One of my favourite albums from this year is The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake. I have recently discovered the joy of NPR music and, in particular, World Café. Midlake were in performance early in September and they did three wonderful live versions of Roscoe, Van Occupanther and Head Home. I hadn’t realised the album was a concept album (I was still in the “oh what a lovely sound” stage and hadn’t read the lyrics) but luckily they don’t produce a folk-rock Tommy but is more like Aimee Mann’s The Forgotten Arm.