Filled with stories, history, myth, trade, and conflict, these potent stretches of water sometimes connect two seas or basins, continents, cultures and east and west, and are filled with danger. So how does song capture these many passages, channels and sounds?

Famous classical composers to a certain theoretic physicist, as well as a wealth of unusual skilled people, this week guest Loud Atlas takes a sparklingly talented turn picking playlists from from the latest topic and song nominations

It’s unlucky for some, but for some, it’s the opposite. And fortunately it also inspired a wealth of song ideas and context in last week’s topic, boiling down to truly different and entertaining playlists picked by guest tincanman

Cultural counting as a figure of superstition and bad luck, it can also have other associations, but whether number, name, place, amount, date, age or more, this week it’s time find your significant thirteens in song as we head through a new Friday 13th

New album: The Glasgow indie rockers fronted by vocalist James Graham and guitarist Andy MacFarlane return with a tempestuous, highly emotional and moving sixth LP, their first for seven years, with musical input from The Cure’s Robert Smith, fuelled by the illness and passing of Graham’s mother and his subsequent mental health struggles

New album: The Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist returns after a five-year gap to bring more of her witty, indie-country-rock, but with a bittersweet flavour, and an emotionally resonant record that explores change and the central question: how to get out of your own way so you can truly feel your life

New album: Beautifully crafted but effortlessly performed, a wonderful release of delicious, classy, smooth and smoky soul, jazz and RnB by the London singer-songwriter who has vocal and stylistic qualities reminiscent of Erykah Badu and Sade

New album: A gorgeous, delicate debut folk LP by the Dublin-based singer-songwriter from County Meath with an exquisite voice, not unlike that of Joni Mitchell, that hovers and rises with expressive control, with themes of memory, grief, desire, and self-reckoning

New album: Following 2023’s Time’s Arrow, the Liverpool synth-pop band fronted by Helen Marnie, now a trio, return with substantial 16-track eighth LP that combines simplicity of chord progressions with rich textures, styles retro and futuristic with classic, catchy pop melodies

Song of the Day: Beautiful, reflective, uplifting alternative folk with banjo, guitar, flute and more by the Wexford Irish twin brothers Brandon and Ashley Watson, from their new five-track EP, Revisions, a mix of new and re-worked, re-recorded numbers

Song of the Day: A stylish, eclectic, cross-genre single from the late, great, legendary Jamaican producer and performer’s ongoing legacy, heralding his last official album - the project in Berlin with electronic pioneers Mouse on Mars (aka Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma) and the LP - Spatial, No Problem on on 5 June via Domino Records

Song of the Day: Following last October’s album All Systems Are Lying, Belgium’s Dewaele brothers David and Stephen return with a vibrant electro-pop dance standalone single with droll lyrics, from their recent Abbey Road After Hours project which included a live event at the iconic London studio

Song of the Day: Bright, uplifting, singalong, big sound pop in this welcome return from the enigmatic Swedish singer-songwriter and model, heralding her upcoming new album The Afterparty, out on 8 May via Futures Music Group

Song of the Day: Violently sensual, truly alternative and viscerally arresting experimental noise/ industrial rock with guitar sounds unlike any other band, all conjured up by the Brooklyn quartet from their new EP Swan Songs out on Dirty Hit Records