At home tonight

Staying in tonight? If you fancy listening to a Norweigan singing Smiths songs acapella (believe it or not), or reading about a fascinating history of the record industry - you're in the right place!

CD
Erlend Àye: DJ Kicks
(K7)

The prospect of a Norwegian singing a Smiths song a capella over European electro does not, initially, fill the heart with hope. But this Norwegian is Erlend Àye, the brilliantly mournful voice that fronts nu-folkers Kings Of Convenience. We're used to the bootleg mash-ups that combine, say, Bananarama with cool electronica, but Àye turns it on its head - he is the one singing the snippets of Venus, Fine Night and Always On My Mind, turning them into chillingly sparse songs all of their own. Wisely, he uses this technique sparingly, but it all comes to a head with a quite superb marriage of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out and a Rˆyksopp remix. Àye has re-invented a mix album medium that had got incredibly tired.

BOOKS
Where Have All The Good Times Gone? by Louis Barfe
Atlantic, £17.99

This extensive overview of the record industry, which effectively came into being when Thomas Edison invented the tinfoil cylinder in 1877 (the world's first recording device), sets the financial woes currently suffered by big players such as EMI and Universal against a history of commercial growth. Until the arrival of MP3, music companies had always controlled the production of software; today, the Internet has passed that control to the consumer. Barfe's comprehensive research is peppered with entertaining anecdotes, while his approach combines a weighty respect for his subject with a healthy dose of cynicism. There will always be music; who owns it is another question.