This second disc of highlights from the US television series Sessions at West 54th presents another diverse collection of artists that generally inhabit a place somewhere outside of the musical mainstream, although this release does have a tendency toward being a tad less eclectic in its scope of covered styles than its predecessor.

Showcasing appearances from the 1998 series, Talking Heads' David Byrne (sans floppy suit) introduces us to another wide variety of musical styles, this time ranging from Latin to blues, funky twang to not so funky twang and po-faced balladeering to just plain annoying noise. Oh, did I mention there’s plenty of twang in thar?

Prominent inclusions here are Australia's very own New Zealander Neil Finn (Try Whistling This), the stunning Natalie Merchant (Wonder), the pigeonhole-repelling Imani Coppola (Legend of a Cowgirl), the irrepressible Lou Reed (Set the Twilight Reeling) and possibly one of the most inspired pairings of talent ever committed to tape, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach (the title track from their 1998 collaborative album, Painted From Memory).

The full track listing...

Much like the first disc in the series, visually this is quite superb, with only occasional aliasing to be seen, essentially due to the amount of detail served up. Another full frame, shot on video affair, as with the first release it comes to our PAL market in NTSC format only. So if you can’t play back NTSC then there’s little to make this disc useful as anything more than a drink coaster.

Once again two mixes are on offer – nicely CD-ish Linear PCM stereo, and Dolby Digital 5.1. The latter is nowhere near as exciting a mix as that afforded the first release, but it’s still quite impressive nonetheless.

Whereas the first disc in the series counted only subtitles as any form of extra feature, things are improved quite a bit here. The lyrical subtitles remain, as does the problem with them being WAY too close to the bottom and often getting cut off. Elsewhere, there’s a music video, which is an alternate take of Burt and Elvis, given a sepia-toned olde worlde look, but sadly with abominable, in fact almost comical, audio synch problems. Next are the David Byrne introductions, the brief intros afforded each artist from Mr Rabbit in Headlights himself that originally appeared at the commencement of each show; interviews, which give us snippets of various (short) lengths featuring David Byrne chatting to the featured artists in his inimitable "oh no I think I've soiled myself" style and a photo gallery featuring a selection of stills from each performer's session.

If when it comes to music you still think an Eminem is a monogrammed Smartie then this disc just may be for you...