 | Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan
Buy new: £8.98 / Used from: £6.10 The greatest musician and human being walking the planet. Drop to your knees at the pastoral transcendence of these haunting little songs. One of the best albums ever made.
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 | Can't Stand the Rezillos: The (Almost) Complete Rezillos by The Rezillos
Buy new: £6.98 / Used from: £5.23 The best art-punk/new wave album to emerge from the gloom of a 1970s art school. You will die dancing.
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 | Excerpts From a Love Circus by Lisa Germano
Buy new: £14.19 / Used from: £4.55 Lisa Germano is the most naked and honest and breathtaking songwriter of the 1990s. Astonishing songs that capture the human soul with the perspicacity of a true artist.
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 | Heroes To Zeros by The Beta Band
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £1.78 The four most talented men in Scotland bring their all-too short career to a rip-roaring climax with this witty, stirring and energetic cavalcade of pop ingenuity.
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 | Learn to Sing Like a Star by Kristin Hersh
Buy new: £7.68 / Used from: £4.92 Hersh epitomises the spirit of the artist existing outside the mainstream, and makes music of vital originality and arresting power. This is a fabulous album. See more at cashmusic.org.
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 | History by Loudon Wainwright III
Buy new: £6.68 / Used from: £4.25 The opus from this hilarious, deeply personal and trailblazing humorist and songwriter. You will laugh, cry and drop your pants.
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 | Lullabies to Violaine, Vol. 1 by Cocteau Twins
Buy new: £9.18 / Used from: £8.65 The band that made 4AD, the ultimate non-mainstream pioneers of original and fresh music. This collection abounds with early riches from the band's essential '80s period.
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 | Dragnet by The Fall
Buy new: £3.48 / Used from: £4.45 A vital sophomore effort from the diehard garage art-punk hellraisers. This album captures their ramshackle, madly experimental and highly literate style perfectly.
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 | Stepping Out Of Line - The Anthology by Au Pairs
Buy new: £5.48 You will not find a sassier, classiest and funkier post-punk unit out there. These two discs showcase a band of remarkable talent and originality.
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 | 69 Love Songs by Magnetic Fields
Buy new: £8.98 / Used from: £6.50 Stephen Merritt is a remarkable talent whose lyrics wipe the floor with Morrissey, and whose musical talent sucker-punches Johnny Marr into oblivion. You will fall in love with all sixty-nine songs.
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 | Sentimental Hygiene by Warren Zevon
Buy new: £14.69 / Used from: £9.33 Zevon's finest work. Ten perfect bombs of scalpel-sharp wit and lyricism, performed by REM before they went mainstream. Incalculably enjoyable music.
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 | Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Buy new: £6.98 / Used from: £5.70 A phenomenal album from the grandfather of non-mainstream innovation. This is Beefheart's most melodious, artful, impassioned, way-out and hilarious work.
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 | Songs for the Jet Set by Drugstore
Buy used from: £3.49 Late-night paeans to loneliness, desperation and doomed romance. A haunting album of simple beauty from an underrated Portuguese talent.
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 | Teenage Snuff Film by Rowland S. Howard
Buy new: £8.98 / Used from: £11.33 The ultimate dark-year-of-the-soul album. Full-blown rock and misery from the former Birthday Party guitarist.
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 | The Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
Buy new: £11.98 / Used from: £13.99 An irresistible debut from a bursting talent. Terrific lyrics, sublime harp playing and seriously weird alt-folk music. A treat.
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 | Sunny Moon by Frances McKee
Buy used from: £4.20 This overlooked gem from the former Vaselines starlet is a dark and brooding folk epic. Gothic ditties wrapped in epic cellos, light plucks and Mckee's ghostly vocals.
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 | This Is Our Music by Galaxie 500
A life-changing shoegazing album. Stupendously moving guitar work and woozy moments of deep melancholy and elation. A staggering album.
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 | Wildwood Flower by June Carter Cash
Buy new: £11.98 / Used from: £3.72 A tear-jerking farewell to the First Lady of country music. A family affair with incredible contributions from Laura Cash, Norman Blake and husband Johnny. You will weep and hug everybody.
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 | This Island by Le Tigre
Buy used from: £6.99 Magnificent fun. Angsty feminist new wave served in a package of cheeky humour, swelling bile and Blondie-beats. Kathleen Hanna's muse delivers.
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 | Parallelograms: the Definitive Edition by Linda Perhacs
Buy new: £11.98 / Used from: £9.12 The Californian Vashti Bunyan serves eleven songs of dark, inspired and sonically interesting beauty. Perfect for dreaming away those listless hours on holiday.
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 | I Am Kloot by I Am Kloot
Buy new: £12.69 / Used from: £8.43 Moving songs of simple beauty from this oddball Mancunian pop trio. Produced by Ian Broudie. "Untitled #1" is a truly spine-chilling number.
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 | Smoke in the Shadows by Lydia Lunch
Buy new: £12.69 / Used from: £13.95 Stylish aggression from the gutter poet and no wave princess. This is a dazzling album of slow-building late-night smoky music, and some bad-ass female rapping.
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 | Milk White Sheets by Isobel Campbell
Buy used from: £3.99 Low-key folks songs performed with hushed resignation from the blonde bard of ancient gloom.
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 | Grinderman by Grinderman
Buy used from: £6.61 Vital rock and roll from Nick Cave and his cronies. A blast of middle-aged angst and loopy melodies with killer hooks.
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 | Bryter Layter by Nick Drake
Buy new: £3.48 / Used from: £2.89 The best is saved to last. This is Nick Drake's finest album: a breathtaking look at the desolation of the modern city from the POV of a jaded outsider, turned into a hymn of love to life. Wow wow.
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