Black Mare: "Death Magick Mother" (2017)

Black Mare is a music project written and performed by Los Angeles resident Sera Timms, who also plays in such bands of Zun and Ides of Gemini. Her latest release is Death Magick Mother, released this past September. I'm not quite sure whether one would describe it as an EP or a full album. It runs for seven songs in total.

The album begins with "Ingress to Form". A simple combination of guitars and percussion runs along with a very rough and simple sound. For a while it seems this garage-style grungy strumming is going to be all there is, but Timms' ethereal vocals kick in almost halfway through and lift the song up to a whole new level.

It is repetitive, but that repetition develops into an almost hypnotic hook. It's music you can feel as much as hear. There's something tremendously effective about it.

Myrkur: Mareridt (2017)

Myrkur is not a band but an alias: used by Danish musician and folk singer Amalie Bruun to separate her heavy metal works from the rest of her compositions. She released her first album as Myrkur anonymously in 2015; while her identity has since been leaked to the public, she has kept the pseudonym for her 2017 follow-up Mareridt (the Danish word for nightmares).

It is a really distinctive act, because while Bruun personally identifies her Myrkur projects as black metal, there is a much more complex and nuanced sound being developed here. Her folk background feeds in heavily, and that tends to soften the harsher elements one would expect from a traditional black metal act and create something that feels a lot more mythological and unearthly. To a large degree the rage one would expect to hear in a metal album is absent. Instead it feels rather mournful and haunted. Long-term metal fans may struggle with Myrkur, because it often sits on the fringes of the genre. Anybody put off by the metal tag should probably give it a chance; it may pleasantly surprise you.

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.

New Pants: New Pants (1998)

A few years ago I stumbled upon a CD by a Chinese post-punk band named New Pants. I bought it on a whim and absolutely loved its blend of Ramones-esque fast punk and breezy electronica. I've enjoyed what I've heard of the band ever since, but recently I managed to track down a copy of their original 1998 self-titled album. It is a chance to hear the band in their early stages.

It's a slightly strange experience, since it almost sounds as if the tracks were laid onto the album in the chronological order in which they were written. It certainly ends with a fairly similar sound to the one with which I'm familiar, but it begins somewhere quite different. In truth it begins with them sounding like a straight-up Ramones tribute act.

P.K.14: City Weather Sailing (2008)

P.K.14 is a Nanjing-formed and Beijing-based post-punk rock band. Formed back in 1997, they have become a well-respected fixture in China's independent rock scene. Internationally their sound gets compared to the like of the Pixies and Sonic Youth, although based on this album I find the comparisons under-value P.K.14's own distinctive sound.

City Weather Sailing is the band's fourth studio album, released in 2008. I found the CD in a charity shop here in Melbourne, and purchased it purely on the basis of its intriguing and artful cover. It has wound up being one of the most unexpectedly great albums I have heard this year.

There is a general kind of indie Britpop feel to the album, which is dominated by rolling guitars that give it a sort of Manchester sound - to me, at any rate. I am hardly a musical authority, and just describe these things as I see them. I am very keen to track down the band's other work - not to mention their members' side projects - to see how they all compare.

Avantasia: Angel of Babylon (2010)

Avantasia is a rock opera super-group concept by heavy metal musician Tobias Sammett. It is a pretty simple concept: every few years he assembles a group of musicians from other European metal bands and gets them to perform a bunch of songs. The completed albums usually follow themes or narratives of one kind or another, but they also work as pretty great straight-up power metal CDs as well.

Angel of Babylon was released back in 2010 and was the third volume in a loose trilogy of releases. It was released side-by-side with The Wicked Symphony. Here Sammett used a core band including Sascha Paeth, Eric Singer (KISS) and Michael Rodenberg (aka Miro), and a group of musical guests including Jens Johansson (Stratovarius), Felix Bohnke (Edguy), Bruce Kulick (KISS, Grand Funk Railroad), Henjo Richter (Gamma Ray), and Jørn Lande (Masterplan).

Olololop + MC Serious: Discovery (2014)

I find something rather wonderful about pop music produced in languages other than my own. It prevents me from engaging with the lyrics, since I have no ability to understand the words. Instead the vocals in any given tracks simply turn the singer's voice into another musical instrument. This seems to go double with hip hop, where the rhythm of an MC's voice essentially forms another layer of percussion. With the right musical backing it can sound positively hypnotic.

While in Taipei last October I bought a pile of North Asian independent rock and pop albums, and somewhere in the middle of the pile was Discovery (aka Hakken), a CD by Japanese electronic outfit Olololop and rapper MC Serious (Shiriashu). It is a stripped-back, staccato sort of an album, one that combines fairly minimal and experimental electronic beats with some very effective - and, to be, unintelligible, rapping. It's odd, but it's also highly addictive.

Jolin Tsai: Play (2014)

Jolin Tsai is a hugely popular Taiwanese recording artist, whose career has been peppered with smash hits, sold-out concert tours and constant Madonna-style image reinventions. As is often the case with North Asian celebrities, Tsai has expanded her performing career to incorporate modelling, consumer goods promotion, and acting - most recently providing the voice of Judy Hopps in the Chinese edition of Disney's Zootopia.

Play, released in 2014, is her most recent album to date. It is a collection of bright, superficial pop songs that was a huge success in her own country.

Given the right melody I can really engage with sugary, superficial pop music, and I had particularly enjoyed Tsai's earlier 2012 album Muse. Sadly Play does not match up. There are a few too many songs here that simply lack that ear worm quality that makes for great pop music. Asides from one highlight it is all just a bit too ordinary and disappointing.

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.

Ringo Sheena: Japanese Manners (2007)

I have previously reviewed Japanese jazz-rock band Tokyo Jihen's 2011 album Great Discovery. This 2007 precursor features many individual members of that band, but is actually a solo recording by its lead singer Ringo Sheena. It was produced as the soundtrack to Mika Nishikawa's feature film Bakuman (adapting the popular manga) in collaboration with composer and violinist Neko Saito.

To describe Japanese Manners as a soundtrack would, however accurate in specific terms, miscommunicate the style of the album. Sheena had originally envisaged an electronic instrumental score, but it was at Nishikawa's insistence that the music was expanded to include the violin, vocals and an entire orchestra. This is, if anything, an experimental jazz album. It is also pretty outstanding.

I think Ringo Sheena is an exceptional singer. She has a distinctive husky voice that really sets her apart from her Japanese contemporaries, and there is a strong sense of play and experimentation in her music. I would recommend her work to anyone with an interest in good music.

David Bowie: Blackstar (2016)

Blackstar is David Bowie's 25th studio album, released back on 8 January to widespread acclaim. Two days later, and without warning, David Bowie was dead, succumbing to a liver cancer that he had deliberately kept quiet from the public and the press.

The death of such a hugely talented and influential artist overshadowed his final work. It was impossible for me, at any rate, to listen to Blackstar without dwelling on its creator's passing. David Bowie was and remains one of my all-time favourite performance artists. His music was astonishingly good. His various styles and performing identities were groundbreaking and near-unique. The album and the artist are irrevocably united now in his death.

That is clearly a deliberate choice on Bowie's part. It is typical of an artist of his kind to not only plan his own funeral, but to transform it into an artistic event at the same time. The album was fantastic for two days, and then upon hearing it following Bowie's death the entire work took on a new significance. Lyrics suddenly meant different things. Even the term 'blackstar' refers to a form of cancerous tumour.

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.

Sting: "57th & 9th"

It has been 13 years since Sacred Love, the last fully original pop-rock album from Sting. In the mean-time he's openly struggled with writer's block, produced an album of medieval lute music and a winter-themed collection of old English folk songs. He wrote, staged and briefly co-starred in a Broadway musical, The Last Ship, and even recorded the musical's various songs on his own solo release of the same name.

Despite all of this other activity, it really has been a long time between drinks. That puts a huge amount of pressure on Sting's long-awaited new album 57th & 9th. Fans of Sting previously had to wait about three years between releases, so this kind of delay feels enormous.

I think the amount of change that can take place in 13 years is important, because while Sting has set out to return to his pop-rock roots it feels as if he has not acknowledged just how far his own career has moved on. This album feels largely mechanical: there is visible talent here, but it lacks enthusiasm. There is a strong sense that he reached a point where the album simply felt 'good enough' and stopped at that. Familiarity may improve its standing over time, but based on the first few listens this feels like the weakest album Sting has ever released.

We Lost the Sea: Departure Songs (2015)

We Lost the Sea are an instrumental prog-rock band based in Sydney. Departure Songs is their most recent album, released in 2015, and I have to say from the outset that this is the single-best album I have heard for the first time this year. I purchased the CD at a concert when they were supported Finnish metal band Apocalyptica, and I've had the disc on pretty constant rotation ever since. This is an epic recording, dealing with grand themes in a huge, near-overwhelming fashion.

Upon first inspection it seems like Departure Songs is more of an EP than a full album, since it only lists five tracks. What the sleeve doesn't tell you is just how long these tracks are. The album as a whole is more than an hour long. The central track, "Challenger - Flight", is 23 minutes or more on its own. That might sound pretentious, but the truth is every track on this album earns its length. There's a level of intensity and emotion that you can only reach with a slow, measured build and a grand, extended climax.

Sleaze: A Glass of What Reminds Me of Lovesick Potions (2012)

Sleaze is a five-piece independent rock band from Taipei. Their debut album was released in September 2012, with a title that translates from Chinese into English as A Glass of What Reminds Me of Lovesick Potions. I assume that the band is now defunct: their Facebook page has not been updated in more than two years, and there doesn't seem to be any sign of a follow-up album or recent tours online.

If true, it's a real shame. This is a hugely enjoyable and inventive rock album that weaves together a broad range of styles and influences. It's certainly on the heavier side of rock music and regularly edges towards classic metal forerunners from the early 1970s, but then it also regularly throws in surprising elements including reggae and psychedelic rock. It throws all of these elements in together, sort of roughly blends them, and winds up with a distinctive tone of its own.

World's End Girlfriend: Seven Idiots (2010)

Seven Idiots is an instrumental rock/pop album by solo artist World's End Girlfriend, aka Japanese musician and composer Katsuhiko Maeda. Released in 2010 it fast became one of the more acclaimed albums of its year among enthusiasts for the avant-garde and Japanese popular music.

Maeda composes music with a huge variety of elements and instruments, ranging from orchestral-style pieces to rough electric rock to electronica and even 8-bit style bleeps and bops. It's a deliberately messy sound, creating a sort of loose, out of control sound that is both distinctive and oddly addictive. Listeners seeking bubbly Japanese pop will probably be disappointed, but anyone with an ear for the esoteric will find a huge amount to enjoy here.

Sting: The Soul Cages (1991)

It always seems 'de rigueur' to mock Sting. Born Gordon Sumner, he rose to fame as the lead singer of the hugely popular British rock band the Police. After the band went on hiatus in 1984 he went on to record his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. It was a massive hit both in the UK and internationally, and when the fractious relationship between his two Police band-mates finally collapsed he shifted into a full-time solo career.

I do not think it is a controversial claim to say that Sting is one of the UK's finest composers and lyricists. At the same time, and despite liking the vast majority of his work over the decades, I think it is fair to say he is an artist with a richly developed ego that often manifests as a tremendous self-importance. People generally do not appreciate hubris, and as a result Sting has left himself open for his entire solo career to scorn, ridicule and widespread dismissal.

Let us for the moment put aside the man's ego, however, and actually take a look at his work. His musical style is to my mind rather wonderful, combining at different points jazz, blues, rock, reggae and even classical music. His lyrics are more often than not stunningly good. I am a huge fan of his work, and of his 11 studio albums I think 1991's The Soul Cages is his absolute best.

Tokyo Jihen: Great Discovery (2011)

Tokyo Jihen (also known as Tokyo Incidents) were a four-piece jazz-rock band formed in 2004 by singer/songwriter Ringo Sheena. They disbanded back in 2012, but leave behind a great set of albums. The band fused together multiple musical genres - while they ultimately worked as a pop group, they blended in elements of jazz, funk and rock to give themselves a particularly distinctive and artful sound.

Great Discovery (Dai Hakken) was Tokyo Jihen's fifth and final studio album, released in June 2011. It captures the band at what is arguably their most commercial, pulling back a little on their more avant garde sounds in favour of a set of broadly populist tunes. The strategy clearly worked in Japan, with Great Discovery peaking at #1 on the Oricon Weekly Albums Chart and finishing 2011 as the 48th highest-selling album of the year. It is a great pop album, presenting immensely enjoyable tunes with an idiosyncratic edge. The standard is high enough that, when played beginning to end, even the occasional weaker track is supported by stronger works at either end.

The Astrocytes: Because I'm Really Not Sorry (2012)

The Astrocytes were an independent rock band based in Hong Kong. I bought their debut CD Because I'm Really Not Sorry while in the city in 2012, but to be honest have not heard anything from them since. I suspect like most independent groups they have long since separated and gone their separate ways. Their website does not even mention this album, and its only link is to an empty Myspace page. Lead singer Helena Angwin appears to be working as a professional model these days. Guitarist Joe Ashley Cheng is apparently a professional songwriter.

Because I'm Really Not Sorry is a weirdly retro album, stylistically speaking. More than once I am reminded of the sorts of mid-1990s grunge and independent British pop-rock that I listened to as an undergraduate student. It also boasts that near-trademark stark, simple sound that typifies an independent low-budget CD release. There is not really anything original or attention-grabbing about this album, but it does have a lot of straight-up energy and heart to it. I hope the four members of the band have moved on to better and more successful things.

Banks: Goddess (2014)

Jillian Banks, who simply performs under the stage name Banks, is an American singer-songwriter. Her debut album Goddess was released in 2014 and peaked at #12 in the USA Billboard charts. I have to admit I had not heard of Banks - although I had heard one of her songs quite a lot without knowing who was performing it - and only encountered a copy because my wife purchased it in error (I cannot remember what band she had misread the slightly ornate cover copy as).

The most striking thing about this album is how homogeneous it is: Banks has a very specific musical style, broadly categorised by the music press as either alternative R&B or trip hop. Her songs all seem to have the same combination of low, electronic tones and syncopated percussion. They have a slow, haunting quality to them. Liking Goddess almost entirely requires the listener to be a big fan of this sort of slow, Portishead-like musical style, because there really is nothing else that Banks presents here. It's great at what it is, but essentially that is all that it is.