The symbolism of singer/songwriter Robert Rorison’s chosen nom de plume – naturally buoyant but coloured by gloom, perhaps tied down by somebody’s string – provides a thoroughly appropriate motif for his debut album.

Straightforward, sometimes fun, with a tempering air of piquant sophistication, these four tracks form a fetching miniature. Here’s hoping the bigger picture will be clearer on the next album.

Demanding, yes – but there are plenty of reasons to love this lavish album. Whether you do, ultimately, depends on your regard for Hanna Tuulikki’s visceral lead vocals.

Ellen and the Escapades have cracked a hugely marketable formula and deliver a debut with warmth and charm – but the effect is a little less enduring than might be expected.

Mixing revelry and reverie, Seth Lakeman has earned his renown. Having the self-confidence to shrug off a major label deal for total creative control is only a virtue when you can deliver something as strong as this.

Bolder, colder and brushed in chrome, Poles is the sound of a band finding their stride, hitting their straps and reaching new heights. This is a stylistically cohesive, colourful maelstrom of brooding but punchy interplanetary dream pop.

Knapp’s floaty vocal style is creative and appealing – but all too often these songs are deflated by the drab beats and tinny tinkles of soulless polymer pop.

Though authentic and sporadically affecting, Whiskey Farmer suffers from its borrowed themes. File under “promising” for now.

Elegant and tender, Moody and friends tend their patch with care and colour, cocooning the listener in an optimistic microcosm of life and its cycles.

They say it’s the hope that kills you, but I daresay Shaw’s music would still sound pretty beaten up without it. Solitary, stream-of-consciousness, broken folk, pricked with acerbic spikes of wit, this is a rare thing: a record that offers a venting of desolation alongside odd doses of hilarity.

This 80s-aping three-piece conjure an array of spectral shades and convey their vision with consummate ease. Blouse’s debut unveils a warehouse full of the dark and dilapidated, the faded and forgotten, the ephemeral and ethereal.