Nonesuch Vinyl & CDs

Review: Wilco's first studio album in three years, "Sky Blue Sky" has been perhaps the most ardently awaited release of 2007. Eager fans had taken to shouting out pleas for information to bandleader Jeff Tweedy during his recent solo acoustic tour, and the web chatter has been virtually deafening. On "Sky Blue Sky" Tweedy's lyrics deal forthrightly with romantic separation and reconciliation, their bittersweet quality giving way, as the album progresses, to a more uplifting, redemptive mood. Tweedy quite literally banishes the darkness on the penultimate track, the inspiring, gospel-tinged "What Light".

Review: 'American Utopia' is the first solo record in 14 years from iconic polymath David Byrne. The album comes as part of a larger project entitled 'Reasons To Be Cheerful' - a series of works that strives to antidote pervasive social and political anxieties. In keeping with this, 'American Utopia' questions realities of contemporary culture with playful writing that shifts perspectives and favours optimism over despairing pessimism. Being the product of working with 25 collaborators, 'American Utopia' feels like something of a sonic patchwork, but doesn't ever feel sprawling, neatly tied together by Byrne's inimitable sense of melody and harmony. 'American Utopia' doesn't offer any transcendental conclusions on how to save the world, but advocates positive and unusual ways of looking at the world around us, and with a career underpinned by a singular and indescribable quirkiness, Byrne is the ideal candidate the job.