Red velvet curtains draw back to reveal a cosmic wheel of fortune, floating in the deep black star-studded theater of infinite space. A whirl of timbres, personalities, and stories. The Turning Wheel, the third full-length by the Bay Area artist SPELLLING (Chrystia Cabral), revolves around themes of human unity, the future, divine love and the enigmatic ups and downs of being a part of this carnival called life.

The self-empowered diva breaks free of earthly restraints to float in an art-jazz universe of her own cut-and-paste design. Inspired perhaps by her pal Holly Cole, Jane Siberry shapes her surprisingly malleable voice and impressionistic lyrics to a variety of free-form moods whipped up by a skilled ensemble. "See The Child"'s hypnotic verbal and musical motifs make it a highlight along with the propulsive "Lovin' Cup" and lovely "Goodbye Sweet Pumpkinhead." It's challenging stuff for her mainstream fans, but that's okay–this is a bold, noteworthy experiment by an artist who remains bound by nothing but the beauty.

St. Vincent returns with an inspired album of her best work yet. Daddy's Home was produced by pop producer and long term collaborator Jack Antonoff. "The album was inspired by the classic records of the 70s. Stevie, Sly, Stones, Steely Dan, Chords, Groove. The days when sophisticated harmony and rhythm didn't sound heady - they just sounded, and felt good. Lots of guitar. But warm sounds, not distortion and chaos. Hopefully a turn nobody will see coming" - Annie Clark.

Paul Weller didn't play many dates in support of his 2018 album True Meanings. Not counting his summer festival appearances, which were all delivered prior to the album's September release, he gave just five concerts: two in the Netherlands, one in Belgium, and a two-night stand at London's Royal Festival Hall in October, where he played with the support of a full orchestra. Those two dates are the basis of Other Aspects: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, a double-CD accompanied by a DVD. Weller deliberately avoided familiar material for these concerts. All of True Meanings save three songs is performed (the mid-album sequence of "Bowie," "Wishing Well," and "Come Along" is absent) and he eschews crowd-pleasers from both his solo career and the Jam in favor of moody, lush reworkings of "Tales from the Riverbank" and "Private Hell."

Xiu Xiu makes beautiful music for hard times. For nearly 20 years, the band has a track record of crafting experimental music for moments when life’s harsh realities meet its existential mysteries. On the latest album, Jamie Stewart explores a recent revelation and is reminded of the power of the band’s music to surprise and connect. Listening to the songs on Oh No, it is hard to feel truly alone. Instead, it is a reminder that even when we’re alone, we’re alone together.

The fourth in the Switched On series that compiles non-album tracks and sought after deep cuts by the groop. Following on from the first volume released in 1992, 1995's Refried Ectoplasm, and 1998's Aluminum Tunes, the long-awaited fourth installment spans 1999 - 2008 in the Stereolab story and collates 3 LPs worth of material, all remastered from the original tapes and overseen by the band. It features all the tracks from out-of-print and sought after mini-album The First Of The Microbe Hunters, one-off and impossible to find tour 7"s, compilation tracks, art installation work and a couple of unreleased outtakes from the Mars Audiac Quintet and Dots and Loops recording sessions.

Perhaps best-known for his distinctive vocal style, Australian polymath Nick Cave here steps into the spotlight as librettist rather than performer, for a second operatic project with Belgian composer Nicholas Lens. Having collaborated on Shell Shock in 2014, they joined forces again during the global lockdown to create a new work, L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S.. At Lens’s request, Cave penned 12 litanies – “petitions to a divine maker” – simple, moving texts which the composer then wove into what he calls a “modest chamber opera of sleeping dreams”.

An enchanting songstress, Kate Bush reflects the most heavenly views of love on the aptly titled The Sensual World. The follow-up to Hounds of Love features Bush unafraid to be a temptress, vocally and lyrically. She's a romantic, frolicking over lust and love, but also a lover of life and its spirituality. The album's title track exudes the most sensually abrasive side of Bush, but she is also one to remain emotionally intact with her heart and head. The majority of The Sensual World beams with a carefree spirit of strength and independence. "Love and Anger," which features blistering riffs by Bush's mentor and cohort David Gilmour, thrives on self-analysis – typically cathartic of Bush.

Never one for easy categorisation, the on-going adventures of David Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors project are especially genre-agnostic on the 5 EPs released throughout 2020. The neatly-titled 5EPs collates these songs into a mammoth compilation. Each set of songs sees a different band-member taking over lead vocal duties, and indeed the flavours of these tracks stretch the breadth and width of the musical spectrum. The likes of ‘Self Design’ and ‘Empty Vessel’ deal in funk and house-inspired rhythms, while ‘Moon, If Ever’ and ‘I Get Carried Away’ are staunchly minimal in instrumentation, but undeniably 1960s pop in melodic sophistication.

Probably the most pop-accessible of Laurie Anderson's recorded work, Mister Heartbreak features a number of stunning luminaries on the cutting edge of popular music at the time. Striking guitar work by King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew permeates this disc – notably on "Sharkey's Day" – punchy and angular. The production and bass work from Bill Laswell is superb. Peter Gabriel – at the time still coming off the buzz of his departure from Genesis – is featured in a duet with Anderson on "Excellent Birds." There is a heavy reliance on early-'80s synthesizers which would normally be very off-putting, but here they are executed well. Nowhere does the music slip into irreparable '80s cliché; it is still an entertaining listen. Lyrics are typical of Anderson' work – complex, literate, provocative, difficult to fully comprehend. Haunting "Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Spoken word delivery on "Sharkey's Night" is given by the legendary William S. Burroughs. This is a very satisfying listen and a great intro for those unfamiliar with Anderson's work.

With her sophomore album, 2020's magical and earthy Cha Cha Palace, singer/songwriter Angelica Garcia embraces her family's Mexican and Salvadoran roots, crafting an explosive collage out of her varied influences. A Los Angeles native, Garcia grew up listening to an eclectic combination of mariachi music, Latin pop, jazz, country, and indie rock.

With Mundo Civilizado, downtown denizen Arto Lindsay is probably the first person to successfully integrate the sounds of techno and drum'n'bass into an already established pop music style. Others, notably David Bowie, have tried to do something similar, but although Bowie's attempt in particular was more successful than most critics give him credit for, it never sounded as natural and seamless as Lindsay's. That the former king of skronk guitar was able to achieve such a fusion while singing in Portuguese is even more impressive. Highlights include the funky female worship of "Q Samba" and the scattered herky-jerk of "Complicity" (which features the deathless couplet "Complicity, unconscious wit/Borders without borders under eyebrows"). His taste in covers is a bit more suspect – he brings as little to Prince's material as you'd expect, but is surprisingly more adept with Al Green's "Simply Beautiful." Overall, this one's a solid winner, if not quite a classic.

Twenty-five years on, this album which sounds like nothing before or since, has been majestically re-mastered by multi-Grammy® award winner Michael Graves. Available on vinyl for the very first time, the deluxe CD package contains three previously unreleased bonus tracks as well as instrumental track versions of 11 of the album’s songs.

Fiona Apple defied categorization or any easy career path, almost running the pattern in reverse, opening her career as a highly touted and popular alternative singer/songwriter, then transitioning into a cult artist. Apple certainly benefited from the open-door policy of modern rock in the mid-’90s, following the path of crossover alt-rock piano-based songwriters like Tori Amos, but Apple was hardly an Amos copycat: she had a strong jazz undertow in her vocal phrasing and melodies, she had richer arrangements, she had a poppier bent to her songs. All these things helped her 1996 debut, Tidal, find a wide audience, one that increased considerably in the wake of the controversial video for the single “Criminal,” but Apple made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t an amateur provocateur with her sophomore album, When the Pawn Meets the King, an album that increased her critical reputation and cult, which would be pillars of support during her intense battles while making her third album, Extraordinary Machine. Collection includes: 'Tidal' (1996); 'When The Pawn…' (1999); 'Extraordinary Machine' (2005), and 'The Idler Wheel…' (2012).