Inevitably expectations were high, given that this Chicago experimental rock band are one of my favourite groups of the 21st century, and this is their first album for seven years. And at first it’s hard to know what to make of Echo Mine. There are only three traditionally structured songs (and one of those comes in two versions), while the surrounded tracks are largely meandering minimalist instrumentals of various shades and angularity.

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 1-32 Igor Levit (Sony)

It’s too darn hot, BoJo is in Downing Street, and we’re all going to Brexit hell – so we might as well sing the blues. Or at least take a night off from the apocalypse to enjoy a virtuoso company singing them for us in this rousing revival of Sheldon Epps’ 1980 musical revue, which showcases jazz greats like Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen.

Genuine authorship in popular music often manifests as eccentricity. Commercially driven musical entertainment thrives on treading familiar paths, tweaking well-established genres, often rooted in the various traditions of African-American styles and their many white imitations. Daniel Knox is a musician with a unique voice: he sings in his own way and tells stories that startle and surprise at every turn.

Steve McQueen’s progress from video artist to Oscar-winning director has been deceptively smooth. The chasm between Bobby Sands’ emaciated martyrdom in his feature debut, Hunger (2008), and a star-packed heist film seems still greater.

Streya: New works for solo violin and violin with electronics Olivia De Prato (violin) (New Focus Recordings)

Concluding a trilogy of releases that began with the EPs Not the Actual Events (2016) and Add Violence (2017) – Bad Witch is being called an LP despite its six tracks clocking in at only 30 minutes, a discrepancy that reportedly led an exasperated Trent Reznor to sound out a pernickety fan in an online forum. 

As it was with his last album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, it’s impossible to listen to Ryley Walker without comparisons to John Martyn and Tim Buckley – the jazz-infused, non-linear Buckley of Lorca – springing to mind. But this time round, for his fifth album, Walker appears to have also been sponging up the free-flowing ethos of David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name and the lithe Arthur Lee of Four Sail. Additionally, there’s the spiralling instrumental current of fellow Chicago dwellers Tortoise and dashes of math rock.

On his label’s website, Walker says the only music he listened to while creating Deafman Glance was that of Genesis, and that his goal was to make an anti-folk album. That’s as may be, but neither are in evidence. The immediate marker is that his voice now sounds like that of someone who has been through the wringer; a voice emanating from the worn-out throat of a heavy drinker and committed smoker. Overall though, the various strands feeding into album are unified with the seeming exposure of a grey-tinged inner self. This is not an uplifting album. It is, nonetheless, compelling.

Early on, Walker could be characterised as a Bert Jansch-influenced singer-songwriter. Then, with Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, he began reaching further. Now, with nine new compositions which were not road-tested live before being recorded, his music is more organic and less easy to get a handle on: hence the instinctive search for signposts, such as John Martyn et al.

Where he specifically goes from here is impossible to call – but there are only two directions. Firstly, reigning back to craft a more conventional music. Or, alternatively, pushing forward with the adventurousness that defines Deafman Glance. Hopefully, it’s the latter.

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Overleaf: listen to “Telluride Speed” from Ryley Walker’s Deafman Glance

Conflict and comedy can be unpredictable bedfellows, and Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson’s 2014 play occasionally risks overstretching itself in its attempts to reconcile the two – although its immediate context, the world of office politics, has a rich history of showing humanity at its worst, and such ghastliness can be painfully funny.

The mystery remains of why they keep tucking away The Good Fight on More4, as they did with its illustrious predecessor The Good Wife. No disrespect to 4’s ancillary channel – now seemingly the designated last resting place of Grand Designs – but it’s like hanging a sign on the door saying “niche viewing, please knock quietly before entering”.