Jennifer Sawdon - Fighting the Fairytale

Fighting the Fairytale is a no-nonsense debut album from Jennifer Sawdon on her own label, Little Me Records. It's also a fairytale in its own right - Jennie, a wedding singer and vocal coach, has done things the proactive way in putting out this quite incredible collection of original music.

Sawdon keeps things sweet and simple throughout, with clean instrumentals, tinkling piano accompaniment and frankly impressive vocals that brought a tear to my eye on at least three separate occasions during my first listen-through of Fighting the Fairytale. Anyone thinking of putting their own music out there would be wise to take this as their roadmap - it's a lesson in how to do it right.

Finn Peters - Music Of The Mind

Finn Peters is a flautist and alto saxophonist, who has made music in a bewildering array of styles over the years. From jazz to latin, from acid house to broken beats, there seems to be nothing the Devon born musician can't turn his hand to, and handle with aplomb.

Music of the Mind is the third album Peters has released under his own name, after his debut Su-Ling in 2005 (which was selected as one of Jazzwise's Albums of the Year), and the 2008 follow-up Butterflies. True to form, this album is a challenging and eclectic collection of nine tracks (apparently the magic number for a Finn Peters album).

Unlike anything he (or anyone else) has done before though, Music of the Mind is all built around Peters' brainwaves. Quite literally. Recorded using futuristic Brain Computer Interface technology, they form the basic musical framework, around which he has composed and improvised these tracks, which seem to draw on all of his previous music experiments.

Django Reinhardt - "The Rome Sessions" Vol. 1 (1949-1950)

Django Reinhardt - "The Rome Sessions" Vol. 1 (1949-1950) kinda blows a-ha's 25-year anniversary edition of Hunting High and Low out of the water in terms of recent classic releases (if 'recent classic' is even possible...) - as the name suggests, this is 60 years old or more.

However, if you're a fan of jazz and blues, and you like that crackly old sound, it's still a good option. This is the kind of thing you'd expect to hear in the background at your local jazz club while nobody's performing on stage (what do you mean, you don't have a local jazz club? Manchester's Matt and Phred's is mine). If you're rich - or just have aspirations of being high-class - bung it on at your next barbecue and serve the wine really well chilled. People will think you're upwardly mobile.