This is a progressive, accessible album that could take Tame Impala to the next level, or the mainstream, whichever comes first. Not bad work for a directionless layabout.

Oneida are really good at this stuff, always managing to ensure that no matter how frazzled they get the whole package packs a hard punch that can only be rock and roll.

Movement is one of those lovely surprises that makes you think, "Of course that's how music should sound right now".

Raime are past masters of sombre carnage, and this here is their moment.

Almost to a man (there's the odd fail, but they're near misses not massive stinkers) the remix team delivers, transforming the borrowed materials into something not better, but of equal merit.

The sensation of Winterval's astral travel may be a familiar one for fans of Willis, but that feeling of being propelled there by a fellow living being, rather than the tools at his disposal, means it's one that's easy to embrace.

Porpora has managed an album that is at points a tiny bit distressing, yet it offers sweet refuge from the uneasiness he himself creates.

To say this is a 'fans only' set is something of an understatement, but if you do have an interest and indeed if you can actually afford it, this is a lovingly put together and ridiculously detailed exploration of a record that has aged very well. For those whose interest is more casual the two-disc edition is well worth revisiting.

What Cale has done here is not only intriguing in its own right, it also manages to beat artists half the maker's age and younger at their own game and also has more to say.

Mangled and volatile and filthy though it may be, Jummy is deeply refreshing.

By fulfilling their dear friend's wishes, on Desertshore Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti have paid him a glorious, beautiful tribute that, like Nico's original album, celebrates the glowing eddies of sex and life and death.

These marvellous tracks aren't marked by much in the way of bustle--not much necessarily changes over their elegant stretches. But that isn't to say that not much happens.

Part of the potency in this music comes from the confusion it induces, the fascination only intensified by bewilderment. But it's extraordinarily elegant, too.

Lady From Shanghai is another excellent addition to the Pere Ubu discography, the sound of a band using comparatively limited means to explore a deceptively broad spectrum of sound, confusing the boundaries between pop and the avant-garde.

An absorbing, immersive listening experience, Long.Live.A$AP outshines the recent full-lengths of technically more proficient rappers as well as those of strikingly safer hip-hop hitmakers.

Coming Out Of The Fog is an album of light and shade and one that benefits more from what's not in it than is.

Centralia is an album of surprising, subtle depths, a spacious, psychedelic landscape where the traditional meets the modern in a dreamlike combination of familiarity and strangeness.

A Wonder Working Stone is the work of a songwriter at the top of his game; inspired by tradition but equally inspired to break from it, fired by collaboration and freed to follow his muse wherever it may soar, like the ptarmigans that spread their wings through several of these songs.

At the moment, the diversity on display here feels like something to be treasured rather than wished into oblivion.

It strikes a perfect balance between the emotional rack-drawing that's made them beloved to many an indie misanthrope and the warmth and hope that makes them better than mere scab-pickers, just as it offsets their talent for unashamed anthems with dark and gnarly little details. It's a beautifully layered construction.

Frightening though some of these passages are, the effect is not all hard going. The power of space is writ large everywhere on Burnt Up On Re-Entry, the giddy weight of infinity, the feeling of soaring transcendent journey and ego death--it's all rather exhilarating stuff, especially on a cold January evening.

What all the songs on News From Nowhere have in common is a baffling, mystical elegance, both independently and, to an even greater extent, within the flow of the record.

These compositions are haunting because Grouper gives them space to breathe.

From the glissandos and vertigo of 'Milk & Black Spiders' to the jounce and yawn of 'Providence', in every note and noteless space you can feel it: the physical unburdening, the personal reckoning, the fatigue and reprieve of letting go.

There is humour--albeit dark--throughout this precious, timeless album.

The question of whether BRAIDS will return or not melts away in this deeply personal insight into Blue Hawaii's emotional and physical connections with one another.

Dutch Tvashar Plumes is dominated by exquisitely expressive forms of abstract techno.

So what you have is an album that's very recognisably Ed; the Steve Gullick photography, the tipsy melancholy and romance, the ballads... but without the need for too many frills it sounds complete, nine gorgeous songs that sit beautifully together.