Instead of updating his sound and style for a contemporary audience, Prisoner of Conscious comes off as a series of half measures.

Although Gordian, as an album, doesn’t quite stun, the producer’s sensitivity to the form makes it a far more convincing prospect than most.

Tiffany’s voice at its most confident-sounding, it becomes clear that Rainbow Arabia have come on leaps and bounds from their debut, releasing an evocative, vivid album beyond the expectations of most.

Vernon guest-spots aside, though, To See More Light matches its predecessor in terms of quality.

Raw Solutions is spirited, fiercely effective club music with nothing to hide.

Instrumentally, the record has all the hallmarks of Super Furry Animals meeting Boom Bip--Rhodes and Wurlitzer, squelchy analogue synths, guitars and keyboards, metronomically tight live drums, Rhys’ brilliantly Welsh-accented American falsetto. Musically and lyrically it also possesses all of the keen humour of the former, modest and understated to a tee.

Though Younge’s production may be the star here, Twelve Reasons To Die is the work of a rap game veteran who in the autumn of his career still has plenty to offer.

Love, lust and longing are chronicled and dissected in True Romance through online relationships being gradually given tangible, tactile form, setting Charli up as a young pop star to be reckoned with.

Ultimately, the album’s electro-house elements feel like comparative cheap thrills placed amongst the wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship elsewhere on the EP.

A fair and fine experiment in folk that sees a more mature and worldly Lynch gently come to the fore.

At Shaking the Habitual’s core are the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction, so rare in the tradition of mostly reiterative pop music that the album feels transgressive, even though its underlying ideologies are reasonable rather than radical.

Whilst The North Borders is hardly a stylistic leap of faith into the unknown there’s definitely a more confident and varied use of textures and instrumentation than on Black Sands, and it marks a new, very much worthwhile chapter in Bonobo’s continuing story.

Overgrown is a heartening step in the right direction, and reassurance that Blake’s talents are far from on the wane.

With Wolf, Tyler, the Creator is exciting again: maybe not as the ringleader of the Odd Future empire, but as a producer who just turned 22.

Seabed is the worst of all worlds, all fluff without substance and repetition without meaning.

Whilst Nostalchic is Lapalux’s most full-bodied work to date, it’s also one of the finer examples of how the recent house-meets-r’n'b explosion can be executed with subtlety and finesse.

It’s not a huge stride in a new direction, but its incorporation of new sounds into the established blueprint sounds like a band both mature and renewed.

As an independently made pop album, the debut of a new project and, essentially, an experiment, Love and Devotion may have weaker moments, but is very well accomplished overall.

Fernow takes a more sprawling, less finely textured approach, so that Through the Window strikes a fine balance between morbid gloom and its faintly cheesy reference points.

It’s so clean, stylish and pleasant that few will rubbish it, so the spotlight is instead shone on select tracks whose impact is then over-stretched as they try to inject some gravitas into how fluffy it can be.

Punk Authority confirms Swanson as no longer just a man with potential, but an institution in his own right.

Varying in density, direction and style, albeit with some less consistent territory, it’s a modest but powerful score, even when independent from its original setting.

It all comes across as fairly overwrought, working very hard to sound effortless and losing its sense of self in the process.

Untogether is a well executed record, but not a stunning one.

Welcome To Mikrosector-50 is that rare thing--an electronic full-length that demands to be consumed as album, and reveals more with each return visit.

While indebted to the music that came before it, No World is very much of the here and now.

Booth and Brown are old hands these days, their territory firmly staked out. It’s gratifying to see, if only briefly, that they haven’t lost the element of surprise.

It might be their fifteenth album in a 30-year career, but Push The Sky Away proves beyond all doubt--even mine--that the group is still at the top of their game.