A collection of his favourite songs of freedom: Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” sits alongside hits from Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton and the Beatles, whose “Eleanor Rigby” and “Come Together” frame the album. The French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyên Lê proves, like no other musician, that globalisation doesn’t always have to mean cultural homogenisation but that it can also create something new with its own quality. Since he became the first exclusive ACT artist in 1993, after “Jazzpana”, he has developed, fully in the sense of the equally cosmopolitan thinking label founder Siggi Loch, to become a great ‘music ethnologist’ in jazz.

Until now his name has been mainly associated with Trio Töykeät, one of the wildest, funniest and most visionary piano trios in the international jazz scene. Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala explored all possibilities of this classic line up – sometimes the ferocious player with boundless energy, other times the sensitive romantic or burlesque joker. His playing exceeded stylistic boundaries and was as uncompromising as it was entertaining, yet was always held together by the combination of limitless technique, a sense of humour and unmistakable good taste - qualities which Rantala preserved even after he dissolved Trio Töykeät in 2006. “My goodness! We’ve been doing this for 18 years now and given thousands of concerts. It’s time for a break,” he said at the time, choosing to concentrate on “Iiro at large” – his own show on Finnish television which can still be seen today – and his solo career.

While Make Way For Love draws on Marlon’s own story, it captures the vagaries of relationships we’ve all been through: the bliss, ache, uncertainty, and bitterness. Like the best breakup records, 'Make Way For Love' doesn’t shy away from heartbreak, but rather stares it in the face, and mines beauty from it. Delicate and bold, tender and searing, it’s a mightily personal new step. Make Way For Love was recorded with producer Noah Georgeson and his backing band, The Yarra Benders, in North California’s Panoramic Studios after several weeks of pre-production in his native Lyttelton with regular collaborator Ben Edwards. The finished result moves Marlon several paces from “country” the genre that’s been affixed to him more than any in recent years, but one that’s always been a bit too reductive to be wholly accurate with forays into cinematic strings, reverb, rollicking guitar and at least one quiet piano ballad, on his most expansive work to date.

German Jazz has brought forth only a few international stars. Vibraphonist Wolfgang Schlüter even managed to make it into the Downbeat Critics Poll. A rock of ages in the history of German Jazz, a gem “in which nearly all of the vibraphonists glimmer and shine” (M.Naura) Among his major influences you can hear Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson but to dismiss him as a King of Swing would only throw light on a partial aspect of his artistic repertoire, because there’s no doubt that he is among the key talents on his instrument in Europe and that he contributed substantially to how playing the vibes has developed over the years.

“I love being in this band, we just have the most fun together. Writing Ruthless is what writing an album should feel like, in my opinion," frontman Brandon Robbins tells. "It was extremely cathartic and spiritual, but also strange and uncomfortable. I think comfort can be a hindrance to the writing process. It’s important to push yourself, to push the boundaries at least a little bit." On bitingly honest tracks such as "Beautful Couch" and "The New Great Depression," TMTF are able to articulate the complexities of mental health (sample lyric: "the monster in my head is ruthless"). Lighter tracks are still tinged in darkness, as the band employs distorted synths and pulsing beats alongside melodic vocals. This is an album that does not live in either extreme, instead choosing to venture into the murky reality of the human mind.

Yevgeny Sudbin has previously recorded Beethoven’s piano concertos – releases which have received international acclaim, for instance on the website ClassicsToday.com: ‘A Beethoven experience you will not want to miss.’ For his first disc featuring solo works by Beethoven, Sudbin has chosen the two final sonatas and the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 – late works written between 1821 and 1824, just a couple of years before the composer’s death. There are numerous anecdotes that testify to the fact that Beethoven was highly temperamental. But in his liner notes to this disc, Sudbin writes of another, contrasting side to the composer: ‘warmth, generosity and wisdom – with unexpected outbursts of cheeky humour – are also unmistakably among Beethoven’s qualities and particularly evident in the works on this recording’.

Ever feel like bands peddling soaring, epic pop just pass you by like buses in a big city? You hop on, you hop off and you don’t give much thought to where they’re going next. Well, Only Yours is one bus that you should definitely be catching. In fact, if you can bear to keep running alongside the clumsy public transport metaphor, Overrun is a record you simply must not miss. The Canadian quartet are fronted by songwriter/vocalist Lowell Sostomi who, with a delivery that is equal parts Chris Martin and Phil Oakey, charms and disarms with opener ‘Doubts’, its chorus confessing “you were right/to have your doubts/I let you down/this time”. The song marks out the band’s sonic territory: a marriage of glistening 80s keyboards, Edge guitars and contemporary, charging drums.

Where The Fence is the Highest is the two suite full-length debut album of Danish guitarist Teis Semey. Featuring two bands of natural-born improvisers, it’s a tight vortex of musicianship, virtuosity and story-telling. Through these two suites this CD tells compelling and diverse stories that moves and stays with you.

Robyn may be an international pop star, but she hasn't forsaken the more underground (or unlikely) artists she’s befriended and admired over the years. She’s collaborated with The Knife, Teddybears STHLM, and Snoop Dogg, to name a few, and her old pals Röyksopp make especially fine musical partners. Her pop-flavored EDM energy combines effortlessly with Röyksopp's more downbeat, mood-inducing style. That's apparent from the get-go on “Monument,” a tune that starts with a comfortable heartbeat wrapped in a samba, only to slowly morph into an ultra-mellow, warmly hissing synth note that keeps time for a slithering saxophone. It’s 10 minutes of bliss, kept alive at times by the sparest layering of percussion and synth whispers, and it’s sublime.