1980 Forward - '25 Years Of 4AD' (4AD Records)Released 21/11/05

This is a compilation that comes with 4AD turning the quarter-century, launching a website with profiles on all their recorded artists, and generally gathering all and sundry around for festivities to rekindle the old 4AD-flame that burns in our hearts. There's going to be a fair deal of special sessions on BBC 6 (on yer tranny) to coincide with celebrations, website offerings and 10 successive-evenings of live-performance. There's beauty and surprise on abundance - 18 tracks that'll inspire and captivate.

Bulgarian Choir get the oven up to temperature with a diaphonic chant, sung like a Welsh Male-voice choir, only with female harmonies - shrill yet beautiful notes reached. The Cocteau Twins get track 2 as well they should, with 'Lorelei' - Liz Frazer singing breathy and soothing, textured guitars and brash industrial 80's-beatbox with chimes-chiming, and suddenly one's a teenager again. The recording cuts a dash, makes a giant non-chronological trifle which sees the old signings rub-up with the young-bucks. TV On The Radio dish-up a boppy pop-skank - "...if you don't go now then you might not never...", then Nick Cave and The Birthday Party ladle the menace - "...my fingers down the throat of love...", spiky and punky and not to accompany you on an acid-trip.

His Name Is Alive dole-up one of the surprise dishes of the day with 'Fossil' - a veritable wonderland of sonics and ethereal female-vocals sung in a operatic-style, programmed-loops provide underpinning - haunting, yet oh so tasty. Pale Saints, Belly and Throwing Muses platter some pop, whilst signature-signing Pixies ask 'Where Is My Mind' like CBGB-era Talking Heads. Tarnation on 'Two Wrongs Won't Make A Right' is a slice of 50's styled Americana, a female-singer with beauty at work and a sterling-voice like Roy Orbison. Sybarite enthral with 'Scene Of The Crime', with glitch, programming and texture - a decent song in tow.

4AD may not be alone in bringing fabulous Independent-music to our discerning palates, but they are definitive, forward-looking and exploratory. And what's more, they're still going strong. A compilation with choral harmonies, sonic-landscaping, baroque, americana, post-punk, pop, glitch-electronica - uniquely 4AD.