Playlist: Cheerful New Zealand Pop And Spooky Louisiana Rock

Linda Thompson

Although shes surrounded by family (her children Kamila and Teddy) and friends (including Rufus Wainwright, who contributed a song, and Martin Carthy), Linda Thompson still sounds richly disconsolate on Versatile Heart (Rounder), an album of sparse, quiet, nearly hopeless ballads. Melancholy is Ms. Thompsons element; she sings with an English reserve that barely holds back a sob in her voice. The songs on Versatile Heart almost systematically undercut what might otherwise be comforts: a car, a drink, an affair, a marriage. All thats left is music. In a heartbroken country song thats wry but still desolate, she finds a last bit of pride: Im not a winner, everything I touch turns to stone/Give me a sad song, Im in a class of my own.

Zap Mama

Marie Daulne, the Congolese-Belgian singer who becomes Zap Mama in the studio, is a one-woman global village — a village that gives a lot of parties. Her new album, Supermoon (Heads Up International) is full of blithely benevolent messages; in Affection she urges, Share it! The music follows through with an international assortment of grooves, from funk to jazz to Steve Reich-like percussion to the most airborne one of all: the electrified pygmy-style call-and-response of Gati. Its a happy paradox that the jubilant community songs Ms. Daulne sets up are performed all by herself.

Marie Knight

Back in the 1940s Marie Knight sang with the electric-guitar-slinging gospel pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and she still performs Tharpes songs. But her first album in decades, Let Us Get Together (M.C.), gets more rural. Its a tribute to the ragtimey gospel of the Rev. Gary Davis. The guitarist Larry Campbell, who has played with Bob Dylan and Phil Lesh, backs her with acoustic-guitar picking or leads a jaunty band, usually unplugged, à la Ry Cooder. (The exception is a haunted Death Dont Have No Mercy, with a tolling electric guitar.) Ms. Knights voice is still hearty and unpredictable, and the settings let her proclaim her faith fervently but without shouting.

Brunettes

My sugar, my honey, dont care if it sounds cliché, the Brunettes announce in the song that starts their second album, Structure & Cosmetics (Sub Pop). But they do care. The Brunettes, from New Zealand, are the duo of Heather Mansfield (vocals, keyboards) and Jonathan Bree (vocals, guitars, drums), and as much as they delight in the sweetness and clarity of pop, theyre immensely self-conscious about it. Their cheerful songs are full of straightforward hooks that hint at 1970s soft rock and the more relaxed wing of new wave, with lots of oohs and la-las. But they lead into musings on the mechanics of music production, in Stereo (Mono Mono),, commerce (Credit Card Mail Order) or fame (Wall Poster Star), making them far too analytical to get misconstrued as easy listening.

Superbad

The composer credit on the soundtrack album for Superbad (Lakeshore) belongs to Lyle Workman, but the names of his band members are more familiar. They include Clyde Stubblefield, the funky drummer on James Browns Funky Drummer, and the keyboardist Bernie Worrell, the guitarist Phelps (Catfish) Collins and the bassist Bootsy Collins from Parliament-Funkadelic. Their tracks cackle and wah-wah like vintage early-1970s funk, and on the album they neatly lead into sassy, obscure oldies from Jean Knight and the Bar-Kays.

Dax Riggs

Devils, darkness and death surround Dax Riggs on his album We Sing of Only Blood or Love (Fat Possum). Hes the morbid, dramatic Louisiana rocker who led Deadboy and the Elephantmen and drew more than a few comparisons to the White Stripes for his bluesy riffs and volatile, quavery voice. With Matt Sweeney from Chavez playing distortion-thickened guitar on this album, Mr. Riggss new songs lean toward hard rock and glam rock. Like Jack White, Mr. Riggs makes his songs inseparable from shtick, and over the course of an album the affectations build up. But in small doses — like Night Is the Notion or A Spinning Song — the songs can be spooky.

Slow Six

Eerie patterns — serene or foreboding, never exactly resolved — define Christopher Tignors compositions for the new-music ensemble Slow Six on Noreaster (New Albion). Violins hover and glide, create clouds of tremolo and occasionally sketch a melody; picked electric guitars discreetly chime. Every so often the musics Minimalist underpinnings briefly come into focus, but they soon melt like mirages. The music takes its time, then leaves behind not tranquillity but disquiet.

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