Artists who know precisely what they want to achieve and go about it with unassuming confidence possess a particular charm. Synthonic, the brainchild of Sidmouth-based musician Kieron Garrett, has delivered exactly that with Lampin' – a thoroughly engaging love letter to the halcyon days of acid jazz that manages to feel both comfortably familiar and refreshingly contemporary.

Stephen Moore's latest offering under the Post Death Soundtrack moniker arrives as a 30-track opus that feels less like an album and more like a musical exorcism conducted in real time. "IN ALL MY NIGHTMARES I AM ALONE" is the sound of an artist completely untethered from commercial considerations, safety nets, or indeed any semblance of self-preservation—and it's all the more compelling for it.

Like a burst of light shining from your solar plexus, Tritonic's "Alexamenos!" arrives as both archaeological expedition and cosmic voyage, a sledgehammer collision of sludge and infectious power-pop that somehow makes perfect sense in its beautiful impossibility.

There's something rather audacious about Richard Green's approach to contemporary classical composition—a willingness to court the sort of cross-pollination that might have the purists reaching for their smelling salts. "Natural Circle," the culminating piece from his EP "The Circle Closes," represents both the apotheosis and potential pitfall of such ambitious genre-blending.

One finds it deliciously perverse that an artist would wait until the age of 50 to pen her first song, then proceed to craft material that feels like it's been brewing in the cultural ether for decades. Kate Howard's sophomore effort, I'm Not Here to Help You, is the sort of record that arrives unannounced and uninvited, like a brilliantly inappropriate dinner guest who ends up becoming the evening's most memorable character.

Quietly revolutionary, Linkwells dare to wear their heart on their sleeve in an era of calculated cool. Linkwells, the four-piece from Malvern who've been steadily building momentum across the indie circuit, have crafted something genuinely affecting with "For The First Time" – a track that manages to feel both intimately personal and gloriously anthemic.

While algorithmic playlists dictate musical taste and bedroom producers flood streaming platforms with derivative dreck, it's refreshing to encounter something as genuinely considered as The Concierge's debut EP "Check In." This triumvirate of London-based musicians—Duncan Haslam, Phil Joyce, and Robert Melkumyan—have conjured something rather special from the most mundane of circumstances: spare rooms, day jobs, and a 90-minute commute between bandmates.