Championed by the likes of John Peel and Steve Lamacq back in the late 1990s, Jesse Hartman makes an unexpected but very welcome return with his synthpop alter ego Laptop – all thanks to a Vince Clarke and Neil Arthur cover version

In 1992, Canadian sound artist Michael Brook recorded ‘Cobalt Blue’ and ‘Live At The Aquarium’. As these immersive world music albums are reissued by 4AD, he looks back fondly on a fertile creative period spent working with Brian Eno, the “Infinite Guitar” and a tank filled with hungry sharks

Pop production heavyweights Jim Eliot and Pascal Gabriel find a new creative freedom as ace analogue synthpop duo The Peace Race

Once upon a time, audio tape was so ubiquitous that most households had enough of the stuff to wrap around several football pitches. Now it’s an obsolete curio of a sonically explosive era. Loop back with us as we follow the Möbius strip of sound itself from Victorian Paris to a vast subterranean maze