Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach: "Painted From Memory" (Mercury)

A dream team. Bacharach, creator of some of the most memorable, musically imaginative melodies in pop, and Costello, one of rock's premier song-poets. Set them to work together and what do you get? Artful pop? Music with so many layers you could get lost in even its outer surfaces and consider yourself blessed? Lyrics similarly densely textured and likely to continue to yield surprises every time you listen? All these elements are here, in the Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa variations, Toledo and The Long Division, to the ruminations on lost love such, as In The Darkest Place. It might, however, be best to remain lost in this music. The closer you travel to its centre the more you realise that the soul of Painted From Memory is strangely cold. By Joe Jackson

Joni Mitchell: "Taming The Tiger" (Reprise)

Up And Down The Dial? Girlie Guile? Genuine Junkfood For Juveniles? Looks like ol' Joni's back in town, like a latterday Mack The Knife, slicing her way through the mindlessness of much modern pop music, in the title track of this album, which proudly asserts its position as the absolute antithesis of all that crap.

Indeed, in a world where too many songs are "just a one night stand", Taming The Tiger is music for life, music to live through and learn from. And this I say from experience, as someone who has done just that through Mitchell's albums for at least two decades. This album sits alongside the best of them. She really is one of the finest singer-songwriters of our time. By Joe Jackson

Tindersticks: "Donkeys 92-97" (This Way Up)

With five albums and twelve singles under their tailored belts, there's no shortage of nuggets in the Nottingham band's back catalogue, and this compilation is an excellent way to catch up on Tindersticks' arresting brand of sadcore. Not so much a greatest hits package as a grab-bag of rare tracks, b-sides, early singles and alternative versions of album tracks, Don- keys comes up with early treasures like Patchwork, Marbles and Her, and more recent gems like Bathtime and Tiny Tears. The bleak, haunted voice of Stuart Staples gives each song its emotional core, particularly the desolate French lyrics of Plus Des Liaisons, and the scarred soul of Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long. Staples is joined by Carla Torgerson on the duelling duet of Travelling Light, and by Isabella Rossellini on the previously unavailable A Marriage Made In Heaven. By Kevin Courtney