Following Lanegan’s passing in February, Garwood delivers a fittingly smouldering tribute to his friend and co-conspirator at the conclusion of this seventh solo outing, called Lion on Ice, eulogising him as “like a satellite that fell too soon”, and forlornly concluding that “we’re all lost in the game”. If that sounds a tad bleak for the run-up to Christmas, it cannot be overstated how much warmth, vitality and, frankly, sexiness there is to Garwood’s uniquely simmering take on the blues idiom. He talks of the process of making Rogues Gospel, mid-pandemic alongside his drummer Paul May, “in a heat-soaked fever dream […] to save ourselves from insanity, to invite the angels in.” Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.

On Shining, a striking collaboration with avant-pop emcee Tommy Genesis, the results are staggering, as drill is mixed with orchestral and a howling violin is chopped up so it sounds like someone unloading the clip of a machine gun. The experimentation also shines through on Cascades, which is like DJ Premier if he showed up at the ballet, and Careful What You Wish For, where eccentric Detroit spitter Danny Brown spits about his journey from walking bare feet in the street to becoming Kingly, amid flourishes of invention that channel everything from Mozart to Yusef Lateef and Shabazz Palaces. When in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services. At its best, this merging of sounds results in a cinematic atmosphere that sits somewhere between grandiose and rooted in the gutter (see Xzibit’s Paparazzi), but simply throwing together string quartets and 808 drums can also sound trite and sanctimonious if it’s done without meaning and just for the hell of it (yeah, Coolio’s C U When You Get There hasn’t aged too great).The engineering: pure voices are forward along with LB’s guitar AND drums. Most songs are stripped bare of orchestral overdubs ... and showcase just what a BRILLIANT collection of songs these are. Who else could deliver traditional and outlaw country tunes like “If You’ve Got the Money Honey I’ve Got the Time,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” and “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line” and in the same show tap the Great American Songbook for beautifully rendered performances of songs like Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish’s “Stardust” and Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”? There’s only one Willie. Whether it’s Mike Jones sampling Rossini for a seminal trap song about sex or Nas reinterpreting German composer Carl Orff’s menacing yet triumphant Carmina Burana for a street smash about irritating one’s haters, there’s plenty of examples of hip hop and classical music coming together as one. This draw is conducted in a secure enivironment selecting an identifier which can not be used to access your account and the data is deleted as soon as the draw has been conducted.

After a brief period of credibility in the early 2000’s around The White Stripes’ ascent, precious few blues desperados wander the pop landscape these days. On our shores, south London’s Duke Garwood has carved out a singular voice in isolation, his smoky, nocturnal sound and quietly intense purr mesmerizing a cult listenership across six long-players, the last two for hipster label, Heavenly Recordings.

This is a quandary that the group isomonstrosity (a collaborative project between artists and musicians Ellen Reid, Johan Lenox, and Yuga Cohler) mostly overcome on their ambitious debut album, which seems determined to cement the links between these two very different musical worlds. This was the year where the erstwhile David Jones, after various try-outs as a mod-popster, a West End stage songsmith and a hippie folkie, blossomed into the David Bowie that the world came to adore, possessed of playful postmodernism, gender fluidity and outlandish wardrobe. At least there’s a large catalog of recorded material to remind us of just how potent a force this band could be. It includes not only a long list of studio and live albums, but a ton of alternate takes, versions, and mixes, as well as demos and rehearsal recordings.

For casual listeners, the original albums should suffice. Serious fans, though, will find The Alternate Collection fascinating. But this whirlwind of ideas and genres can also sometimes make you feel a little dizzy, with Wake Up (which features Chicago conscious rapper Vic Mensa) all over the place in terms of its execution and ultimately what it is trying to say. Though all relied on a blueprint of toe-curling schmaltz and earnest Christian fervour, Richard was a British institution by then anyway. He scored his first hit in 1958 and went on to be the UK’s squeaky-clean answer to Elvis Presley. The fans who first fell for his quiff and wholesome good looks are as devoted as ever to this day, and Richard is still the only artist in the world to score top five albums in eight consecutive decades. The limelight-dodging, careerism-averse 53-year-old cut a further pair in the mid-’10s with a Transatlantic kindred spirit, Mark Lanegan, the sometime grunge hero who shared his penchant for rootsy, if ever exploratory mood music.

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Disc Two’s BBC In Concert from June 1971 heralds, as MC John Peel drily observes, the arrival of a new ensemble, fronted by Ronson – soon be renamed The Spiders from Mars for the following year’s Ziggy Stardust album, which, incredibly, was being written concurrently – along with a circus of bohemian hangers-on, one of whom, Dana Gillespie, sings the newly minted Andy Warhol. Is it even Christmas if you don’t hear a Cliff Richard song? Long before Michael Bublé ruled December, Richard was already the unofficial king of the festive chart, with three Christmas number one’s including Mistletoe and Wine to his name.