Sufjan Stevens has been recording Christmas songs since 2001, and these have trickled out annually, but for the first time they are collected in a (rather gorgeously packaged set). So, if you're in any way a sucker for Christmas music and you also recognise Sufjan Stevens as one of the best singer-songwriters around, this has already sold itself. Stevens has a Christian orientation normally, with a distinctive, almost baroque, musical approach, and the reworking of carols and standards is lovely. However, the set of 5 EPs really comes alive with the new songs, such as That Was The Worst Christmas Ever and Sister Winter. At a time when every Christmas seems to mean George Michael and Slade get an airing, it is wonderful to hear new, immediately seasonal music. Is this something that people who haven't previously been Sufjan fans should get? That probably depends on your disposition to Christmas music generally. But, your intellectual soul will be a lot better fed by this collection rather than Now That's What I Call Christmas.

ACE rating 8/10

It's a big year for the 'return to form' of the old folkies, and Bert is about as old as they get. But, just as Dylan's Modern Times is actually a triumph of rose-coloured glasses over reality, so is the idea that The Black Swan is terribly relevant today. With over 40 years in the business beginning in 1965 with solo albums, and then with Pentangle as well, Jansch has always been held up as a guitarist's guitarist - an amazing fingerstyle folk player. What he's not, however, is a great singer or lyricist (even by Dylan standards). A couple too many of the songs are sub-Dire Straits rock folk, but on the songs where there is great promise of some haunting folk, the effect is spoiled because you really do have to get past the voice, and that's just not easy. In an environment where many singers are forgiven (Richard Thompson, Neil Young), this album suggests that is solely because of the quality of their songs. The album is spoiled further by the inclusion of the equally poor Devendra Banhart. If only a good singer had fronted this album, it may well be for more than just the dedicated Jansch fan.

ACE rating 6/10

Duke Special is the pen-name of one-man from Belfast, with main man Peter Wilson primarily piano-based - the debut album Adventures in Gramophone was a lovely slice of pop perfection. Here, on its follow-up, he has explored his full Snow Patrol/ Keane/ Robbie Williams balladry side, built on a voice that Badly Drawn Boy wishes he had. Songs From The Deep Forest also seems to have had an injection of slight showtime camp - occasionally it sounds as though Michael Ball may appear - that moves it closer to something like The Divine Comedy. While this disc is as interesting as the first, it also slides by rather too easily and without once tweaking a memory neuron. There just isn't enough of interest this time around, and even in a reasonably undemanding middle of the road space, the choice should still go towards Keane or Snow Patrol.

ACE rating 5/10