This week, Stuart likes his biscuits.

Erlend Oye - Sheltered Life (Source)

Norway's King Of Convenience is a teetotal socialite par excellence. So when he's not strumming and singing, he's hooking up for some synths and song with various European collaborators as witnessed on his debut solo LP, Unrest. Sheltered Life chugs along in a phat Felix Da Housecat vein that sparkles luxuriantly. The vocals, meanwhile, are trademark mellow and intelligently phrased. Some people think Erlend's a coffee table lightweight, but since he donned that ginger moustache a while back, Oye's rep has become laced with a louche, Lothario-like cool.

Amateur Night In The Big Top - Scooter Girl (Offworld Sounds)

Now holed-up in a terraced house in Glossop, alongside immediate neighbour and Happy Mondays “dancer” Bez, Shaun William Ryder returns with his new incarnation, Amateur Night In The Big Top. Dry like a Mancunian Burroughs sat chuntering in a council estate pub, Ryder regales us with tales inspired by the northern soul scene and skinhead girls, over a dense electronic soundtrack. His vocals remain eternally charismatic; the music, meanwhile, is a sludgy pool of studio noodlery.

Louie Austen - Easy Love (Kitty-Yo)

This exquisitely crafted biscuit stars sixtysomething Austrian crooner Louie Austen - a dude who earned his loungecore stripes on the Vegas and New York cabaret circuit in the 70s. Austen was coaxed out of obscurity and into alt pop's eager bosom by esteemed Viennese dance track meister Patrick Pulsinger, who produced Easy Love. This song satisfies on many levels – from bedroom to dancefloor – and works because, unlike his ironic label-mate Gonzales, Austen sings completely from the heart. You'll love this if you like gorgeous things.

Kempston, Protek & Fuller - 12K Boost Boost (Fukd id)

A lush slab of electronic muscle that's refreshingly at odds with faddish electroclash, try-hard techno and ten-a-penny glitchcore. Track 1 is the sound of, erm, the moon? Track 2 is plaintive, sweet melancholia. Track 3 sounds like Kraftwerk's Sex Object beefed up for a Euro bass convention, while track 4 comes across like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop sliced up by Weatherall and Tenniswood's Two Lone Swordsmen. This delightful melange is what happens when The Clangers learn how to use keyboards.

The Shortwave Set - Slingshot (Low Resolution)

Sixties West Coast harmonies and melodic obsessions put through the mincer with stop-start sampler trickery. The whole, however, still flows like a stoned Fifth Dimension with a tech’d-up Brian Wilson at the dials. A nicely placed honky-tonk piano is then augmented by some Sgt Pepper-esque wordplay. But don't be fooled by the apparent bliss, the lyrics bite hard – “Take a swing, with your broken arm in your broken sling / I'd love to see you breakdown.” It's traditional “abusive relationship pop”, only newer.

Stuart Turnbull 20 June 03

All singles released 23 June 03.