Mdou Moctar is often dubbed as the “Hendrix of the desert”. He is not the first West African musician to be linked with African-American guitar stars.

If there's one songwriting technique Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph has perfected over the years, it's the art of combining upbeat melodies with angst-ridden lyrics for maximum emotional impact. It’s evident throughout his band's work (and never more so than on 2015's multi-platinum Blurryface); Scaled and Icy simply takes the formula and pushes the "upbeat" to the limit. 

Gary Numan says that his new album “looks at climate change from the planet’s point of view… it feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged… it is now fighting back.” Intruder is, then, a bleak, apocalyptic concept album. Given his last album explored similar terrain and that gothic dystopian wordplay has been central to his work for a decade, this isn’t new territory. Then again, his Eighties fans shouldn’t quibble.

Lambchop leader Kurt Wagner has suggested that the title of this album is semi literal: that he wanted to write “something akin” to classic, Great American Songbook show tunes, rather than his usual country-tinged style. If so, it’s for a rather gloomy sort of a show.

Things got out of hand at theartsdesk on Vinyl this month and these reviews run to 10,000 words. That's around a fifth of The Great Gatsby. It's because there's so much good music that deserves the words, from jazz to metal to pure electronic strangeness.

 “A complete fully translated and transcribed Obsidian Rock Audio Anthology chronicling the ancient spiritual technologies and exploits of prehistoric, post-revolutionary afro bionics and sacred texts from The Great Book On Arcanum by Supernal 5th Dimension Bound 3rd Dynasty young Kushites from Azania.”

With the Spiral Scratch EP, Buzzcocks became the first British band of the punk rock era to issue a do-it-yourself seven-inch. Everything was organised and paid for by the band: the recording session, the manufacture of the record and its sleeve, its design. It hit shops in January 1977.

It won’t be long now before concert halls and back rooms, arts centres and festival grounds fill with people again, and live music, undistanced, unmasked, and in your face, comes back to us. In expectation of this gradual reopening of the stage doors of perception, this round-up of recent, new and forthcoming music books surveys an artist roster disparate enough to grace the finest of festival bills.

With all eyes on her in 2018, Jorja Smith’s debut was surprisingly level-headed and mature, filled with the introspection and storytelling of someone twice her age. This new, slender eight-track project feels like a stepping stone in her career rather than a follow up to her acclaimed debut. That being said, it’s a fine collection of songs which finds Jorja in a more world-weary and sombre head space than ever before.

“The Changingman” came to sound a little rich in the years after it introduced Stanley Road, as Weller settled into a style which grew atrophied enough to define “Dadrock”.