One for the winter this; and to be honest if open fires are still allowed in these litigate days, that's the ideal place to sit an listen an balloon your consciousness into the ether whilst meltin' away to some darned laidback lassitude groovemongering. And this compilation - courtesy of Italy’s Homesleep records - could well be that musical morpheus, were it not scizophrenically flitting between the touch of genius and terrible torchgibbering too-clever pseudery.

Ostensibly a series of cover versions re-recorded in Homesleep’s laid-back, 5 AM crackedthroat intimate prehangover tetrahydratechnic style, we get some class and some crap amongst the 19 tracks thoughtfully laid out for our ‘binnoid delectation.

Opening opus is by the delightfully named Fuck *, whose rejigged and horizontally-hospitable take on *Britney’s ’ Oops I Did It Again’ makes it sound even more like (Gene) Pitney’s ‘Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart’; a supine runthrough of ‘Pale Blue Eyes’by Sodastream manages to capture the essential fragility of the Velvets’ original with a hint of early Gorky’s to boot; Wisdom Of Harry’s ‘Shiny Shiny Pimpmobile’ is suitably introspective, menacing and Twin Peaksish.

The bottom line with compilations of any kind is that your reaction is entirely subjective. There’s some really dodgy stuff on here and i’faith I just don’t want to articulate which tracks get on my tits because tomorrow I’ll probably love them.

Homesleephome2 is a collection of artists with Velvet Underground fixations looking to build on someone else’s work and take it into a completely different arena. Sometimes with great success, and sometimes with unimaginably self-indulgent noodlings.

To be fair, when I was listening to the compilation I was cooking me mightily lazy and completely un-Jamie Oliverish ‘dinner’ of corned beef, waffle and baked beans. Not the most inventive of meals, but delicious in parts. And you may make of that what you will.

I guess the question here is not whether I personally like every part of this release; it’s whether this release is a worthy addition to music in general. And as in life, the few fantastic moments are made ever more sweet and satisfying by the sourpuss and amateurish dross you have to wade through to get there. Good luck.