Bruce Cockburn: Anything Anytime Anywhere

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Literate Canadian folk-rocker Cockburn only enjoyed one minor radio single here - Wondering Where the Lions Are at the end of the 70s - but his slightly jazz-inflected albums were sought out by those with a taste for his exquisitely crafted, sometimes politically provocative, songs which were often postcards from his travels through war zones of the world and the heart.

This collection of 16 Canadian singles is an excellent introduction to his work and includes his incendiary and angry If I Had A Rocket Launcher, written after seeing Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico being attacked by their own military helicopters, The Trouble with Normal ("is it always gets worse") about how we normalise aberrant behaviour, Tokyo taken from his much-recommended 1980 Humans album, and his probing and sensitive Lovers in a Dangerous Time which still thrills. He's occasionally mildly hectoring (Call It Democracy), but the opener and title track are new and show he hasn't lost his deft touch after three decades.

Label: Cooking Vinyl