Nicolas Godin – Contrepont

Quite mad and all the better for it, the solo debut from the Air man is a dizzying journey down the rabbit hole of his crazed imagination. Contrepont plays with the notion of musical counterpoint (the complex art of combining independent melodic lines), adds a piece of music by Johann Sebastian Bach to the foundation of each of its eight tracks, and emerges as a collection of elegant, genre-mashing pop.

Along for the ride: Connan Mockasin, Brazil's Marcelo Camelo, and co-writer and Bach specialist Vincent Taurellle. It's a wayward conceit that might just flop in less capable hands but Contrepont is never less than self-effacing: weighty but great fun throughout. It's a soulful work whose deep heritage and classical leanings are a bracing remove from Godin's largely electronic history. In other words, don’t be afraid: its Bach is worse than its byte.