If there's one electronic sub-genre that is not worth approaching blind it's “tech-house”. Since the late Nineties, it has tended to be the most functional and generic of club soundtracks, a steady, decadent plod, all clean lines and predictable shifts: nothing to frighten the horses or interrupt the steady progress of weekend hedonism. In short, boring.

The “remix album” has a patchy history. From bodged-together cash-in collections of already-released B-sides via showcases of hipness (hello Radiohead!) to focused collaborations (Mad Professor's reworkings of Massive Attack being the best known), the range of approaches is diverse to say the least. If anyone can get it right, though, it's King Midas Sound's Kevin Martin.

A few years ago – peaking in 2007 - “cosmic disco” was a brief clubland rage. It came mostly from Oslo and consisted of calm, bearded Norwegian dudes creating a fabulous psychedelic stew of groovy house, Italo-disco, and their own ineffable proggy weirdness. Where filter disco, the unkillable dance-pop sub-genre kick-started by Stardust’s “The Music Sounds Better With You”, has mostly been hugely unadventurous, relying on basic retro pilfering, cosmic disco was always marinated in the deep, druggy pulse of the best nightlife.

A reverb-swathed guitar picks out a rudimentary surf riff. Drums whack out the Bo Diddley shuffle. The four-to-the-floor bass throbs. Vocals drag the vowels out. As whole, the sound spirals, pulses. At eye-rattling volume, The Black Angels serve up a psychedelia that’s mind expanding, but more about the darkness within than the light without. Their trip isn’t the worst ride you’ve ever been on, but it sure doesn’t take you to the third bardo.

Calling Grumbling Fur a supergroup would be pretty over the top, but the name does corral five distinctive musicians that usually follow their own paths. There’s a pair of Finns from the legendary drone outfit Circle and the challenging metallers Panic DHH. The three Brits include two members of the jazz-inclined experimentalists Guapo and the wyrd folk artist Alexander Tucker. The individual tracks on Furrier, this one-off collective’s album, were culled from a day-long improv jam held in south London.

The Seventies “Kosmische” music of Germany – the more spaced-out and synthesister-led counterpart to Krautrock that had its commercial apogee in Tangerine Dream – seems to be a gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps because the releases were for so many years mainly obscure and had to be hunted down by passionate and/or deranged followers, it has built a global network of followers who extend its principles into new music. From Gorillaz' Damon Albarn to techno legends like Carl Craig, its rippling synth patterns and sidereal twinkles can be heard woven into the fabric of popular culture. And there are plenty who reproduce its most abstracted jams in pure form, too.

Symphonic pop of the Electric Light Orchestra variety is a hard thing to pull off and even when it succeeds it’s very much an acquired taste. When Max McElligott – AKA Wolf Gang - first appeared a couple of years ago with an EP on the Neon Gold label, he seemed have the balance between opulent and poptastic just about right. It had a blustery chamber-pop charm and was, at the very least, a promising opening shot. His debut album, though, has pushed the boat out too far. It is over-enamoured with its own lusciousness, a precision Crufts-groomed show poodle of an album wearing diamante earrings.

The musical identity of Midlands town Stourbridge is largely defined by Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wonder Stuff, a trio that charted with varying degrees of wackiness in the late Eighties to mid-Nineties. The Voluntary Butler Scheme, the recording identity of fellow Stourbridgian Rob Jones, shares their leaning towards wackiness, but it’s more surreal, less surface. He’s also way more interesting musically. Second album The Grandad Galaxy is a musical rummage through a jumble-sale mind.

Mention of Southend-on-Sea calls to mind tawdry seafront attractions and Dr Feelgood, and certainly wouldn't prime you to expect The Horrors. Prepare to be flabbergasted, however, because with their third album, this quietly purposeful quintet have taken a giant leap forward into their own phantasmagorical hyperspace.