You don’t have to read too deeply into the record to get that impression, either. Even by the second track, the band has made the record’s theme clear: masculinity is fake. “Big Cat” and “Tough Guy” are two songs on the same thematic idea, working through the idea of the ridiculousness of masculinity one small step at a time.

More notable, though, is the music. Whether the album is thematically and conceptually sound is almost a side point when the music is so interesting. Few songs sound the same; Wild Beasts truly experiment here. “Big Cat” and “Tough Guy” sound totally different, as does “Alpha Female”. And each track could be considered a favourite; the quality doesn’t dip.

What’s interesting, at least to me, is the way that the guitars and the synths and electronics all blend. The way Trent Reznor used to marry electronics to his drum beats on Nine Inch Nails feels coyly copied on Boy King; the drums carry the record forward and push it into another stratosphere (check out “Get My Bang”). But yet, the electronics don’t feel synthetic. The guitars and the electronics are married, not unlike OK Computer or Kid A.

Perhaps the point is that masculinity never feels inauthentic, and the electronics are part of the album’s theme on the plasticity of male behaviour and alpha dominance. Even when the album leans towards electronic sounds on tracks like “2BU” (which strongly reminds me of Petite Noir), it feels like the band is being authentic to the point of being outrageous — or perhaps vice versa.

This musical building of sounds, though, makes the album feel almost surreal. It’s as if Boy King is a study of masculinity, immaturity, and excess — veiled through a study of art rock as a genre. The pinnacle of the record comes on “Celestial Creatures”, when Hayden Thorpe sings: “We are celestial creatures.” The surrounding music builds, rock music is deconstructed and put back together with electronic noise, and it feels like he’s telling the truth.

With Boy King, Wild Beasts pull out all the punches: they deconstruct their own music and put the pieces back together, arriving at an altogether different conclusion of what rock should look like in 2016. But they also deconstruct themselves and their genres and their meaning and find ways to marry music to theme. Boy King is one of the year’s most exhilarating records.

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It doesn’t take long for The Comet Is Coming to begin to deliver on their promises of unique jazz. “Space Carnival”, the album’s second track, feels almost like a dance track — with moments that feel lifted from dance and electronic records, it certainly doesn’t sound like the jazz of old.

I don’t think that’s a problem, though. You can hear in their stylings that The Comet Is Coming has a reverence for what came before. The way they handle time signatures and solos, as well as the large batch of musical ideas that may be in one song, speak to their understanding of jazz’s heritage and its creativity.

That’s not to say that the group is never recognizable as a jazz outfit. On tracks like “Journey Through the Asteroid Belt”, they wear their label proudly — even if they’re mixing it with a percussion setup that would make most DJs jealous. “Slam Dunk in a Black Hole” understands the weird side of jazz that Miles Davis explored on Bitches’ Brew, but mixes it with a techno-inspired backbeat that somehow makes the whole thing feel modern and contextual for our times.

And, of course, the solos throughout this album are amazing. The group is made up of three guys, if you aren’t familiar, and each are gifted at what they do. It’s worth mentioning their names — they’re treasures in and of themselves: “Danalogue the Conequeror” is their synthesizer. “Betamax Killer” plays drums. “King Shabaka” is the saxophonist. All three are impeccably talented. It’s hard to believe Danalogue the Conqueror is handling synth duties solo, and the sounds King Shabaka gets out of his sax are incredible.

Tracks like “Cosmic Dust” make it clear this isn’t the first record you’d want to show to your friends who are merely interested in jazz, though. This record is for people who are interested in concepts. This is jazz for fans of psychedelic music — or vice versa.

“Channel the Spirits”, the album’s titular track, sounds like a jazz track played overtop of a pummelling rock riff. It’s the fully-fleshed equivalent of a Mastodon record on mushrooms. (It’s also my favourite track on the record.) The album is all over the map, but conceptually, it’s all bound together by an idea.

I think the idea is simple: jazz still has new places to explore, new cosmos to go. The comet may be coming, and when it hits, it might wipe out jazz as we know it. But the genre is beginning its formation into something new.

The Comet is Coming’s debut record is an unmissable delight for fans of challenging, complex music that plays with form and challenges the identity of genre. The band has earned a new fan in me, and I look forward to spending much more time with their music over upcoming years.

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At this point in any artist’s career, it’s always astounding they have anything new to say at all. But with Family Tree, Auldist is doing more than finding something new to say: she’s reinventing herself.

While she’s known for her work as a soul and funk singer, Family Tree takes her down the path of 80s disco, channeling both Michael Jackson and Chromeo throughout eleven fantastically strong songs. And her voice sounds more powerful than it ever has; she’s forced herself to rise above the synths and noise of disco without ever losing her tone.

“Too Easy” is a fantastic example of this: her voice howls over the backing track during the verse. She finds a commanding vocal tone even though she’s competing with disco’s intense backing beat.

But the real focus on this record isn’t the new sound or Auldist’s fantastic voice. If there’s any one thing Kylie does throughout the record, it’s reflect on how lucky she’s been. She spends the record looking back, thanking people, and inaugurating her peers and friends as the family that kept her going. In that sense, the record is about her career — a retrospective that looks back as it carves ahead.

In that sense, the record may be disco (Apple Music calls it “Australian disco,” whatever that means), but it’s purely celebratory. Auldist picked a genre that reflected the theme she wanted the record to be. It’s meant for dancing — it’s celebration music!

It’s also not as if she ditched her roots entirely. Much of Family Tree is steeped in funk. “Waste of Time” feels much more like a funk track than a disco track, as do “Rewards” and “No Change”.

But what each track has in common is an undeniable sense of groove. Family Tree is no masterpiece, but it’s a heckuva lotta fun.

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The first minute and a half sounds nearly Hitchcockian, in a sort of terrifying way, where the all-saxophone jazz ensemble brings out all the discordant stops. The second half is the deconstruction of its first, where everything the first half completes is undone and left blowing in the wind, powerless after a single saxophone innocently renders it into fearless noise.

To put it simply, Tokyo-chutei-iki doesn’t care about what your preconceptions are about jazz. They forge their own paths on The Last Baritonik, with a playful nature that captures the improv the genre is known for. The band is made up of thirteen saxophone players (although I think they had ten at one point), with no other supporting elements.

The opening track is as joyful as jazz gets: “One Hundred Fingers” is a celebration of the genre, a cheerful burst of solos that’s the musical equivalent of a menagerie. It doesn’t take long to understand the fascination of what could easily be a novelty act: saxophones are both musical and rhythmic, capable of carrying a melody and a beat. And because they carry such a wide tone of sounds, saxophones are also easily able to be distinguishable from one another when the need occurs.

Saxophones also, of course, lend a visceral and playful nature to the music. “The Room of Iron Frame” dodges back and forth between noises that frighten and noises that play in an intoxicating mix that feels like multiple musical set pieces in a jazz opera. It’s thoroughly unconventional and surprising, never settling to be comfortable or comparable to anything we’re already intimately familiar with.

This level of ingenuity speaks to what makes Tokyo-chutei-iki so important to jazz as a genre right now: they might understand where the genre has been (and I’d argue their reliance on saxophones makes that clear), but their astute understanding of classical composition and disregard for jazz practice makes them more jazz-like than most of their contemporaries.

Jazz has shed its original clothing to become less married to specific time signatures or dances and more married to experimentation as art. And The Last Baritonik is definitely that. Tracks like “It is Soroso Spring”, complete with Japanese vocal work, feel like they belong in a post-modern opera.

When a single track is clearly influenced by Baroque-period classical, Miles Davis, and The Beatles, you know you’ve stumbled onto a sound that is inherently unique.

The Last Baritonik is a complete surprise and utterly imbibes jazz’s experimental soul. Tokyo-chutei-iki are, without a doubt, one of the genre’s most important flag-bearers right now.

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“Church on Sunday”, the album’s first track, offers a sound that feels more like the rest of the record. Grace’s Amy Winehouse-inspired vocal moments shine here, revealing the new singer’s prowess, natural ability, and ambition. It’s also a catchy track.

Grace Sewell’s first record is impressive — and not the least because she’s only nineteen years old. In a lot of ways, it’s a reminder of Adelle’s earliest records (made when she was also nineteen): the inspirations are clear, but so is Grace’s future as an individual. “Hell of a Girl” is familiar, but its bridge dares to become something else. “Hope You Understand” is mixes soul, pop, and R&B influences with aplomb, but Grace’s voice is singular here.

Similarly, I’ve heard music like “Coffee” before — the coffeehouse song from so many aspiring musicians. But Grace’s effortless performance and ability to subtly build vocal elements throughout the track speaks wonders about a future where she’s less constrained by the music she’s grown up with and becomes an identity to herself. These tracks all hint at it.

But most importantly, Grace’s debut is effortless. Like Adelle and Winehouse, Grace makes it sound so easy — as if it’s easy for her. Tracks that rely almost entirely on vocal tricks — like “New Orleans” — sound as if Grace could sing them in her sleep.

As a result, FMA becomes magical. It’s an album most vocal performers dream of — a debut that captures the magic of youth and raw inspiration and influence as it’s all mixing in a bottle. Without a doubt, FMA is the beginning of something special.

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