PETE ASTOR
YOU MADE ME
FAUX-LUX/GARE DU NORD
★★★
For his 10th solo album, one-time Weather Prophet Pete Astor hooks up with assorted indie luminaries for an album of covers – plus one original tune, the witty, rumbling Chained To An Idiot. His casual yet rich vocal pays dividends: Generation X’s Dancing With Myself gets a tender reworking, matched by an intimate reading of Astor’s kindred spirit Loudon Wainwright III’s One Man Guy, and a lo-fiinterpretation of Joe Strummer’s Nitcomb is touching, too. John Martyn’s Solid Air, meanwhile, is almost unrecognisable, far less flash yet still oddly hypnotic.