While her debut On A Mission was a bold hashing-together of genres, equal parts R&B-feels and electro bombast, Little Red rides a comparatively low tidal ebb. But there’s more than enough here to suggest Katy B will be bringing the tunes a while yet.

At 10 tracks, Endless Flowers gets in, does what it does best and gets out again, leaving a stunning corpse with beautiful cheek bones.

This album is a fine addition to his collection of socially conscious afrobeat. It’s a sound and approach that pays debt to his father, but is forged in Femi Kuti’s own singular identity.

The result is an eclectic mix of psychedelia, electronica, dance beats and space jazz as well as rock which moves along the scale from The Beatles towards erstwhile collaborators The Chemical Brothers. The tempo is upped, while Gallagher’s vocals are in a higher register than usual and the guitars are much further back in a musical mix that is highly textured.

Even the moments when Harcourt just falls short are infinitely more interesting than most people's failures.

An album full of perfect pop songs, which borrow and rework musical themes and motifs from across 40 years of McCartney's career.

It could so easily have been an ill-fitting coat worn loose on the shoulders of the original’s stark beauty. But these slabs of noise, where Cale picks at the wires like a scab, scarring and slashing old canvases to remake the old, add to rather than re-hash his legacy.

The End Of Silence is a tasteful look at the butterfly effect that is smart not to get caught up in the consequences of a moment, instead exploring that moment to the fullest and leaving you to wonder.

Sure it's self-indulgent, but sometimes indulgence is no bad thing, and that is certainly the case here.

Where Barking was all about the kinetic energy of the feet and arms, Barbara… joins the soul and the head, its rhythms enhancing rather than driving the experience.

The music throughout MONTERO suggests that Nas X has a very bright future ahead of him.

Sahel Folk is refreshing, especially when set against the fact that many bands can spend months or years tinkering in studio settings for what they deem to be the perfect sound.

The Bride Screamed Murder is a slight feint away from the two albums that preceded it, but it is, nevertheless, distinctly Melvins.

It’s very far from cosy easy listening, and it’s certainly a record you have to be in the right mood to fully appreciate. Yet as an entry point into the bewitching, disquieting world of Keeley Forsyth, The Hollow is pretty special.

Who Am I is an engaging and emotionally intense debut, which works well as a showcase for this multi-talented young artist.

It's an accomplished release which, while throwing the occasional nod to other artists of the same genre (M83, Saint Etienne), nonetheless maintains a sense of uniqueness and identity that remains prevalent throughout its duration.

It's a superb comeback, and one of the best albums of the year.

Cunningham is skilled in sustaining uncomfortable moments right up to a breaking point but he's also brilliant at making this self-contained, insular music sound sleek, modern and somehow appetising.

It’s lacking an Espresso, so to speak – but as it is, this debut album is quite the introduction to an impressively talented young woman.

The Manics may no longer be generation terrorists (if you can indeed be such a thing in your mid-50s) but Critical Thinking shows that, when they fancy it, they can still deliver a witheringly bracing state of the nation address.

Rarely Do I Dream is another beautiful album from Powers, which seems to be a constant, no matter what name he chooses to record his music under. It manages to sound both nostalgic and contemporary, full of songs that evoke the warm glow of childhood, but with a creeping menace never too far away.

Few other modern musicians are as adept at taking such a tried and tested genre and making it utterly their own.

Silence Is Wild is heart wrenching, brutally honest and, at times, difficult to listen to. It is also forceful, confident and mature.

Lanois and Snares are an unorthodox pairing, and the former’s fans may have mixed reactions to the latter’s noisy beats, but they complement each other well, and what could have been just a niche curiosity is instead a real treat.

On first listen it feels like the musical equivalent of doodling a massive cock-and-balls on a Rembrandt, but eventually this reveals itself as the first moment of compositional brilliance on an album packed full of them.

When you get him on his own he's up for a big night out. Just don't expect him home til dawn.

The majority of Heartstrings is the stirring return to form that much of us had hoped for each time Howling Bells released a new record.

In Without Your Love he shows that he’s evolved from sinister experimentalist to a creator of powerful and highly original songs.