Dead Roads" refers to the book by William S. Burroughs). Delicate and pastoral, By the Dawn's Early Light is an exceptionally beautiful recording. -Mitch Myers.

Formed in 1985 in an effort to create a distinctively modern Portuguese sound, Lisbon's Madredeus has crafted a simple yet intricate music, steeped in Portugal's fado tradition yet far-reaching in its intent. Antologia, a chronological overview of Madredeus' exquisite repertoire, includes tracks from the group's debut album and two previously unreleased songs. Led by guitarist Pedro Ayres Magalhces and featuring the stunningly luxurious vocals of Teresa Salgueiro, Madredeus creates music that is pensive yet celebratory, captivating yet elusive, and therein lies its charm. -Robert Kaye.