New Zealand artist Aldous Harding makes unfathomable and wonderful music which is impossible to second-guess. Her songs can fall into so many categories, such as soul, dream pop and avant-folk, all while transcending them. It’s a delight for listeners, baffling for musical gatekeepers, who will invariably cite other female musicians alongside her. Essentially, Harding is her own specific niche, like the trailblazers she’s compared to. She inhabits her own unique cosmos.

Her fifth studio album, with longtime co-producer John Parish, continues along this beguiling trajectory. ‘I Ate The Most’ all choppy and elliptical folk, will have listeners wondering if lyrics about sustenance and vomit are apocryphal or autobiographical: “There’s heavy, then there’s heavier”, she sings.

So too, her many singing styles change with every mood and story. She sings in a sweeter, higher register with Welsh musician H. Hawkline on the duet ‘Venus In the Zinnia’ despite the undercutting by squalling, psychedelic guitar. There’s a lower, more conversational tone on the country almost-ballad ‘Worms’.

If there’s any acknowledgement of influence to be found, it’s a reference to John Cale on the dreamy ‘One Stop’. She sings of meeting him in real life, adding, “I was packing the stage/he was eating rice”. It’s a typically wry line.

Then ‘Coats’ has childlike vocals double tracked with adult ones, creating a woozy, awkward effect. It’s almost like a companion piece to the 2017 breakout single ‘Imagining My Man’ with its staccato bursts of “hey!” from a bizarre children’s choir.

There are few around who take such an experimental approach to songs, and we’re lucky to have her. She’s a wonder.