Plumb’s skittish, schizophrenic structure may aim to reflect the lack of attention we pay to anything any more, but through that it ends up demanding even more from the listener.

The second epic instrumental record in twelve months from Dylan Carlson’s Earth shows there’s no waning of his powers as the former drone pioneer takes us from desert noir to the folklore of Albion.

Dracula is a record that seems to come from a band who hasn’t written any songs yet, just a criss-cross mesh of brown-note tones and (wait for it) a fuzzy vocal channel. It’s not fun, profound, danceable, thinkable, likeable, or even all that hateable – this is empty-release-window music.

An album awash with romanticism, nostalgia and uplifting subtlety, Denver duo Tennis’ second record Young And Old is equal parts saccharine and sublime.

It’s an album that follows neatly in the footsteps of the dark wave of Norway’s finest ‘gazers and also pushes the genre on a little – a good dose more affecting, stylish and filmic than one would expect, if not the total seachange for which one might have hoped.

Wringing plenty out of just five songs on this EP, Woodpigeon take a small yet evocative, effective and sometimes wonderful step out from under the shadow of their influences.

At 15 she signed to the influential Swedish label Labrador, and at 17 she gives us her debut album. Amanda Mair is a young woman with a lot of talent, and a fine future ahead of her.

A welcome addition to the legendary, late blues singer’s slender discography, the home recordings captured on 1966 prove that the ample posthumous praise attracted by the vocalist who Bob Dylan called “the best singer in the place” (the location being New York in the early 60′s, a time and a place with no shortage of great singers if there ever was one) is entirely justified.

Goyte makes highly tuneful, mature, rock-based pop music with fresh melodic songwriting that demonstrates his uncommon ambition and craftsmanship.

It offers a utopian glimpse of yesterday’s visions of the future, a time when the cutting edge of experimental electronic music still had a relationship to the everyday that was both estranging, de-territorialising, and curiously warm.

The new album from this Americana double-act strikes an effortless balance between pop melodies, country swagger, boy-girl twee, lush string arrangements, and a pair of the most striking and flawless voices you’re likely to hear harmonising all year.

Outsider inventor-musician Thomas Truax attempts an experiment too far with the LP version of his song-a-month project.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny have produced a majestic choral triumph of an album that will get your nerves jangling without bringing a tear to your eye.

A Place To Bury Strangers explore textures and melodies (to use the term loosely) that are as uncomfortable as they are uncompromising on their most brutal collection of songs to date. But haven’t we in fact heard a lot of it before?

Mike Kinsella’s fifth album under the Owen moniker, Ghost Town offers moments of pure inspiration, tempered by those of mediocrity. Kinsella can conjure brilliance: just rather too infrequently.