Continuum

For their seventh album, Singapore-based art-rockers The Observatory, most of whom are graduates of various 90s bands, have combined guitars, drums and electronics with specially commissioned bronze percussion instruments based on the Balinese gamelan. It's still very much a rock sound – the six mostly instrumental tracks create a doomy mood, with tinges of industrial and Krautrock music. If ever a soundtrack is required for a manga funeral, this would fit the bill. But the gamelan elements open up the music in interesting ways, creating new possibilities in well-explored sonic territory.

The sound that opens ‘Part 3’, which brings to mind an archer steadily piercing a large bell with impossibly sharp, metal-tipped arrows, is alone enough to justify this quirky and fascinating album's existence.