The effect is some imaginative and utterly fresh music, with Barbier coming up with one of the better musical surprises this year.

This seemingly elongated process brought some excellent music from Cyril – all the songs sound complete, detailed in their structure, arrangements, and personal lyrics, yet personal lyrics that quite a few listeners can relate to.

This concept makes the music of Levitation Orchestra run a very natural course here, something that really embodies the essence of spiritual jazz.

Loose and fluid on one hand and quite firm and concrete on the other.

The approach obviously worked, as Lane was able to get great feedback from McRoberts, turning it into a set of 12 delicate, quite touching compositions that work on every musical level.

An intriguing album that will leave the listeners with an ultimate dilemma – should I fall asleep or keep on listening?

Rouse is able to slip in enough good melody lines with his deeply set vocals and has guitar touches that are not just technically good but are set at the right place at the right time in his songs.

The Mountain Goats’ music has reached new levels of complexity, as well as quality, and that Darnelle and co have enough imagination and capabilities to take their music in any direction that they wish.

The abilities and inventiveness of the two musicians bridge all the possible gaps here and do reach that “liminal state of mind” that the duo was striving for.

Krok is an album that offers quite a few delights, both “old” and new.

Jamie’s songwriting has a substance that firmly holds things together here, and instrumental and vocal help from guests like Josephine Foster make things (darkly) intriguing throughout.

It is just one of those (late-night) albums that you simply don’t care if you understand a single word of the lyrics; it just works in every way it should.

It all might sound like a bit of a strange mix, but it turns out that Cohen was able to turn all the varied influences, or rather varied ideas, into a very cohesive whole.

It seems The Necks have developed a tight empathy and a set of tight instincts, with the three musicians involved always being able to sense where each of them is going, making their runs shift with full sense and logic.

The quality of music Charlie Bruber presents on ‘Prized Burden’ just might not keep him in the musical shadows for much longer.

Fifty and some years after its original release back in 1971, it still sounds as timeless as it did then, with the new remaster extracting some additional nuances that might have been missed the first time around.

Under the influence? Certainly, but both the influence and its take here are quite great, thank you.

The results are nothing less than thoroughly imaginative and mind-bending, and you can put any genre label you wish to describe it.

It is Dalt’s creativity and inventiveness that are to the fore here, with the emotional element leading the way.

Saint Etienne conclude their studio recording career with yet another big bang they used us too, with hope that they just might change their mind at some point.

Under the detailed musical embellishments, the listener is able to fathom the concept and the dark tale it is presenting. A thoroughly intriguing album that simply should not go unnoticed.