ELVIS Costello is the one bound for the Oscars, nominated for Best Song for Alison Krauss's snow-capped version of his lonesome ballad The Scarlet Tide on the Cold Mountain soundtrack.

However, the musical talking point from Anthony Minghella's American Civil War epic is the contribution of Jack White, both on and off screen. Jack and his ex-wife, Meg, will be burning up Bridlington Spa with their White Stripes mess of the blues tonight, but Cold Mountain leads Jack down the path of 19th century American folk, country and blues music. Making his film debut, he sings string-driven traditional covers of Wayfaring Stranger, Sittin' On Top Of The World, Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over and Great High Mountain. Better still is his self-penned Never Far Away, a bruised and tender lament in the Elliott Smith manner. Cold Mountain also reunites Krauss and producer T Bone Burnett, two cornerstones in the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. This time, Krauss excels with her haunting account of Sting's new, but ancient-sounding, You Will Be My 'Ain True Love, and the Sacred Harp Singers At Liberty Church make you hanker after more of their raw gospel. This is already the soundtrack album of the year, and it is only January.

Do investigate Michael Andrews's Donnie Darko soundtrack, which gave birth to the unexpected bleak midwinter hit Mad World and now graduates, belatedly, from import-only release. Gary Jules's frayed and fragile voice is heard only on that closing track, but Mad World is all the more haunting as the coda to Andrews' suite of quietly disturbing short pieces on lonely piano and battered old synthesisers. The mad world just turned madder still.

Updated: 10:05 Thursday, January 29, 2004