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.

She has delivered a body of work where she has given herself the space to be resilient, vulnerable and inspiring.

At moments, Byrne is rhapsodic, her vocals soaring above the fluttering electronics of ‘Summer Glass’. Later, she stares down the darkness, as on the deceptively gentle ‘Lightning Comes Up From The Ground’ or on closer ‘Death Is The Diamond’.

The message of humanity and hope that the decolonisation doom of Divide and Dissolve carries grows in strength with their work’s consistency and volume. In that sense, Systemic is no less devastating and uplifting.

Over repeating ground bass figures, Barbieri builds and varies an increasingly complex architecture of melodies and harmonies in vaporous synth tones. Created using the Orthogonal 101 modular synthesizer, the means may possess degrees of randomness, but everything sounds precisely placed.

The steadiness in their performance is captivating and a pleasure to immerse yourself in. There are great rewards to I Don’t Know, in this regard.

Creep Show’s second album Yawning Abyss reaches further into your soul, and once there, it really gets to work, rummaging furtively and stealthily metastasising. The more spins, the more you submit to its charms.

Beyond the impressive list of guest stars though, this is an album that reflects on one person’s history and is steeped in honesty, grief and empathy as a result.

There’s plenty of intricacy in the intimacy of this record. In the end, though, The Age Of Pleasure is an easier ride. Less densely packed with ideas but it’s no bother.

The bending of time and place and sights and sounds across this record leaves the listener with plenty to digest and a lot to be excited for with what’s to come from Squid.

In their pursuit of experimentation, Decisive Pink have accomplished a great deal with this expansive body of work.

All in all, Potter Payper lives up to the title of his debut album, officially putting the real rappers back in style.

A beautiful resurrection for Zamrock, Zango is one of those rare records that, after living with it for a few months, still makes me feel something very profound. A triumphant return indeed.

With Archangel Hill, Collins continues to deliver on the title of that extraordinary record, Folk Roots, New Routes: finding old ways to look forward and new ways to look back.

Another great Pere Ubu record, one imbued with a more upbeat emotional sensibility than its predecessor, with some memorable songs and some wild sonic experiments. It’s a snapshot of where the band are right now, as well las a hint of where they might still go in future.

Start with the bangers – and there are plenty, mostly front-loaded. ... It’s a visceral and strange album, one that revels in its abstractions, but is direct in what it has to say.