Alexis Jordan Good Girl At just 14, Alexis Jordan made her name in the US on America's Got Talent, warbling her way through Whitney's I Have Nothing. Four years later and she's signed to Jay-Z's label and has an album of Stargate-produced R&B belters like this one, due out this month. Michael Cragg
Cold Cave The Great Pan Is Dead Galloping synth-rock flag waver, the toast of the US blogs, which leaves me exhilarated and groping for comparisons. Andrew WK fronting Carter USM, produced by Sleigh Bells, singing a Big Country song? Better just to play it again, maybe. Tom Ewing
Kit Downes Trio Quiet Tiger The subtle young UK pianist follows up the Mercury-nominated Golden with a collection of powerful originals, reflecting the trio's looser and sometimes darker investigations of recent times. It's unique contemporary jazz from a threesome that thinks as one. John Fordham
Meat Puppets Taste of the Sun Meat Puppets wrote countrified psychedelia that influenced some of the 90s' most successful alt bands, including Nirvana. This is a fine example of rock with a warped, melodic edge: "You say it's just a taste of the sun you're after/ But you're calling out to the wind in your broken laughter." Charlotte Richardson Andrews
Toto Rosanna Why hasn't this 1982 FM radio classic received the same retrospective adulation as Journey's Don't Stop Believing? Best watched on YouTube, where the band's moustaches and perms can be savoured. Caroline Sullivan
REM Uberlin From the forthcoming Collapse Into Now album, a song from REM's top drawer. Gliding over a trademark Peter Buck twang, Michael Stipe's reflections on change produce their most affecting song since Losing My Religion. Dave Simpson
Jessica Lea Mayfield Blue Skies Again Sounding like a younger Jenny Lewis, Mayfield's soulful, country-flecked debut album is well worth looking out for later this month. This glorious paean to cautious optimism is its highlight. Chris Salmon
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Belong The Brooklyn indie-poppers used to sound like My Bloody Valentine in the pre-Creation Records era. They've evolved, though: now they sound like My Bloody Valentine during the Creation years. Not as extreme as Kevin Shields and co, obviously, but with that blend of melody, ennui and a sheen of guitar noise. Michael Hann
