Mind Hive is especially groundbreaking. In fact, several of its best tracks (the restless, motorik drive of Cactused and the jagged, staccato bursts of the menacing, 154-ish Be Like Them) quite openly flirt with familiarity. Yet, as always seems to be the case with this crew, these tunes are invested with enviable reserves of contemporary energy which ensure they’re served up fresh and minus the merest hint of parody.

It’s a lot to take in, and fresh corridors reveal themselves with each listen; it’s questionable whether they lead to any answers, and Fay would be the last person to claim they do, but it’s an intriguing exploration every step of the way.

The generosity of the endeavour can’t be faulted: hours on end of largely unheard/unseen audio-visual content relating to the era encompassing A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, The Division Bell, Pulse and The Endless River, new 5.1 mixes, a 60-page photo book, replica tour programmes, two 7” singles featuring a Pulse tour rehearsal version of Lost For Words and the 2007 Syd Barrett tribute concert version of Arnold Layne… and, ye gods, even more.

16 Lovers Lane arguably even shades the triumphant Liberty Belle… when it comes to defining the Go-Betweens apogee. The extras, meanwhile, are both plentiful and tantalising.

Hearing these oddly innocent songs (and his speaking voice) can’t help but reignite that overwhelming sense of loss, and also wonder, since Bowie passed on nearly three years ago: has any artist been so loved or missed by so many? Even with all its frolics, fumbles, filler and foibles, Conversation Piece can only be welcomed and celebrated.

There’s rich pleasure everywhere you look: Peter Case’s heartfelt delivery of I Don’t Worry About A Thing, a spectral The Way Of The World by Anything Mose! and Taj Mahal’s nimble, forceful version of the sardonic opener, Your Mind Is On Vacation. The latter offers a thrilling pointer about how high we are going to fly, and includes Bonnie Raitt’s stunning version of Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy, where her passionate take skilfully unfurls the raging force underpinning the song. Elsewhere, there are blasts of controlled power such as Ben Harper/Charlie Musselwhite’s fiery take on Nightclub.

The charm of Thanks For The Dance can be found in the tidemark between the lapping waves of Cohen’s poetic self-effacement and the shoreline of our appreciation for his lyrical accomplishments.

As the original album did for Prince’s artistic progression, so this super deluxe edition does for the posthumous reissue series: refine a vision, making good on all the promises of the past while pointing to a future full of possibilities. Whatever expanded edition comes next, if it builds on this it cannot fail.

Put together with love and care, it’s all a grand tribute and beautiful vindication for a once-despised band. Those witless saps who savaged them may be long forgotten but Motörhead are up with the greats. We’ll never see their like again.

They may have been the unwilling faces of a barely-there movement, but De La Soul planted the seeds of something beautiful. Collections like this allow us to reap the rewards.

It is a wonderful record – fascinating and engaging. Pure art. Give it the time it deserves.

For the most part, the Cash sessions are a fun listen you might not return to often, their voices too far apart to really work, despite the obvious kinship. Still, it’s fascinating hearing Dylan as the junior partner – Cash seems much more on the ball – and previously-unbootlegged treats like Bob running through Wanted Man and the Staples’ Amen.

Vocally, Leaving Meaning is especially strong, with an atypical abundance of words appearing to have pushed Gira to experiment with their delivery.

It can only tower when it comes to naming this decade’s great albums; miles above and light years ahead of anything else.

It is simply one of the most beautiful records ever made and anyone who hasn’t experienced it needs to stop reading and do so immediately. But for those of us who have, while they have already heard the best possible version of No Other (as we tend to learn from all box sets of this ilk, the best version got released), in these newly-discovered versions there is much to learn about and love.

One of Will Oldham’s strongest albums in recent times, if not ever. .... It’s thoughtful, beautiful fare, along with a few singalong stormers (Mama, Mama will get a crowd swaying at 30 paces) as you’d expect from Oldham, but it’s in the lyrics that he succeeds in his desire for self-reflection.

This is possibly Dawson’s best work. Yes, it’s tough-going – you’ve probably realised he REALLY doesn’t dig this country of ours right now – but the blend of smarts, art and heart is more than enough to demand your ears on repeat.

The one-time folkie’s fourth album exorcises romantic demons by taking another bold leap forward.

In trying times, Wilco have found some joy in creativity and made another album true to themselves, full of “poetry and magic” to console and inspire.

The whole thing works beautifully and, if you shop carefully, you will end up with superb value for money and a repackaging of a great album that for once isn’t stuffed with redundance.

Jenny Lewis and The National’s Aaron Dessner guest this time out but to be honest, the spotlight is increasingly and deservedly Taylor’s alone to enjoy. Surrender now.

Though some of the high-tech production gadgetry sounds dated now, back in 1985 it was a fiercely contemporary record. But while time might have blunted its cutting edge, Rubberband, for all its flaws, still fascinates.

It’s a persuasive, heartening, softly seductive little basket of light; and as such is welcome anytime round here.

Those more straightahead tunes hint a sonically-reduced winter could be coming, but right now bask in i,i’s deep autumnal glow.

The 10CD version is a patchy collection of familiar highlights and sometimes enjoyable outtakes.

Love Will Find A Way is very special: an ego-free celebration of the tune, the big-name guests all working with Bailey to realise his vision.

I Was Real’s resulting stew is even more disparate than what came before – this time out, you can add boogie (Tetuzi Akiyama), jigs (WZN#3 (Verso)) and pure drone to the mixer – but still with the singular vision to bring everything together into one harmonious, joyous, borderless whole.

A debut album that suggests anything is possible.

Purple Mountains is no return to form – Berman left us in 2009 with no discernible lapse in quality – but a surprisingly welcome return, given the shift in quality contained herein. A purple patch, if you will, but a far deeper one than you would expect. Deep purple it is, then.

With its cohesive vision, it also proves that, properly curated, the material in Prince’s Vault contains a body of work that would rival Dylan’s Bootleg Series for both quality control and cultural importance. The next volume can’t come quick enough.

Western Stars is Springsteen at his most novelistic, scratching out pocket portraits that owe as much to the printed word of John Steinbeck, Raymond Carver or even Jack Kerouac as they do a lineage that would boast weather-beaten troubadours like Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Webb, or his younger self.

Songs reflect on his outsider past (The Ballad Of The Hulk, Young Icarus), deal directly with the writer’s block he feared happiness would bring (Writing) but now boast a welcome immediacy and intimacy as he lays his new life proudly bare. ... It sure took a while, but the Smog has finally lifted.

Overall, Bird Songs Of A Killjoy is the sound of someone recording exactly what they want to. Nothing here feels out of place, or sounds like a pastiche of another era. Bedouine has found herself a winning formula.

Further may not take Hawley anywhere new, but it succeeds in drawing you back into his world. Not a bad place to be.

While this isn’t an album of chart hits, a pop sensibility is evident in the way that they treat music-making as primarily a challenge of curation. So, myriad high-pedigree producers and instrumentalists abound, and yet somehow, a cohesive aesthetic emerges.

At 68 minutes long and 16 tracks, its length becomes an issue during a third quarter which drifts. But as an exercise in breaking with consistency, I Am Easy To Find shows The National remain open to new possibilities after all.

The gorgeously wistful All Of Our Yesterdays and Skyless Moon lament time’s passage, but Here Comes… barely wastes a second of its sweet, tender and winningly off-piste, high-plains drift.

A profound and poised third album, UFOF makes digging deeper seem like a natural calling.

A strong contender for album of the year. ... Titanic Rising is remarkable for its breadth, effortlessly shifting from the 90-second ambient wash of the title track to Picture Me Better’s homespun take on the cosmic cowboyisms of Kacey Musgraves. Then there are Merings’ lyrics, evincing a similar shift in scale and scope.

Overflowing with cultural, mythological and artistic allusions and a prepossessing unrest, Life Metal is an album that insists upon provoking imaginative thought, and is sure to do more for your gut motility than any prune.

The truth is finally out. People are talking about the music. People are dancing. People know Fat White Family are better than maybe Fat White Family themselves think they are.

Like the skull ring and handcuffs on the sleeve, some things never change and, with its seductive bite and defiant energy, Talk Is Cheap is still a compelling centrifugal presence amid the bells and whistles. It remains the best Stones-related solo album.

Badbea fair glows with uncomplicated affirmations, literally buzzing with Collins’ unique wasp-tone guitar interjections--a sound that no one else has come close to approximating.

While you couldn’t place it--or anything else on You’re The Man--up there with his finest work, as an exploration of Gaye’s creative process, it more than earns its position on your shelf.

Lead single Feel So Great doses up on the psych medicine and, with many a song culminating in a wig-out, Natural Facts boasts a grubby sheen that Cosmic Cash was missing.

While you couldn’t say Inside The Rose goes beyond the furthest reaches of moments such as V (Island Song), from its predecessor, neither does it play things safe. Newcomers may feel that elements of Kate Bush circa Hounds Of Love or Hansa Studios-era Depeche Mode provide reference points, yet nevertheless, a track such as Beyond Black Suns is nothing but pure TNP: overlapping motifs, doom-laden beats, interweaving vocal lines and a song that resolves nothing, but does so with the utmost confidence.

The Long Ryders should be proud--they’ve made a fine album that’s a worthy follow-up to their 80s oeuvre.

The lyrics continue to take a few listens to fully digest (beyond the regular laugh-out-loud moments), as do Fearn’s often misleadingly direct grooves. His basslines sound particularly mighty here, and Williamson’s vitriol (which fills most of the record) continues to be very much needed in contemporary Britain.

The Route To The Harmonium feels like a return to the warmth of some of his earlier outings--not that he’s exactly satisfied--with a more mature Yorkston having crafted perhaps the album of his career.

Inferno, then, may not afford Robert Forster the mainstream acceptance that’s eluded him for so long, but it gets him back in the game and proves he’s recaptured the magic he once needed to keep ahead of his best buddy in his metaphorical rear-view mirror.

The comp is thoughtfully subdivided by mood/demeanour, with each disc respectively entitled Rock Off!, Tubthumpers & Hellraisers and Elegance & Decadence. The successfully realised intention is to demonstrate that there was more to glam than just implacable, sequin-shedding, mindless stomping--though some of us would be perfectly content with three discs’ worth of just that.

The Specials remain adept at appropriating the songs of others to further fuel their message.

Such is the unrelenting flood of language and emotion from this remarkable performance that it’s difficult to take everything in on first viewing and repeated listens become essential to experiencing the fullness of it all. ... We can just be glad that this particular spell of lightning was bottled so beautifully.

To overly analyse the motives or intentions behind any of these revelatory tracks (87 in all) is to risk missing out on their more implicit, primal joys. This is Dylan at one with his domain; explorative, inventive, persuasive and, as is almost always the case, enigmatic.

Unprecedented in 1968 and unparalleled still, Electric Ladyland has bequeathed us no end of spoils. A fine celebration of Hendrix’s most kaleidoscopically-realised endeavour, this 50th anniversary set even restores his originally intended cover photo. Dig.

It’s a fuller, more contemporary-sounding mix that is fascinating on first listen, but unlikely to replace the original mixes in fans’ affections. ... Still, the extras are why we’re really here and that’s where this reissue really delivers. By becoming a fly on the wall at their sessions we have the chance to feel closer to The Beatles; to better figure out how they did it and become privy to their casual chats. Close your eyes, suspend your disbelief and you’re there as they make history.

While this collection spans three decades, the focus is skewed towards the later years.

While few would suggest that there’s material here rivalling Bowie’s 70s peak, there are more than enough elegant, standout moments. You may not exactly fall in love with it, but you’ll certainly strongly admire the work here.

This is very grown-up pop music; awash with the memorable hooks and lyrical dexterity we’d expect from Costello, with layer after layer of fascinating melodic conceits and themes.

Love Is Magic feels like three shredded albums spliced back together. But it’s nutritious, colourful and occasionally funeral-level mournful, an emotional pick’n’mix that, by its very nature, increasingly repays revisits.

Imagine: The Ultimate Collection is a fascinating snapshot of an artist if not quite in his imperial phase, then certainly at his most searching. From the new stereo remix down to the outtakes and an audio documentary pieced together from candid interviews with friend and DJ Elliot Mintz, we’re offered an exhaustive look at Imagine from all angles.

A mischievous balladeer with a spicier bag of ingredients than most folk heroes, Joe Strummer was a one-off. There’s little doubt he left his mark, but his more personal work is perhaps still overlooked in favour of his iconic punk fare. This intriguing set will go some way towards correcting that.

If the thrill of the fight is one answer, The Blue Hour is up to it. Re-energised on all fronts, Suede are in the shape of their lives.

True Meanings is, on the surface, a traditionally introspective singer-songwriter record, but such a reductive description runs the risk of underselling a package that contains some of the most accessible, thought-provoking and downright enjoyable music of his lengthy career. The vibes are resolutely bucolic, embellished just the right amount by a chamber orchestra.

Simon’s song choices weave together to form a narrative on intolerance, the dangers of divisive thinking, impending mortality, the ebb and flow of love, ecological troubles and faith. Where less nimble-minded songwriters might flounder, his literary eye for the minutiae of life stands him in good stead.

Not since Bon Iver’s aforementioned reinvention or even Radiohead’s Kid A have a relatively mainstream band made such an assured volte-face, wilfully pushing their audience away while they revisit, remake and remodel the tension that made them so very precious in the first place. Fierce and beautiful. Low are back.

So, yes, good album, with some obligatory pratfalls, very few longeurs and several quality flashes of the innate melodic gift that, after all, put him precisely where he is. During those best bits, the “he’s 76, after all” qualifier becomes utterly redundant.

They’ve created an album that manages to combine grief, self-loathing and a realisation that life’s better played honest, with a fine-tuned, brutal sound: something like bent sheet metal being hammered straight. Yet it remains listenable, so very listenable.

It took several listens for the potions on Move Through The Dawn to take effect. ... Sometimes, slow burners provide the best flames.

There’s enough going on in the grooves of Smote Reverser to satisfy your psych and/or prog urges for the foreseeable future, let alone in the few months it’ll take Dwyer to follow it up.

A behemoth of a box, The Public Image Is Rotten offers over six hours of PiL brilliance.

It’s both beefier--practically punching you in the face in places--and more nuanced, the vocal harmonies, for instance (in many ways, GNR’s secret weapon--you don’t notice they’re there, until you do), coming into their own. Amping up its already formidable power, the new mix never loses the sense that this was the work of a bunch of scrappy upstarts, while reminding you just how well-constructed Appetite really was. That’s underscored by the bonus material.

Despite the sheer weight of material on offer you’ll struggle to find an inch of fat. With its forward-thinking, deep-searching nature counterbalanced by a natural warmth and populist, groove-heavy approach, it’s another hugely accomplished work by a man whose prolific run of form shows no signs of abating.

Though it’s essentially a finely-crafted guitar pop record, Arthur Buck also finds room for enough angles, quirks and adroitly-employed electronica to keep it interesting and it rarely puts a foot wrong as a result.

In short, it’s another essential compilation of vintage music from the peerless Analog Africa, whose contents should further strengthen Benin’s reputation as one of the African continent’s most important musical centres.

God’s Favourite Customer leaves the over-wrought and possibly over-thought days of Pure Comedy in its slipstream in return for something just that bit purer. True, the fun days of I Love You, Honeybear et al may be gone, but what a sacrifice if this is what we get in return.

It’s bold stuff, but if you were taking any solace that the Trump catastrophe would at least inspire some great art, The Future And The Past serves as Exhibit A.

Babelsberg is ultimately a sorely-needed tonic. Mellow-sounding, but hefting weighty humanitarian concerns on its back, it boasts a you-are-here focus normally only accorded to those who are about to peg it.

The live In Concert/MTV Plugged may lack the obvious, rambunctious energy of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live/1975-85 and only (subdued) E Street favourites Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Thunder Road feature in the set, but the cheeky obscurity Red Headed Woman and an electric Atlantic City (from Nebraska) still capture Bruce’s magnetism as a performer. ... The remastered LPs sound pristine. ... It makes for a pretty boss bundle.

Lamdin and Fatty have created sympathetic backdrops for the Poets to declaim over: lightly jazz-tinged reggae grooves, dubby production flourishes, spacious arrangements that allow for the Poets’ words to take centre-stage.

Golden Hour is a bedazzled, wide-eyed rush.

It’s clear that Watson has studied the classics, but rather than repeat the past, he’s created something modern, fresh, exciting and potentially classic.

A preoccupied and deeply immersed heart-art journal, graced with discreetly nailed-on band performances while simultaneously worrying away at its own edges.

The Prodigal Son is easily one of the most satisfyingly focused, complete records he’s ever made.

Standards Vol IV will get deserved airplay thanks to its electronic take on classic pop (from Bacharach and The Beach Boys to early Harry Nilsson) but hidden in all that sunshine and heartache is a progression from a sound that once so defined them. Standard? Above standard, more like.

Overall, it’s less of a curiosity than it might look on paper; not so much a departure as it is a confidently mapped-out alternative route.

Only on the opening cut do they attempt anything that could be construed as radical, marrying The Two Sisters, a child ballad with roots stretching back to the 16th century, to a Scottish jig, A Fisherman’s Song For Attracting Seals. It works beautifully, as do all of the following eight tracks, delivered with reverence and entirely free of pretension.

The best moments recall Dan Sartain, a man whose moustachioed fashion victim look Pearson seems to have lifted, but whose freewheeling punk rockacountrybilly essence he hasn’t quite distilled.

Veirs has honed her craft over nine studio LPs, and this album reveals her at the height of her powers--a record that verges on pop, in the same way that a Magnetic Fields record might, though “pop” seems too reductive a term for the layers of artistry at work here.

There’s not much more than half-an-hour of original material here, but there’s a quality to the stories in these songs.

Beautiful Thing’s blend of ambition and emotion shows that Taylor could genuinely make whatever he wants--sometimes that’s the trouble and sometimes that’s the difference. Our loss, our gain.

Evil Spirits is their best work in 35 years, so if you last heard them performing Eloise on Top Of The Pops or haven’t purchased one of their albums since Strawberries, then it’s time to give them another hearing.

Yes, it can be a bit daft, but in all the self-importance is some genuinely free, affecting music. If you’re new to Entourage, jump on in. The water’s groovy.

So, while this represents not exactly business as usual, but definitely still in the office, it does mean Dead Meadow have managed to sustain their identity for over two decades now--comfortably their longest, sludgiest achievement to date.

There’s a nervous energy throughout, as if his whole wide world might collapse at any second. Yet, at the heart of the sonic mayhem is his ever-dependable literacy, a knack for a tidy little phrase that rings with truth above the fuzz and feedback of his guitar.

Occasional MOR slumps aside, most of Resistance comes sharpened by the Manics’ innate extremes of intelligence and instinct, populist extroversion and prickly introspection, melody and over-stretched meter.

A very welcome return.

Serious Miles and Coltrane aficionados will already be familiar with these recordings, no doubt, though the incentive to acquire this fresh iteration sanctioned by the Miles Davis estate is the superlative quality of Mark Wilder’s audio restoration, which makes it hands down the best version to own.