Outside, David Bowie (RCA)

* IT MAY be of relevance to note that, in addition to being promoted

via ads in music magazines and newspapers, this album is to be

advertised in two specialist journals. One of them is a London-based

modern art magazine, Mr Bowie having re-invented himself -- again -- as

a visual artist and arts commentator. More unusually, however, Outside

is to be sold via the pages of The Lancet, the trade paper for the

medical fraternity. Why The Lancet? Well, having listened to Mr Bowie's

cyber-splatter-novel concept album, with its Eno-derived surface

shadings and Mr Bowie's sub-operatic quaverinesses, I now know. It's

because GPs are generally kinder when it comes to dealing with sad old

jossers who are past it. Time to wake up and take your medicine NOW, Mr

Bowie.

The Great Rock Discography, M C Strong (Canongate Books, #20)

* GREATER! Rockier! More discographical! Stronger! Life-enhancing

grist to the mill of every rock obsessive. The second edition of the

Stakhanovite Mr Strong's comprehensive compendium provides a

near-complete answer to one of life's two ultimate questions: Which

tracks were on which album, on what label, when, and who played them?

But what, I hear you ask, is life's other ultimate question? Easy: why

did God make the sleepy Scottish hamlet of Falkirk? Answer: so that

heroic Bairn M C Strong could labour there without distraction.

Design of a Decade: The Best of Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson (A&M)

* GLOSSY, glassy-eyed pop-funk artfully crafted by Ms Jackson's

sublime studio-overseers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, between 1986 and

1995. Close your eyes and don't think of Michael . . .

The Gold Experience, Squiggle or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince

(Warner Brothers/NPG)

* SURRENDER to the aural caress of Captain No-Name as he leads you on

a funky trip through the pelvic pump-rooms of his carnal domain. It's a

sexual-spiritual philosophipussical groove thang, y'all. So grease up,

pucker up, and get unbuttoned. Love ya ta death, your TAFKAPfulness.

Boss Hog, Boss Hog (Geffen)

* PRIMAL post-post-grunge punk rock fronted by strong wombyn Cristina

Martinez, with explosive bluesman Jon Spencer in the background. ''I dig

your groovy hair!'' cries Mr Spencer at one point. ''I dig your

barbecued lips!'' ripostes Ms Martinez. Yup, Boss Hog are an unravelled,

re-modelled version of the Cramps.

Peel Sessions, Can (Strange Fruit)

* AH YES, I remember Kraut-rock in the early seventies. Much loved by

spotty schoolboy swots in ill-fitting RAF greatcoats, it was. Despite

the fact that I was that swotty, spotty schoolboy, I hated Kraut-rock.

And here's proof that I was wrong. These sessions, four in all, were

recorded between 1973 and 1975. Can shimmy and pound like a locomotive;

ebb and flow like a volcano, and glow strangely in ways like you've

never seen. If you see me on the street in an over-large RAF greatcoat,

you'll know I'm catching up on lost time.

DAVID BELCHER

Yonder Tree, Gino Vannelli (Dreyfus)

* CANADIAN Vannelli has been making superior records for years without

troubling the shipping departments, let alone the charts. The 1978 album

Brother to Brother was somewhere between Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan;

this is jazzier, early Steps Ahead, say, backing a 1990s Bennett or

Sinatra, although Vannelli's vocal technique and expressive range go way

beyond mere crooning. The bodice-ripping Moon Over Madness apart,

Vannelli fans (all five of us) will love it; Van fans and Buckley buffs

might be persuaded; the rest should at least leave themselves open to

seduction.

By Heart, Maggie Holland (Rhiannon)

* SEASONED English folk club troubadour Holland disappointingly runs

the gamut of earnest protest, heavy humour, dreich traditional

favourites, and ill-advised covers of Michael Chapman and Tom Waits, all

sung to rather stolid arrangements with little of the titular heart.

Homecoming, Gateway (ECM)

* RECORDED evidence of the material from Gateway's magical Glasgow

International Jazz Festival concert last year has been a long time

coming but proves well worth the wait. Guitarist John Abercrombie,

bassist Dave Holland, and drummer and occasional Jarrettesque pianist

Jack DeJohnette are major league players whose work with and for each

other boldly energetic and softly oblique tunes alike is never less than

absorbing.

A Biography of the Rev Absalom Dawe, John Surman (ECM)

* SURMAN'S ''solo'' albums (he plays saxophones and clarinets over his

own shimmering keyboard accompaniments) continue to surprise and

delight. Returning to his beloved, fertile Hardy country (Dawe, Surman's

great great grandfather, was apparently the model for the shoemaker in

Under the Greenwood Tree), Surman evokes rustic charm, devotional music

and on Druid's Circle, with its belter of a baritone section riff, some

richly creative and carefree blowing.

ROB ADAMS