This week's album releases

EAGLE-EYE CHERRY | Living In The Present Future (Polydor)

Having sold four million copies of his debut, Neneh's younger brother has sensibly followed the same recipe for the sequel. Living In The Present Future contains 12 more acoustic guitar-based grooves, warm and wholesome as freshly baked bread. The trouble is that while they're certainly easy to listen to, they're also easy to switch off. Cherry's easylike-Sunday-lunchtime singing style and smooth-as-a-coffee-table arrangements preclude almost any emotional response beyond vague approval, and the album soon gets repetitive. Neneh's hiphop-flavoured vocals on "Long Way Around" provide a much-needed change of tone. By Nicholas Barber

JEFF BUCKLEY | Mystery White Boy (Columbia)

Buckley had only one album to his name - Grace - when he drowned in 1997, so his posthumous releases now outnumber those he completed himself. Still, his concerts were so hair-raisingly intense that a live album was inevitable. Here he performs seven songs from Grace, alongside five "new" tracks: three original compositions and two covers. It's hard to avoid such words as "unearthly" and "angelic" when describing That Voice, but 78 minutes of music that frequently favours virtuosity over melody will be exhausting for newcomers. Grace still encapsulates Buckley's talents best; Mystery is really for those fans hungry for another fleeting glimpse of a departed genius. NB

AMON TOBIN | Supermodified (Ninja Tune)

If you saw Chris Morris's recent TV show jam, you're halfway to appreciating what the track "Bad Sex", by Amon Tobin and featuring Morris, sounds like. In keeping with both artists' perverse anti-commercialism, this collaboration was released as the B-side on a 10-inch vinyl-only single and doesn't appear on Supermodified. But the A side, "Slowly", is on this album, and it's a piece of luxuriant trip-hop built around some simple brass phrases and a deep, resonating bass, with the drum breaks slowly building like a marching band trying to do freeform jazz. Like the rest of Supermodified, it's not quite like anything else you've heard. The samples are all taken from original sources and then manipulated, so a motorbike or a child's laugh becomes a musical instrument. So it won't work as background music because faint, familiar sounds insinuate their way into your consciousness, making you wonder whether you just heard the doorbell. The laidback, shuffling jazz of "Chocolate Lovely", the tribal fairground music of "Marine Machines" or the soothing Hammond grooves of "Natureland", for example, have simple melodies but their rhythmic complexity bears repeated listening. It may take a couple of listens to acclimatise yourself, but once you've got the hang of Tobin's playful mood-swings, you'll be swinging along with him. By Laurence Phelan

ADAM FREELAND | Tectonics (Marine Parade)

Adam Freeland, the Brighton-based Kiss FM DJ and Fabric resident, is widely regarded as responsible for re-introducing the breakbeat into dance music. Tectonics is a seamless 70-minute mix of breakbeats old and new, including Ils's classic title track "Tsunami One", BT's "Hip Hop Phenomenon", Layo & Bushwacka's brilliant "Deep South" and 10 other must-haves for anyone interested in the sound. If you're hoping for tunes, vocals or anything other than pounding basslines and funky drum-breaks, then steer clear. If not, I recommend it. Incidentally, Tectonics is not to be confused with Tektonics, a recent, equally good compilation of turntablist remixes on Om Records. LP