RECORDS / The IoS Playlist

THE FIVE BEST SOUNDS OF THE MOMENT

Exsultate Jubilate. Sylvia McNair, Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists/ John Eliot Gardiner (Philips, CD only). Motets by Handel and Mozart immaculately delivered with one of the outstanding lighter lyric voices around as the featured soloist. Michael White

Tom Waits: The Briar and the Rose (track on The Black Rider, Island, CD/LP/tape). Borrowing the lineaments of 'Scarlet Ribbons', Waits splutters his way back to form with a heartbreaking ballad of cracked romance. RW

Evelyn 'Champagne' King: Shame (track on Disco Inferno 2, EastWest, CD/tape). This is what great dance music sounded like in 1977, before the machines took over. A soul classic. RW

Ice Cube: Ghetto Bird (track on Lethal Injection, 4th & Broadway, CD/LP/tape). The best rap song ever written about helicopters. BT

Nirvana: Sappy (uncredited track 19 on No Alternative, Arista, CD/LP/tape). Blistering but still plaintive climax to an excellent Aids charity compilation album. BT