British folk rarely sounded as unsettling as this. Comus’s First Utterance is a record that still unnerves more than fifty years after its release.

Released quietly in 1986, Wind grew into a classic long after the fact. Gigi Masin’s blend of melody and atmosphere remains one of ambient music’s most enduring statements.

The melodica was not meant to lead a dub record, until Augustus Pablo made it so. East of the River Nile turned a simple instrument into the voice of spiritual reggae.

A debut that sounds more like a declaration than an introduction. Akiko Yano’s Japanese Girl captures the spirit of an artist already unwilling to follow any path but her own.

Dub was never meant to stay still, and African Head Charge proved it. Environmental Studies takes the form apart and rebuilds it into something stranger, heavier and entirely its own.

Andy Cartwright, the musician behind Seabuckthorn, has been building his own corner of the experimental landscape for more than a decade. His work has always been centred on the guitar, but never in a conventional sense.