It wouldn't be like us to recommend anything on JD Twitch's Optimo Music anything less than wholeheartedly, and that's not changing this month. The first in a projected series of eight records exploring the symbols of the I-Ching from Glasgow electronic composer Iona Fortune's Tao of I (★★★★☆, Optimo Music) is a striking and endlessly explorable record, rich in instrumental ambient menace and the singular sound of Asian instruments like the gamelan and the guzheng. Also memorably distinctive, but of a much different tone, is Offgrid/Offline (★★★★☆, Mute), the fifth album in two decades from Looper, married couple Stuart (formerly of Belle & Sebastian) and Karn David. It's a gorgeously understated set of piano-led indie-pop chamber storytelling; often literally so from Stuart, whose soft voice occasionally diverts from song into pensive spoken word.

Pronto Mama's debut album Any Joy (Electric Honey, ★★★★☆) – premiered upon release by this very publication – is a lively and full-blooded affair which fuses the rattling indie-punk of 'Double-Speak' with the horn-led blue-eyed soul of 'All Your Insides' and the mournful balladry of 'Bennie' and 'Memory Song'. It's a diverse and well-crafted calling card from the young Glasgow group.

Individually raised in Aberdeen, Stirling and Santiago, Chile, Lush Purr are a Glasgow band signed to an Edinburgh label. They're also very good, although not in an obviously accessible way, shrouding the glowing pop hooks of their debut album Cuckoo Waltz (★★★★☆, Song, By Toad) beneath a fog of lo-fi production which lends the vocals, in particular, a faraway air. Yet there's something distinctive and addictive about a band who sound like The Vaselines gone shoegaze.

The solo project of Edinburgh's Andy Thomson and friends, Fuzzystar is a far more straightforward form of indie rock, a creditable collection of powerful, radio-friendly choral lines, chiming guitar hooks and Thomson's rich, rootsy vocal. The ten songs on Telegraphing (★★★☆☆, Satellite Sounds) are all very similar in tone, the odd ballad or the closing crescendo of 'High Friends' aside, but this is a crafted collection which should appeal strongly to fans of Frightened Rabbit or Fatherson.

It's a busy month for good albums from these parts, and Into the Light (★★★☆☆, Last Night From Glasgow) by Medicine Men is another we'd recommend, although maybe we can be forgiven for wishing the old-fashioned Balearic beats of instrumental opener 'A La Llum' had seen more service throughout. But singer and guitarist Ian Mackinnon is also a songwriter of distinction, creating arch lyrical tableau with rabbit-punching hooks and wistful storytelling tableaus, alongside a shiny, synthesiser-led backdrop. More joyful than we might expect a record born out of grief at his father's death to be, it condenses a particularly retro set of Glaswegian sounds, from Postcard Records to the blue-eyed soul movement.

There are also a bunch of interesting individual tracks being issued in May, although space dictates we only pick a few to highlight. There's a lot of promise in 'Go' by Glasgow's Apache Darling, for example, which sets Stefanie Lawrence's dramatic vocal against an icily epic synth backdrop; think Chvrches, but more mainstream. Also showing strong is 'Futuramayana' by Raza, a frantic instrumental built around Atari pop synths and Latin rhythms; the joyously raw and uncompromising 'Babyboomers' by Glasgow's Joanna Gruesome and Rapid Tan offshoot Breakfast Muff; new Song, By Toad signee Siobhan Wilson's churning, atmospheric 'Whatever Helps'; and 'Do You Say Hello to Your Neighbours?' by Lost Map's Savage Mansion, an arch and pleasant guitar jangle with a hint of Teenage Fanclub and Modern Lovers about it.