Various Artists: To Scratch Your Heart: Early Recordings from Istanbul

For the past couple of years Damon Albarn's label, Honest Jon's, has been compiling themed samplers from the hundreds of thousands of archive recordings in the HMV vaults. One gem from 2008 was Give Me Love (Songs of the Brokenhearted - Baghdad 1925-1929), which offered an aural snapshot of Iraq's cultural diversity before the Nazi coup. This new compilation approaches the Middle East from its westernmost edge, gathering Turkish recordings made in the dog-days of the Ottomans. Geographical propinquity is about all these 30-plus tracks have in common, spanning as they do three decades, the sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental music, the breadth of the dwindling empire, and the folk and classical traditions (though the enormous baglama on the cover is slightly misleading; to my disappointment this doesn't feature very much from this guitar-oud hybrid). It would be capricious to single out highlights in the face of such variety, but the husky melismatics of Hafiz Cemal Bey are not easily forgotten and Hafiz Asir Effendi almost sounds like a blues singer, so hoarsely soulful is his performance. Of the few female vocalists, Fikriye Hanim has a chilly grace, and the implacable, accumulating power of Muserref Hanim's Kim Derdi Ki (Who Said That?) is remarkable given her sparse accompaniment. Of the instrumentals the standout may be Kamil Efendi's piano improvisation, which sounds for all the world like a lost Erik Satie. Europe, of course, was never far away.

In Modern History Jim Moray NIAG The acclaimed young British folky Jim Moray caused a stir with his first two albums, updating English standards with African instruments and hi-tech productions. This latest offering sticks closer to the classic folk-rock template, but surprises still await. Homeland Laurie Anderson Nonesuch The American performance artist behind the strangest single ever to hit number two in the UK singles charts (1981's vocodered monologue O Superman) returns with a state-of-the-nation oration with guest appearances by Lou Reed and Four Tet's Kieran Hebden. Cryptic as it is powerful, whatever it was she had, she's still got it.