The real magic on 50 doesn’t come from the coterie of younger tyros, but the great buck himself. The frailty of the 75-year-old’s voice (he’ll be 76 when this album comes out) can render homespun parables as biblical portents, in much the same way that Rick Rubin reinvented Johnny Cash as a latter-day Nostradamus.

Half Japanese albums are like the proverbial buses, and this is their third album in as many years, after nothing for the previous decade-plus. Jad Fair’s art-punk outsider unit return with an album that reflects their early days while taking the Half Japanese story into a new chapter.

Despite a couple of bland sections--St Martha’s in particular--The Starless Room is worthy of many repeat, and extended, visits.

Long-term fans will be delighted, the uninitiated might just find themselves falling for his grouchy charms.

In its tales of life in mountain towns, of love declared and not returned, of hard decisions made, it has an honesty and a sense of wildness and isolation. It’s all quite beautiful.

We’re in science fiction territory here; the dystopian synths that glide over the track’s foundations are bleak, yet comforting in their filmic familiarity. The album has its share of pacy moments, too.

Some tracks fare better than others, and it would certainly be a stronger album without the insistent disco party beats of SSD or Elle Ne T’Aime Pas.

From the beatless flicker of opening track The Journey, through the 808 kick drum weave of Fall Into Water to the radioactive skeletons of Oracle and the bottomless Paradise, Hunn treats tracks like living sculptures, adding microscopic brush strokes and his trademark deep space strings.

Baldi certainly has a knack for crafting a chorus but once he finds the structure, he tends to hold on to it for a little too long, meaning that the charming hooks on Life Without Sound can often become idle repetition.

Not Even Happiness is intent on taking us back to the garden and in these cynical times, perhaps there’s a vacuum across the ocean for artists that are warmer, purer, less needy than the careerist indie-rock that has gone before. Long may this Morning Dove not Tweet.

It’s a master-stroke on a landmark record of staggering intelligence, depth and musicality.

What’s also not documented here are The Doors’ performances of Light My Fire and The End, from a second set. Sadly, Peña’s second reel remains buried in a box somewhere, robbing us of fascinating early glimpses of two songs which would grow to gargantuan proportions in the years to come. It’s doubtless as much a frustration for the band as it will be for fans.

Much of what stems from his bands’ 15th standalone album never really gets past that “nothing of a track” phase. In fact, often the mood music Coyne and the gang have striven to make – as much about beats and textures as it is melody--is frustrating.

Hang can delight and frustrate in equal measure, but it is an indulgent album that tempts the listener into just one more, wafer-thin listen.

The overall feel is accomplished and often catchy, but it’s not as intriguingly esoteric as some material in this vein.

At once nostalgic and forward thinking, mournful and celebratory, it’s a multihued album with a sharp intelligence. In what will be their final work--the band have announced they won’t continue without Phife--Tribe have retaken their throne as hip-hop’s greatest band.

I See You may represent a sonic shift towards the light, but The Xx are still singing dark songs concerned with introspection, heartache and regret. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Good.

Try the delectably thick-eared Shadow by The Lurkers, the uneasy Violence Grows by Fatal Microbes (with Honey Bane’s vocal a clarion warning from history), the insouciant Kicks In Style by The Users and, impregnable in its perfection, New Rose by The Damned --the opening salvo, the vital spark.

Motion Set has songs--channelling Blue Cheer, Crazy Horse and Velvet Underground by proxy--but they just seem like context provision for Rogers who, even this deep into his career, keeps jettisoning the most luminescent, surging six-string gymnastics since Paul Leary’s psych-pimping turns on Butthole Surfer’s exquisite Hairway To Steven.

Thankfully, in collaboration with his original arranger Anne Dudley and some very fine musicians, Fry has managed to hook a whopper and haul it into his fishing boat.

It’s a shame that they can’t quite reach that level consistently throughout the entire record, but those glimmers of greatness nevertheless establish The Wharves as charmingly talented songwriters worthy of investigation, especially if you have a penchant for the faded but still-beautiful glories of decades past.

Fans of ST’s metal era (basically everything from the late 80s on) will appreciate Lombardo’s solid presence, though there’s a feeling that the master is slightly under-utilised here, more of his Cuban influences would have freshened up the slightly over-familiar sound a bit.

The later efforts are more like dry runs, and we might have benefitted more from a mixture of these and some key remixes from over the years, but really, what’s not to like?

Young is classically trained, but beholden to the values of punk rock and for this collection he has decided to throw technical competence out of the window by basing each song around the strumming of a single chord. These tunes can thus, in theory, be covered by anyone within hours of picking up a guitar.

While some might contend that Freedom Jazz Dance’s exposure of Miles’ working methods divests him of his all-important mystique, rather, the project actually enhances rather than diminishes our appreciation and understanding of him. And that can only be a good thing.

The Early Years 1965-1972 is the sonic equivalent to background reading and extensive footnotes for their remarkable body of recorded work.

Bamboo Diner Rag is a gentle, almost jolly piece of contrapuntal country picking, while Hot Little Hand doffs its cap towards Muscle Shoals.

No 6 is the sound of bluegrass artisans at work, playing up a storm while demonstrating that their chosen genre is not only alive and well, but that its traditional songwriting tenets and instrumental framework can support vital new music.