The middle-aged rap master of provocation has survived into an era of hair-trigger outrage. The wearily dignified response of parents of the Manchester Arena bomber’s victims to an Eminem lyric briefly assuming the killer’s identity has already defused a strictly local scandal, which pales beside his gigs’ picketing in his early 2000s folk-devil prime.

Bombay Bicycle Club have a knack for quasi-prophetic titles. Their fourth album, So Long, See You Tomorrow, released in February 2014, turned out to be their last, at least for a while. For when the accompanying tour concluded at London’s Earls Court – the final event before the wrecking ball deprived London of another iconic venue – the band decided they’d had enough.

What a lovely surprise. A debut album with its own sensibility that’s come out of the blue. Aoife Nessa Frances is from Dublin and the terrific Land of No Junction – the title comes from a mistaken hearing of Llandudno Junction – signals the arrival of a major new talent.

The Cakemaker is Ofir Raul Graizer’s debut feature, and the film must somehow reflect the parabola of the Israeli-born director's life: it’s set between Berlin and Jerusalem, the two cities apparently closest to him, and one of its main subjects – alongside weightier themes such as grief and loss – is food, especially the r

Selva is the sophomore album from Uruguay’s arch tripsters, Las Cobras. More ethereal and even less direct than its predecessor, Temporal, it is a disc of dark and dreamlike psychedelia that brings to mind the possibilities of the Jesus and Mary Chain, at their most woozy but by no means passive, collaborating with Mazzy Star.

According to Gabrielle Aplin, the delicate piano ballad which closes, and provides the name of, her first album in over four years was written as a letter to herself; and one penned at a particularly turbulent point in her life. “It’s not easy for me, but I know that I’m close,” she sings, as if willing the emotion into being.

“Only in a Man’s World” is a snappy pop-funk nugget with an Eighties feel. There’s a kinship with Peter Gabriel and “Once in a Lifetime” Talking Heads. Its lyrics though are something else. They begin by asking “Why should a woman feel ashamed?” and go on to address why necessary items associated with periods are deemed a luxury by the tax regimen. “Things would be different if the boys bled too.” Rather than polemic, it comes across as exploring the double standards inherent to the state.

18 years ago, Electric Soft Parade, centred around brothers Alex and Thomas White, were the latest hyped hope of indie kids and NME-type media. However, their might-have-been moment imploded when they moved too fast for their fans, rocketing off in wildly creative flourishes rather than sticking to a predictable formula. They – and associated break-away bands – have since produced a fascinating array of musical activity, often boasting an inventive yet old-fashioned feel for orchestration.

When Sight & Sound compiled its “Greatest Documentaries of All Time” list five years ago, Kazuo Hara’s The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On came in at number 23 – proof, some three decades on from its 1987 release, that this remarkable film had stayed in the minds of filmmakers and critics alike.

Now the first generation of real rock stars are finishing their fifth recording decade, the question presents itself: what should a rocker do when their career has gone on much longer than they'd planned? 2019 came up with some excellent answers. Some old-timers continued to play loud, others grew more mellow. But one thing they all had in common was that their music journeyed deep into the imagination.