Album: Various artists

The Wildlife Album, MARKET SQUARE

With the Band Aid 20 single shortly to be followed by the mooted Millennium Stadium benefit for the tsunami victims, less high-profile charity causes might be feeling the pinch at the moment.

With the Band Aid 20 single shortly to be followed by the mooted Millennium Stadium benefit for the tsunami victims, less high-profile charity causes might be feeling the pinch at the moment, which would be a shame in the case of The Wildlife Album. The predominantly folk-based contributions from which it's drawn give the album a more homogeneous cast than the usual pick'n'mix charity offering, though the overall character is slightly spoilt by the occasional lapse into prog-rock noodling and the inclusion of a few unremarkable pieces. Happily, these are well outnumbered by the good tracks, which include Bert Jansch's "Blues for a Green Earth", Fairport Convention's "I'm Already There", and "Sweet Again", a lovely slice of rolling folk-blues fingerpicking from Duffy Power. Elsewhere, Roy Harper contributes a melodramatic "Jabberwocky", and the stylistic envelope is subtly stretched further by Dennis Cahill's version of Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk", engaging pieces of chamber music, and guitar virtuoso Colin Reid's reading of Satie's "Gymnopedie No 1". It's available via the charity website ( www.thewildlifealbum.com) until early February, when it gets a wider distribution through Market Square Records.