Like everything else they’ve done, it doesn’t sound limiting or calculated or agonised over – it just sounds vibrant and magical.

It’s purposely chaotic and skeletal in places, but when the disjointed pieces are viewed as one, you get an album that is a fascinating and hypnotic listen.

L’Rain has produced another fascinating record, a reappraisal of past work, while managing not to repeat herself. It is a very interesting album, as much about resilience as it is grief.

Footworks remains the axis around which Jlin’s productions revolve, though her music transcends contemporary club trends, flirting with modern composition and theatre music.

There is a dichotomy at play of denser, more distorted electronics at one pole and soft, minimalist arrangements at the other; gauzy sounds cut against metallic harshness within songs and across the album. But with this expansive approach, Afternoon X feels focused and cohesive.

Medicine is, in other words, a straight up psychedelic rock affair – for better and for worse. .... Overall, it is an amazingly fun record for spooky psychonauts.

Meticulously structured yet fuzzily abstract, cloudily claustrophobic yet aurally vast, it sounds nothing like a traditional rap LP yet definably and definitively adheres to the most crucial characteristics of the genre. It’s certainly a marvel and may well be a masterpiece.

Le jour et la nuit du réel proves something else entirely: that these hunks of wood and wire and circuitry still have the potential to surprise. And to delight us with those surprises.

Each of these tracks effortlessly conjures the swirling feeling of needing to make a decision – and questioning your own being – never quite settling, always moving.

Richly textural and delicately performed, Setting exude a lingering warmth, their edges softened as if left out in the sun. It’s lethargic in all the right ways, untroubled by the need to shock or surprise its audience – and yet surprise it does.

Even though the idea of listening to another quarantine-inspired ambient record might seem off-putting, the rewards are simply too tempting.

Shrewdly, she rarely repeats herself, keeping things fresh by always being adventurous. That’s worked throughout her career, and it works on Tension especially.

Whereas their previous album, WINK, had some laidback grooves and opportunities to properly croon, CHAI bounces along at a high energy clip, honing a polished and effervescent pop record.

In sharing her experience of doing this, James’ most exploratory album also proves to be her most open-hearted.

This is a powerful, balanced, personal and at times harrowing album that is deserving of your attention. Each listen seems to add further layers of depth and seriousness. Spend time with it.

The diversity of drums and percussion instruments and players also lends a different quality to the sound, bringing in a slapped, clacking flatness. It’s a perfect match to the frequently staccato energy of the saxophone.

While at first listen Everything Is Alive might seem plain and minimalist, its flavours can be savoured for a long time. A bit similar to a perennial flower regrowing every spring. Like wonders of life and death hiding beyond the seemingly impenetrable façade of routine and time, its sonic complexity lies beneath the surface.

There’s a lot to unpack across STRUGGLER. The demands it places on listeners to fully connect with the material are more than warranted.

Eyeroll is organic and expansive, woven around the bouncy sounds of struck, scratched, and stretched rototoms, mutated voices, squiggly trumpet noises, and the ambient sounds of Ziúr’s flat in Berlin. The resulting music is restlessly rhythmic and capable of growing into a multitude of textural and structural directions.

RPG casts a powerful spell but finds magic in the power of imagination rather than the supernatural. It is a celebration of the essentially human playfulness of gaming, storytelling and songs.

What is also quite impressive about this album is that amidst the dominant beats and densely textured arrangements, Georgia’s presence and her words are never shrouded. Furthermore, her openness and vulnerability throughout is immensely commanding and as you go through the tracklist, you become increasingly curious to hear where she’s at.

The world has caught up to Lanza, but in staying true to her appeal as she explores new sides of herself, she’s sounding as fresh as ever.

Welshpool Frillies (that wording itself an intriguing prospect) is peppered with powerful language hinting at events untold, slotting together in surprising mixtures, shapes, and forms. Sure, there's the odd track that feels a little phoned in (the palm-muted slog of ‘Cats On Heat’, for example) but when the hit rate is this high and there’s still mystique and gut-punch intimations wrapped up within these beguiling twists of phrase, then why not keep the faucet gushing and let the waters rise?

Despite the strong influence that can detected in the band’s style – Smile via Penguin Café Orchestra, The High Llamas and contemporary classical ensemble North Sea Radio Orchestra perhaps – few others are so committed to making music that sounds like this. After decades building up to it, The Clientele have produced what is probably their finest, most enjoyable record.

Jad Fair knows what time it is and yet he still offers hope, which makes his positive qualities appear all the more authentic and necessary in these dark times. That is the essence of this record, whilst still acknowledging the perilous near proximity of the void, we can choose instead to Jump Into Love.

If their late 90s records were marked by the fallout of Britpop and the fallout of relationships, The Ballad Of Darren is marked by this existential contemplation — not quite a breakup or a crisis, but the weight of the changes through the years. It’s a statement of where Blur are now.

While A Trip To Bolgatanga can’t be considered an epochal release as some of their earlier outings, it provides a particularly transportative soundtrack for the coming scorching days.

Crucially, this is a record that deserves to be approached, consumed and judged on its own merits. And merits there are aplenty.