I'm with Stuart on David Gray. The man has no soul. Musically it's fine and he has a decent enough voice but did he check the passion at the door. I own White Ladder and it's a fairly damning indictment that he covers Soft Cell's "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" with less fervour than the original electro-pop classic. I'd put him in the same category as Damien Rice. Eminently forgettable.

As for the obscure?? Roland Kirk I have to say that as much as I want to love this guy I just haven't been able to. There are moments when his records reach the perfect blend of Ornette Coleman / Albert Ayler insanity with the best of the post-bop jazz by Dolphy, Henderson and Shorter.

The problem with Kirk is that these moments are too infrequent. There's just too much interference. It's like cruising the highways of northern ontario in the 1970s while CHUM FM spins side A of the new Flash and the Pan record and with each rise in the road you lose a little bit of the song, driving you mental. He also seems to be trying to cover too much ground, almost like the anti-Weezer, which may in theory be a good thing but can be very trying on the listener.

Some of Kirk's later stuff like "The Inflated Tear" and Stuart's previously mentioned disc, the live "Bright Moments" is especially guilty of this meandering. I'm much more enamoured of some earlier material such as 1961's "Kirk's Work" and "We Free Kings" (a jazz entry point for me), and 1965's "Rip, Rig and Panic". One thing I would never accuse him of though is being sleep-inducing.