This is not the kind of sunset in which mortality looms, but where the gentler evening light casts everything in a fresh aspect. There is warmth and succour here, undercut with a playful scattering of mischievous sounds; orchestral soul with eloquent quirks; nuances that hark back to Weller’s second band, the Style Council.

All last year’s singles plus a dozen new drops here add up to an excellent, if exhausting, mixtape. Sensibly, songs confine themselves to three minutes or less, and there’s a wild joy to their commitment to entertainment.

Dig deep, stick to your guns, “be a lot less guarded”, runs the message of this nourishing dose of laser-sharp country-pop boosterism.

Excluding the syrupy 26 and seething No Friend, After Laughter could be one of the year’s best pop albums.

He brings to mind Roy Orbison or Richard Hawley, but then on songs such as Beautiful Dress and The Fire of Love Williams has a magnificent, fluttering, gender-fluid falsetto that recalls Anohni or Perfume Genius.

It's an uneven departure.

The mood is austere, studded by encounters with mortality, but the accompaniments from Oysterband’s Ian Kearey are full of subtlety and surprise, with delicate guitars and blasts of squeezebox. A late-flowering triumph.

Sugar for the Pill is desolate in its gorgeousness, and Star Roving sounds anthemic, victorious, as it should.

Unfollow the Rules marks a welcome return to the opulent orchestration of Wainwright’s early albums.

Wisely, they don’t ape the original, choosing instead to retain its core components while adding snatches of flutes and strings. It is these new details that give the set its charm, whether it’s the winding solos, the glorious interplay or the ravishing spoken interlude that emphasises music’s universal power.

Compton has replaced the abandoned Detox project with a surprisingly vivid soundtrack of frustration inspired by the forthcoming NWA biopic.

It’s keyboards that take centre stage here on a set of energetic, electro-indie cuts that are as dancefloor-friendly as anything he has been involved with since Electronic.

Struggler continues to convey his strife with a remarkable singularity.

There’s still a degree of inconsistency: I Was Just Here is unpleasantly jarring, the wilfully flat vocal delivery not adding to its charm. But there are enough highs to make this worthy of a listen.

Throughout, Grant is still angry, still purging, but with a heightened sense of mischief, both musical and lyrical.

The musical chemistry is undiminished on their third album where a languid kind of heartache holds sway.

Justin used a sparer musical palette than Earle Sr, often with a rockabilly feel – the celebrated Harlem River Blues, for example – but the Dukes, a tough, road-worn outfit, tend to iron out their variety. Earle’s vocals, growling and gravelled these days, deliver the songs straight, only occasionally letting a sense of loss intrude.

Released from both internal and external shackles, Muna feels like phase two for one of pop’s best bands.

The Solution Is Restless is an album that worms its way under your skin, reminding you of half a dozen records you love while sounding unlike anything else around.

So while this endeavour can’t help but be tinged with deep bittersweetness, Electronic Chronic really exudes the warmth of a band tinkering about in their studio.

While masterfully engineered as always, the album is too polite, lacking the monstrous, alien menace of the band’s bassier efforts. It’s an album that could do with a dub treatment.

He sounds like Bob Dylan or Tom Petty when he sings – laconic, nasal, matter of fact – but his songs thrum and drone and hum like, well, loose ambient rock.

Abetted by some sparse orchestration, the beauty of Not Even Happiness takes effect even if you can’t make out Byrne’s measured poeticism: the voice is a balm.

An album that ultimately sounds curiously disengaged.

The record feels disjointed, but a few productions stand out as some of their most inventive yet, particularly the intricate weave of synth and organic sounds on James Blake collaborations We Go Home Together and How We Got By.

The questioning Adore is a slow Left Bank skulk, the Savages equivalent to a torch song, but Savages work best at speed.

There are more reflective moments, like Time Is Never on Our Side and If I Could See Your Face Again, where fiddler Eleanor Whitmore sings a widow’s part. Numbers such as Black Lung complete the evocation of thankless blue-collar toil, though Earle has done as much before on 1999’s The Mountain, when no one was voting for Trump.

Where they used to overlap neat pastoral melodies until the ground felt like it was churning beneath you, the landscape here is smouldering, godforsaken and explosive, their awkwardness untamed.

The title track and single Tantor are decent, and Shakedown a warm beachside strut, with Brown’s lyrical ice shards speared through. Bass Jam is lovely nostalgia, shimmering harmonies surrounding him like ghosts of his former selves. Otherwise, the beats feel slightly tired, casting a pall greater than any of Brown’s recent misfortunes.

This album is crammed with tweeting electronics, hydraulic rhythms, sleights of hand and Smith’s own backseat vocals; she hints at non-western forms and systems music, but never so you are not charmed.

It’s an album that exudes warmth and no little sonic familiarity, while reflecting what is a radically altered set-up.

Only Rowland's female foil, Madeleine Hyland, overacts.

Reflective and exuberant by turns, it’s an outstanding album.

Recorded at the same time as Oxnard, Ventura distinguishes itself from its predecessor by being looser and warmer.

The London producer with the voice like a bruise remains perennially inconsolable here.

Silence Yourself reveals Savages to be a cross between the Horrors (fondness for black, allegiance to art-rock, time spent in Dalston) and Sleater-Kinney (devotion to Wire, lack of male members, stentorian vibrato) with a soupcon of the Knife (fondness for manifestos, tribal beats, forbidding glee).

His ninth album as Thee Oh Sees has its fair share of songs that resemble long-lost Nuggets-era gems (Withered Hand and Rogue Planet are particularly bracing). But there is light and shade amid the trademark distortion.

Cut the World reprises 10 of his old songs, adds one new one (the title track) and Future Feminism, which is the kind of thing that will either get you punching the air as you did at Danny Boyle's Olympics opening ceremony, or crossing your legs and muttering about distrusting gender absolutes.

Hinson has largely succeeded in creating a bewitching Americana record that is quite his own and his most accomplished work to date.

A generous 21-track double mixtape, divided between grime (Days) and R&B raps (Nights). Both playlists have plenty of the wit, grit and authenticity that made them famous, but 7 Days is the runaway winner.

The melodies are simple but lovely, often spelled out on tumbling acoustic guitar, as on Like Water, before being taken up by the group. It’s wonderful to have them back.

The duo’s first full-length project stays close to the club, proving Dickson’s canny ear for foot-twitching rhythms accompanied by exuberant Bollywood strings. However, on songs such as Hurricanes the spiky drums and candied orchestration submerge McAlmont, leaving him politely fighting for attention down in the mix. It’s mostly fine – Happy Ending, Otherwise and The Fever are fun – but that succulent voice, lighter than a fly on a feather, needs more space, more time.

His most assured record to date, this is also the Philadelphia rocker's most purely pleasurable.

Her third album stays close to the formula, though with a slightly darker, starker turn.

The continuity stressed between body and tool, folk history and future, like the work of Meredith Monk or Björk, lures the listener away from the twin traps of techno-evangelist complacency and technophobic retreat with sweet inspiration.

These songs move from the personal pain of a breakup--Seven Words, with its sentimental organ, heartbeat pulse and clouds of choral glory--to the planetary pain of environmental disaster and our Snapchatting detachment from it.

There's a good deal to enjoy here.

Pearson wears her talents lightly on an album that allows space for them to breathe. Sound of the Morning is a remarkably mature record; hopefully, future releases will be just as absorbing.

Heavy Light confirms a major talent.

Lu seems intent to immerse us fully, deeply, intimately into her gossamer creative vision--and she succeeds. An astonishing first album.

Itchy, blistering boogies such as She’s Gone and Let’s Get Funky epitomise their visceral approach, amid a smattering of slower outings. Antique maybe, but a reminder that the blues retain their odd, primal power.

As elegantly crafted as it all is, it does become a little homogeneous, and well before Other You’s 50 minutes are up, you do find yourself craving a gear change somewhere.

A surprising trip to an altogether other time and place.

When unaccompanied, it’s clear that her 12 years in the industry have given the singer ample voice and a formidable ear. On IRL, there was little need for big names, since Mahalia is star enough to hold her own.

Her fourthcorrect, country-tinged album is no mere musical mope, but features writerly vignettes and restrained introspection.

On this sprawling, often horizontal record, Lacy’s default setting is a blissful Los Angeles funk that bleeds easily into punchier hip-hop passages. Occasionally, he’ll show off his Prince 2.0 soloing skills on songs like Love 2 Fast.

Living My Life and the seductive Duplex Planet hark back to the dream-like delicacy of Halcyon Digest, but Leather and Wood is an amorphous mess. Thankfully, the best songs are saved until last.

A dense, angry, complex rock album.

Banga is the 65-year-old's 11th album, one of the most satisfying of her latterday career.

A handful of derangedly catchy singles have already rolled off the tracklist, highlighting the pair’s fluency with nagging melodies and killer hooks. The glorious Mememe still offers up an earworm crafted from bass and tinnitus.

There are no cathartic singalongs in the album’s downbeat cello or swelling drones. Its relatability stems from somehow managing to recreate the specific texture of loneliness.

The producerly hand of the National's Aaron Dessner and cameos by the likes of Beirut's Zach Condon only add to the conclusion that Tramp is one of the must-hears of early 2012.

As middle of the road as this singer undoubtedly seems, there is, however, much to commend her debut album, Not Your Muse – a gutsier, wiser and more elliptical set of songs than may at first appear.

There are gestures towards something deeper – rapper Roots Manuva rattling his baritone at the end of You Ain’t No Celebrity, or the harsh, thumping bass of Holding On – but largely, Volcano trades on Jungle’s same, safe formula. There is little new in the nostalgia of these 14 tracks.

There are fractured beats, and tendril-like melodies, but here nothing really lands--as either protest or revelation. ... But mid-album, Cherry and Hebden hit a very sweet spot indeed as Natural Skin Deep finally syncs Hebden’s rhythmic dub jazz and Cherry’s pop nous.

The jumps between genres barely jar once you realise how good Doyle is at all of them.

Two years on, this sequel is a similarly entrancing, sometimes frightening listen.

Weller sounds at ease with this more introspective material, the lush orchestration acting as a perfect foil to his voice.

Atlanta Millionaires Club nails the perfect balance of the singer-songwriter’s sleepy, intimate balladry with the rich musical history of her home city.

Mergia’s approach is often unorthodox. His melodies, snaking up and down the pentatonic scales of Ethio-jazz, are hypnotic and mysterious.

The MC born Ché Wolton Grant is on fire, yet in some danger of losing his individuality.

There is a depth--a willingness to experiment, a refusal to be pigeonholed--that rewards repeated listens and makes this their most coherent, most satisfying album since their debut. Where they go next is anybody's guess.

Two of these cuts have already graced the top 10; the rest of Disclosure's debut album showcases a sound in which the echoes of two-step, UK funky and older house records recombine into a surprisingly timely and moreish soundtrack.

Though a new fondness for electric guitar and Hammond organ adds buoyancy to material like A Whole Life Lived, the album too often trades his former wit for bitterness.

Jarrett's piano and Haden's bass take an affectionate, inquisitive tour through a set of jazz classics and old ballads, revealing fresh beauties at every turn.

His voice, like the music, has a dream-like quality. ... Superb.

Damned Devotion embraces the messy as well as the smooth, and the balance here is as perfect as Wasser’s ever likely to strike.

Though there are enough intricacies to keep you interested – ornate percussion, switches in pace and vocal delivery – largely this is a warm and easy listen.

Reason to Smile brings to mind Ms Dynamite’s 2002 Mercury-winning A Little Deeper : era-defining works that blend hip-hop with neo-soul and jazz, and storytelling that paints the Black British experience with the finest of brushes.

So: slow going. It is emphatically not a record for people in a hurry. And all this dawning can feel a little like groundhog day if you're not in the mood to receive this rich album's central idea: that your load will probably become easier to bear when there is some light on the path ahead.

James Holden has never actually sounded like BOC, but this time around he shares their penchant for analogue gear and mantric, pagan repetition.

On close examination, his songcraft often stalls at the pupal (but promising) stage, but there is enough chutzpah here to steamroller such reservations.

It’s an intensely, intentionally stressful listen, the occasional victory of thumping, clanking grooves over the scraping, grating racket offering an illusion of normality before snatching it away again.

Maturity suits the ever-articulate rapper, and his recollections of his early years as a Queensbridge hustler... have added resonance here.

If he’s capable of writing stuff like this at 21 – and indeed of taking on the influences of the past without just regurgitating them – McKenna’s future looks intriguing. For the time being, though, he’s making the tricky business of shape-shifting and growing up in public seem painless.

There’s enough good material here for this to have been an excellent 40-minute album; as it is, it’s a flawed 80-minute one.

It promises much but never quite delivers.

Rather than arcane and austere, though, his fifth album is by turns bleakly beautiful and playfully rampant.

Musically, there’s a playful restlessness throughout, with rock and electronica constantly being twisted into imaginative shapes.

Kimbie's levels of invention are such that this album still feels tricksy and cutting-edge.

Echoes of Fairport, Span, Thompson et al abound, but Offa Rex has its own compelling identity, and should win Chaney an international name.

Overall, Salutations might be slightly sprawling and lack a little of the focus of Ruminations, but it makes for a highly enjoyable companion piece.

Ultimately, Goon is a very good album, one further elevated by its terrific tale of redemption. Here, victory is belatedly extracted from the digestive tract of defeat.

This is a very good record indeed, just not the record the more hidebound Cave lifer would instantly press to their breast.

Hip-hop is constantly being tweaked and nudged in new directions, but rarely is it reconfigured as radically, and thrillingly, as on this second album from Shabazz Palaces.

Here are evergreen contemporary songs in which gratitude and fortitude are exercised in no facile fashion, but with spittle and swagger. The love songs are present and correct.

These 11 songs ping confidently around the post-genre electro-pop landscape.

It’s hard to keep up, then--but worth it.