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Starting the year on a wacky note is Sara Hausenkamp’s new album, Att Lämna Tellus or leaving Tellus as you doubtless translated it from the original foreign.

Hausenkamp is Swedish and learned classical guitar as a child before playing keyboard in different bands as teenager. She also makes illustrations, collages and photos, and writes, paints and produces fanzines. She studied at the school of Comic Art in Malmö.

This project, 55 Cancri e, is named after a planet of the same name (abbreviated 55 Cnc e), which orbits a Sun-like host star, 55 Cancri A.

It was the first super-Earth discovered around a main sequence star, and could be a carbon planet.

(The planet is now named after Zacharias Janssen [1585-1632 or so], a Dutch spectacle-maker from Middelburg associated with the invention of the first optical telescope. Perhaps Hausenkamp’s next album will be called Janssen).

Musically, it’s ambient stuff that’s meant to emanate from outer space. It’s a cut above your garden centre New Age music though, having a definite pop feel, and features guitars, synthesizers, flutes, and mellow vocals (not really singing; it’s a bit Clannad in that respect).

Thanks to the beeps and boops it’s never predictable and it’s quite filmic — Att lämna Tellus I (Öknen) could be a scene from a western, as Nick Cave (obviously) wanders across a desert watched by hungry vultures, while Att Lämna Tellus III (Kvällen) is similar but has more intricate acoustic guitar playing.

Försent (too late) is almost a pop tune, Alltid du (always you) sounds like music from the Clangers’ planet; closer 55 Cancri e II is the most beepity boopy, outer space song, though it’s also one of the standouts, suggesting the infinite vastness of space.

The songs have titles one might expect from a dreamy CD set in space, with the exception of Rävjakt (fox hunting).

They’re all pretty similar but try 55 Cancri e I (we ran away) or 55 Cancri e II.

Bleep boop.