(FORTUNE Magazine) – WILL KIMBROUGH This Waxy Silver Records

This is a real discovery. While paying the rent as a six-string Nashville sideman, Kimbrough has built up a stockpile of his own jangly, yearning pop songs. He digs up those buried melodies on This--and they're gorgeous. (Imagine a tumbleweedy version of Crowded House.)

BETH HIRSCH Early Days K7 Records

Hirsch has the kind of fluttering, sweet-and-sour voice that seems both alien and familiar. It's familiar because she has loaned her pipes to Air, the French electro duo, but Early Days is a folkier affair: Expect to hear it the next time you order an iced chai with soy milk.

MAHOGANY Original Soundtrack Motown

The finest cheeses achieve their most alluring flavors only after years of careful aging. The same goes for this new-from-the-vault soundtrack to the 1975 Diana Ross fiasco. Pure kitsch? Actually, Mahogany's mix of orchestral sweep and chintzy boudoir funk now sounds like a cocktail-party masterstroke.

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Mwng Flydaddy

Nope, Mwng is not a misprint. Here's an album sung entirely in Welsh--an experiment that allows for nutty, consonant-crammed song titles like "Gwreiddiau Dwfn." You'll feel as if you've come upon Pink Floyd wigging out with Captain Beefheart in a mossy alehouse in the Cambrian Mountains.

BELLE & SEBASTIAN Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant Matador

With autumn right around the corner, it's probably wise to stock up on Belle & Sebastian. Once again the mysterious Glasgow folk-pop collective delivers a bundle of arch, dainty ditties for those crisp Sundays when you want to wrap yourself in a wool blanket and sip elderberry tea.