AVAILABLE AS a one, two or - phew - three-disc set, the latest unlocking of the archive sweeps up unreleased and alternative studio recordings from 1989's Oh Mercy album through to 2006's Modern Times, supplemented by live tracks and unjustly overlooked soundtrack contributions.

Among the unheard songs, the gem is Red River Shore, a simple, epic lament for love that never was. With most artists, alternate takes might be for completists only, but it's the reinterpretations that cut to the heart of Dylan's art. Denuded of producer Daniel Lanois's atmospherics, a raw reading of Oh Mercy's Most Of The Time recalls Blood On The Tracks; a gospel-inflected reworking of Time Out Of Mind's Can't Wait showcases Dylan's sexiest vocal in years.

Sony has made a catastrophic marketing decision, though. While the two-disc set retails at around £13, the three-disc edition is an outrageous £90. But however you lay hands on it, this is mandatory, revelatory listening. Good music for hard times.

Download this: Can't Wait
Damien Love

PUMAJAW
Curiosity Box
(Pinnacle)
4/5

Not to say Pumajaw are haunting but, with the headphones on, I couldn't help looking behind me, half-expecting my dead auntie to be frothing at the mouth and reaching for the back of my chair.

Anglo-Scottish folk duo Pinkie Maclure and John Wills are not recreating folk, but doing with it what the original must have done in a fire-lit hovel: stirring voices of the dead by candlelight with the blade of a sgian dubh. Alasdair Roberts and ex-Fence Collective member James Yorkston appear spectrally here and there.

Visiting Hour sets out the stall, especially the Wuthering Heights-style call for "Henry, Henry" - who may be out on the moors, you imagine, ruffling his plaid, taking acid. Maclure and Wills have made five albums together since meeting in the 1990s and their trancy folk is tight, often epic.

Roberts's contribution to The Burning Of Auchindoun gives the song the same goose-pimply authenticity that wails like a banshee throughout. A salty, blood-and-guts record with considerably more kick that kitsch.

Download This: Spangler
Paul Dalgarno

Jeremy Warmsley
How We Became
(Transgressive)
3/5

Jeremy Warmsley is half-French and half-English, but there is little Gallic about his second album. How We Became is English folk-pop with a dash of Morrissey, a drop of Thom Yorke and a dollop of electronica. Every tune sticks in the brain, not least Killers‑esque recent single Lose My Cool, and past tours with the likes of The Shins and Regina Spektor ensure some bearded cool. The title track is all pretty falsettos, Take Care crunches like the Gang Of Four and the sparing I Keep the City Burning could almost be Freddie Mercury. Alas, Warmsley has neither the personality nor the lyrics to make any of this special, and he loses marks for having a rubbish name. If you don't mind style over substance it is worth a listen, but before you do it might be worth dropping into Glasgow's King Tut's on Wednesday for his sole Scottish date.

Download This: Lose My Cool
Steven Vass

Mt. Wilson repeater
Mt. Wilson Repeater
(Chemikal Underground)
3/5

If you took all the sunshine that failed to materialise in Scotland this year and put it in a jar and shook it until it turned into a very pretty, but a little bit sad, summer's day sunset then you'd be close to the sound of Mt. Wilson Repeater eponymous debut album - the first solo project from the Radar Bros' Jim Putnam. That the record is named after a radio antenna in California is not surprising, for the whole is a collection of nicely layered sounds that sometimes - when they can be arsed - pull themselves up from the front porch and become songs, but with the vocals so buried in the mix they become like another instrument. Track two Our Country Way hits a few wrong notes but the gorgeous, snaking piano lines of Basketball Song and Maid Marion sum up the languid, sun-blessed beauty of the whole.

Download this: Basketball Song
Peter John Meiklem