Black Cab: 明 (Akira) (2017)

For their fifth studio album, Melbourne-based electronica band Black Cab pay direct tribute to Katsuhiro Otomo's legendary 1988 anime feature Akira. In a project that commenced as a live in-cinema performance, they now distil the melodies and rhythms developed there into a full-length album. You won't be able to whack it into a CD player and play it in sync with the actual movie, but you can slip on a pair of headphones and imagine a 45-minute long cyberpunk film of your very own.

The immediate surprise is how much the album sounds like Blade Runner, rather than Akira. Its extended use of drawn-out synthesiser notes immediately remind you of Vangelis rather than Akira composer Geinoh Yamashirogumi. Even at the base melody level there is a sense that the band is often only one misplaced note away from a Blade Runner cover version. That is not necessarily a bad thing - Blade Runner boasts one of the best movie scores of all time - but it's a surprise when one expects to hear an aural tribute to another 1980s cyberpunk film.

Jean Michel Jarre: Zoolook (1984)

Zoolook is the seventh studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean Michel Jarre, released in 1984. Jarre became an international sensation with the release of his 1978 album Oxygene, which easily remains his best known work. Throughout the 1980s in particular he was an immensely popular electronic musician, producing works combining synthesizers and electronic samples. As a child I was quite a big fan of his stuff, and owned several albums on cassette tape. They all got left behind many years, however, and it has been years since I have listened to any of his music beyond what appears in the occasional feature film like Peter Weir's Gallipoli.

The discovery of some cheap 2014 remasters has tempted me back to see whether or not his works stand up, beginning with Zoolook. This 2014 remaster contains new mixes of both "Ethnicolor" and "Diva" produced by Jarre specifically for the re-release. While admittedly I haven't heard either track since the mid-1990s, they sound pretty much the same to me.

Perfume: Game (2008)

Game is the debut album of Japanese vocal group Perfume, released back in 2008 to fairly mixed to positive reviews. The album was produced by electronic musician and composer Yasutaka Nakata, whose own band Capsule have been performing since 1997. It was Nakata who developed Perfume's 'technopop' sound: electronic music, strong beats and digitally transformed vocals.

It is clear on the first listen of Game that French electronic duo Daft Punk was an influence. The two bands share a similar pace, tone and melodic style. Like Daft Punk, Perfume have a relatively homogeneous sound. It is possible, if you enjoy the general sound of the band, to play it in the background and simply let the album flow from one upbeat pop number to the next. Assessing the relative quality of each individual song comes down to which ones have the best combination of beats and specific sounds. If this kind of ultra-cute Japanese electronic pop does not appeal in the first place, none of the songs on Game will likely change your mind.