CD releases

Lykke Li

Youth Novels (LL Recordings) £10.99

Two's company, but three is an invasion. Alongside Annie and Robyn, prong three in the Swedish pop takeover is minimalist chanteuse Lykke Li Zachrisson. Peter Yttling (from the Stockholm band Peter, Bjorn and John) oversaw this peculiar little debut, whose charms unfold slowly. Lykke Li's breathy ickle-girl voice is initially a major hurdle, but over the course of Youth Novels, her Scandinavian mockney turns of phrase make up for it. And songs like 'Dance Dance Dance' and 'Tonight' are riven through with enough heartache to convince you that Lykke Li is not actually nine years old.
Kitty Empire

Joan as Police Woman
To Survive (Reveal) £10.99

A former session musician for the likes of Rufus Wainwright, Joan Wasser proved her solo chops on 2006's Real Life , a collection of jazzy torch songs that earned favourable comparisons with Nina Simone. Her follow-up is a trickier proposition, but a triumph. Written as her mother was dying of cancer, it mostly eschews the smooth soulfulness of her debut in favour of spare, off-kilter arrangements, delicately anchored by her tremulous croon. From sombre piano ballad 'Honor Wishes' to electronic reverie 'Start of My Heart', it's a starkly beautiful affair, and every instrumental flourish is suffused with loss and longing.
Hugh Montgomery

Silver Jews
Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City) £10.99

Silver Jews frontman David Berman is the sort of lyricist who could intone his words over a medley of soap opera theme tunes and still be compelling. The band's sixth record, another treasure trove of bleak one-liners and battle-weary humour, is set to sturdy alt-country: gothic-tinged at its darkest moments, chimingly anthemic elsewhere. Berman will never make feelgood music - his battles with depression are well-documented - but he's a master at the art of scant consolation. 'We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing' is both jaded chat-up line and optimistic love song.
Ally Carnwath

The Fratellis
Here We Stand (Island) £10.99

Anyone looking for surprises in the new Fratellis album - a sharp left turn into prog rock, perhaps, or a new Autechre-inspired electronic direction - will be profoundly disappointed. Here We Stand takes the formula the Glasgow trio established on their 2006 debut, Costello Music, and runs with it, spilling beer as it goes. The formula, which melds glam-rock swagger with genial yarn-spinning, isn't exactly ineffective. 'My Friend John' opens the album with a barrage of raucous hooks and vocalist Jon Fratelli never lets the conversation flag: expect tales of romantic liaisons initiated in the gutter. It's punchy stuff, but you never feel wrong-footed.
Killian Fox

The Roots of Chicha (Barbes) £11.99

Just when it seems that no stone in pop history has been left unturned along comes chicha, a bizarre Latin hybrid spawned in the oil boom cities of 1970s Peru. Built on the shuffling cumbia rhythms of neighbouring Colombia, chicha added its own distinctive trademarks - twanging surf-rock guitars, wheezing Farfisa organs and the odd whoop and whistle of Andean folk. Put together by Brooklyn musician Olivier Conan, who has his own band, Chicha Libre, this compilation unearths gems like 'Sonido Amazonica' by Los Mirlos and 'Linda Munequita' by Los Hijos del Sol, tracks that sound like the Ventures on mescaline. A winning rediscovery of a lost sound.
Neil Spencer

Thelonious Monk
Brilliant Corners (Riverside) £8.99

Even the cream of jazz aristocracy - Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Oscar Pettiford et al - sweated over this 1956 session. 'They struggled and concentrated and shook their heads with those half-smiles that mean, "Hard? This is impossible!"' reported producer Orrin Keepnews. There is an outtake added for this new edition, in which the whole edifice collapses amid faint yelps of protest. But Monk was adamant and the result was a classic album. For all its spikiness and sheer unpredictability, this music has a weird rightness about it that grows more compelling with each playing, especially the title piece, the toughest of all.
Dave Gelly