The Herald's regular team of reviewers

tune in to the best in new sound and vision

Road Movie, R.E.M; Going Home, Jackson Browne; Naked Songs, Rickie Lee Jones (all Warner Music Vision, all 90 minutes)

n Of these three videos, it's no surprise that R.E.M's works best. Why? Because it is entirely without artifice, writes DAVID BELCHER. What you see is what you get: the world's truest rock'n'roll band performing 19 rippers on stage at some points during last year's world tour. Cameramen swoon blurrily at the band's feet in

K, Kula Shaker (Columbia)

n Artfully treading their osmotic retro-rock groove thingy, Kula Shaker impersonate the hoary shades of Zep, Santana, bleeding Quintessence, sodding Jethro Tull, chuffing Blodwyn Pig, pigging Arthur Brown, plus the band I myself led during the late sixties, frigging Gandalf's Faery Trouser. Famous for our songs about Guinevere and focusing our third eye, we were - and much of Kula Shaker's debut album addresses the same topics. One group that poncing Crispian Mills and his chums can't ape, however, are the Stooges - much too scummy, much too real - so for one song they simply nick the bass-line from TV Eye. What do they do with it? Make it too clean and gutless, that's what. Naturally, the play-safe metropolitan media loves Kula Shaker. They like everything with the blood sucked out of it down there. I'm not so sure you should, though.

Spiders, Space (Gut)

n Eclectic; electric. Sometimes Space are rapping in an arrogant, streetwise, and dance-fusional fashion like Black Grape. Sometimes they're Buzzcocks' little brothers, pithy and pert. Sometimes they think they're Noel Coward, coming on all plummy and aphoristic. And at all times, if crisp and literate pop is your bag, man, Space are a total treat.

Fossil Fuel: The Singles 1977-92, XTC (Virgin)

n Like the punk generation's version of Steely Dan, XTC created complex singles which attained a rare popularity. Cop for an awkward and angular guitar bit here, a jaggedly-satirical couplet there. This double CD brings you all their gems. Treasure them all. Haste ye back, sirrahs.

Soprano Summit (Storyville)

n JUST when you thought you'd heard every existing recording by seventies supergroup Soprano Summit, the Danish label Storyville releases a CD of a previously unissued concert recording from 1976, writes ALISON KERR. The line-up features Soprano Summit mainstays Kenny Davern (clarinet and soprano sax) and Bob Wilber (soprano sax) and occasional member, guitarist and vocalist Marty Grosz, plus bass and drums. The selection showcases all that's best about this unique band: the extraordinary textures and colours created by the inspired duetting of the two frontmen; the heart-stopping harmonies and the general good humour. Highlights include Soprano Summit's jubilant theme Song of Songs and the gloriously gloomy I Had It, But It's All Gone Now. Seek this one out.

Graffiti Tongue, Christy Moore (Grapevine)

n RECORDED live in the studio with minimal bodhran overdubs and a vocal from daughter, Juno, Moore presents these songs, all of which time he wrote or co-wrote, as if he were playing a concert in your living room, writes ROB ADAMS. Just him, his guitar and that trademark so-precise delivery, softened these days to make angry arguments such as Minds Locked Shut's Bloody Sunday fatality list somehow stronger, Riding the High Stool's drunken catalogue more self-effacingly mirthful, and On the Mainland's mickey-taking more deliciously mischievous. Some of these songs may develop further but this is still the work of a master troubadour in a league of one.

Tell Me Something, The Songs of Mose Allison (Verve)

n VAN Morrison, Georgie Fame, and Ben Sidran took more from Mose Allison than the Mississippi beat poet ever got in return, beyond name-checks at least. So, from a royalties point of view, hopefully, this is payback time as Van and Mose duet on the enigmatic Perfect Moment, Fame evokes the Blue Flames' heyday on Back on the Corner, and Sidran generally sounds so much like a chip off the old block he may want to dedicate Tell Me Something to his mum. An easy-going, pally get-together, with sterling contributions from Guy Barker (trumpet) and Pee Wee Ellis (tenor sax), if this doesn't have you grinning four to the bar, keep listening