Probably Scott Walker’s first real masterpiece as a solo artist, Scott 3 begins with the incredible ‘It’s Raining Today’, a song ushered in by micropolyphonic orchestrations serving as a wonderfully left-of-centre backdrop to that impossibly characterful voice.

This was how Walker announced his departure from the showboating and fancies of his prior solo efforts. If Gyorgi Ligeti had been in a boy band during his youth perhaps he’d have come up with something like this too. While Scott 3 isn’t quite finished with the Jacques Brel songbook (the final three pieces are written by the French singer), Walker’s own material takes a central role on Scott 3, and of course, that’s to the album’s great benefit. Some criticisms have been levelled at Wally Scott’s outlandish, cinematic orchestral arrangements for their incongruity with the intensely introspective lyrical content, but Walker’s voice more than holds its own and a beautiful, poetic darkness seeps through the production.

There’s some dispute as to whether Scott 3 or Scott 4 is the finest of Walker’s albums from this period, but certainly, both are absolute classics.