Introducing kara jackson, southern folk’s emerging poet laureate

U.S. Girls ★★★★ Scratch It 4AD. CD/DL/LP ...

From pop star to Kitchen Disco icon, Sophie Ellis-Bextor has brought joy to lives and homes across the globe. She talks to Rosamund Dean about marriage, menopause and why the music must go on

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

A monthly look at must-hear artists from all corners of the guitar world, from the roots of their sound to the tracks that matter most

THIS MONTH’S FREE CD

Music is in Cat Bateman’s DNA. With a dad who was a guitarist and singer, and a childhood that’s reminiscent of The Partridge Family, she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t belting out a tune. “On