JESSE SYKES AND THE SWEET HEREAFTER
Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul Fargo
****

On her third album, Seattle singer Jesse Sykes and her band, The Sweet Hereafter, shake off their dark country clothes for a passionate intimacy redolent of late 1960s west-coast psychedelic rock. "We were trying to capture some pretty ephemeral stuff on this album - love and fragile human emotion, the 21st century's strange combination of swagger and vulnerability," she says on her website. Aided in particular by sensitive guitarist and partner Phil Wandscher, Sykes carefully slides her smoky folky voice into the shady corners of her imagination. It's compelling stuff, beautifully set by producers Tucker Martine and Martin Feveyear, and atmospherically built up by a band who know the value of space and how best to fill it. Joe Breen www.jessesykes.com

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Women of the World Acoustic Putamayo
***

Choosing a collection on the basis of gender is dodgy ground to start with, but this is a suitably muscular melange to overcome any accusations of preciousness. This sampler of lesser-known female singers from France, the Czech Republic, Cape Verde, Chile and Canada (and a few compass points in between) will send you scurrying for more. Emiliana Torrini betrays her Icelandic/Italian roots in her unquestionably Björk-like fragility, melded with a curious Michael Franks-like taste for jazz-inflected melodies. Standouts include Marta Topferova's husky Czech-Venezuelan vocals and Lura, an able inheritor of the fluidity so beloved of her fellow Cape Verdian, Cesaria Evoria. Shades of Brazil's sublime Virginia Rodriguez are evident in Colombian singer Marta Gomez's filigree vocals. Musical magpie-ism at its best.  Siobhán Long www.putamayo.com