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.

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

This is an album of a depth and ambition that should, frankly, set a standard for contemporary art music.

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.

Sequenced like a mixtape, each track slips easily into the next.

Re-recording one's old songs in an older style isn't a revolutionary manoeuvre.... Kylie's addition to the tradition is also a fairly mixed bag.

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.

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

With little meat on the bones, it's difficult wrap your jaws around and as those occasional deep-filled prog wig-outs keep slipping away, they provide a glimmer of hope, but the doses are far too small and far too measured to have any real effect.

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.

The burst of creativity and songwriting that came out of the reunion has its plus side, but it's by no means the necessary listening the band once was.

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

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

Reloaded is the sound of the impressive talent behind 2010's Marcberg blossoming into greatness; one of the best written rap records of this young decade.

In Instrumental Tourist, Hecker and Lopatin have struck upon a secret chord, traced sacred geometries, and laid a foundation sturdy enough to build upon. It's sound as structure, structurally sound.

It is gloss and fluff masquerading as euphoric heartbreak. It makes Savage Garden sound like Leonard Cohen.

Autumnal, witty, sad, lovely and very, very English The Violence is the high watermark of Hayman's career and one of the finest British releases of 2012, a record that neither floats, nor drowns, but soars.

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.

The long tracks here are hard to experience or hold in memory as entireties-- too big, too detailed, too multiple.... Which makes what comes afterwards more genuine: the two shorter tracks (relegated to a dropped-in 7" on the vinyl version) each explore a moment that would have formed part of the succession of the longer pieces, probing atmospheres of breakdown, exhaustion and drift as if opening up the microcosmic heart of their work.

Other than 'Been Away Too Long' there are no obvious singles here. Rather, each track takes on a propulsive and seductive weight far greater than the sum of its parts when listened to in succession.

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.

Lux is a surprisingly rich experience that's difficult to fault. It's not the most startling record Eno's ever made, but it probably is his most successful ambient work.

For every instance on III set to give the listener an aural acid bath, there are nearly as many that might induce a snooze on the bus, and a dribble on your neighbouring passenger's shoulder.

Free Reign is an album finds Clinic pushing themselves in directions that wouldn't have been considered years ago and it's to their credit that they possess both the will and imagination to do so.

It's sad to report then, that Psychedelic Pill is nothing less than a crushing disappointment as it gives way to Young's most meandering and directionless tendencies.

Melody's Echo Chamber is a glorious album. Its success lies in the balance between Prochet's ability to break out of the (supposed) shackles of her structured classical composition education, while still delivering a suite of songs that are coherent, eminently listenable and blend lightness with dark foreboding.

Luxury Problems plays like a logical continuation of this chapter of Stott's music--the sweet spot between fear, obstruction and the warm embrace of total sound immersion.

There is much to savour in Caminiti's enthusiastic and emotional attempts to expand on his own musical lexicon.