The sleeve splices Little Richard and Sam Cooke in an archaic, explosive burst of ecstasy. Neo-soul star Leon Bridges’ third album doesn’t settle in the past, though.

For 25 years now, LA label Stones Throw records has become one of the most reliable brands in music. It began with, and has always been associated with, the leftfield hip hop of founder George “Peanut Butter Wolf” Manak, and regular contributors Madlib and J Dilla.

What we don’t learn about filmmaker Harry Birrell is as tantalising as what is actually revealed during the course of Matt Pinder’s beguiling 90-minute documentary. We hear that Birrell was born in Paisley to a father he never met, who had been killed in action on the Macedonian Front, and that the young Harry was given a cine camera at the age of 10, the start of a lifelong hobby.

Darkside is not a particularly original name for a band. In the late '80s and early '90s, it was a tag used by escapees from the infighting between Jason Pierce and Sonic Boom in Spacemen 3, as well as being taken on by at least one drum and bass crew in the '90s.

David Crosby hit the headlines a few months back, another artist selling his song catalogue in order to secure his house. These days musicians must stay on the road to earn a living and sell records. It’s a punishing life, even for the young and fit. When you’re pushing 80, especially when you’ve spent years punishing your body, it becomes a real challenge, but it’s the only way to survive.

Wavves’ Nathan Williams found you can go home again. Following a deteriorating decade on a major label, and 2017’s raucous retrenchment You’re Welcome (2017), the punk-pop Californians have returned to their first label, Fat Possum.

Craig Fortnam’s music – solo or in the bands North Sea Radio Orchestra and Arch Garrison – sounds like a lot of things. It sounds like the 70s prog-folk-jazz interface of Kevin Ayres and Robert Wyatt as its influence feeds on into Kate Bush.

Spandau Ballet started well, their slick, slightly angular pop-funk adding a certain something to early Eighties new romantic frippery. Later, especially with the success of global schmaltz-smash “True”, they lost what teeth they had, drifting into cod-soul blandness. Kemp’s career since has focused as much on acting as music, but his recent round of gigs playing Syd Barrett to drummer Nick Mason’s early Pink Floyd tribute band, Saucerful of Secrets, was both unexpected and well-received.

A United Artists studio executive was treated to a pre-release screening of Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter in 1955. His damning response was, “it’s too arty.” The studio showed little interest in promotion and it was deemed a flop. Laughton, stung by his directorial debut’s muted reception, never directed another film.

Chet Faker is Melbourne-born musician Nick Murphy’s alter ego, an avatar he has stepped in and out of with gentle grace over more than a decade of finding a voice that's very much his own. Once described in The Guardian as a purveyor of “mellow-electronic-pop”, he is actually something else, closer to the sensuality and slow drag of soul, lilting along to very relaxed beats that have an almost trip-hop feel.