Eschewing the usual criteria of chart success or acknowledged influence, ''The Copendium'' - a collection of album reviews and themed track samplers - takes energy, originality and heaviness as its bearings. The result is a feast of obscure and neglected masterworks that together form a surprising but entirely credible new tradition. Krautrock, motorik and post-punk, stoner and doom metal, occasionally even jazz, spoken word and hair metal: they are all represented in a wholly persuasive sequence. ''Cope'' is the perfect guide to this novel terrain: impeccably informed, passionate, insightful and deeply funny. ''The Copendium'' is his re-imagining of a useful canon of popular music, and it is set to become required reading. ''The Copendium'' is unlike anything you have read before.