Improvisations is probably easier to enjoy, with the extended format offering a more broadly sympathetic palette for Osborne's forbiddingly austere aesthetic.

Warts and all, this is one of the strongest albums in Wiley's already impressive catalog.

Perhaps keen to avoid their one-hit wonder status, follow-up Future This eschews their original experimental ambitions by shamelessly attempting to repeat its success.

Habits & Contradictions, the album, lives up to its title, which could throw some, but the complicated rapper always seems to convert more than he scares away, and you can blame his keen, exciting, risk-taking, vintage-styled, and deep set of skills for that.

His songs are delicate but strong, faint yet persistent, and have a deep, almost inexplicable emotional pull.

Samson's words are the star of the show, and their ornate depictions of rural Canada, soft romantic devotion and computer programming make Provincial a quietly beautiful experience.

A subtle but confident change in direction, Have Some Faith in Magic suggests Mogwai better start looking over their shoulders.

For the most part, A Flash Flood of Colour revels in a unique, organized chaos, and while it's a demanding and often exhausting listen, it's a call to arms which the flagging U.K. guitar band scene could do with more of.

This is a beautiful and loving tribute to one of jazz music's great tragic genuises.

Adhering to such a limited arsenal can sometimes feel like the material was cut with a full band, then mixed down to just guitars and vocals, but Underwood and Costelloe manage to fill in the empty spaces with sheer charm.

Those only aware of Pepe Deluxé through their Levi-assisted one-hit wonder won't know what hit them, but fans who have continued to keep up with their abstract brand of electronica should enjoy most of the ride.

Surprising as it may be, coming from masters of the quick-cut DJ collage, The Search Engine is a journey worth taking from beginning to end, uninterrupted.

Those who shudder at the thought of a Dawson's Creek soundtrack should steer well clear, but loved-up fans of good old-fashioned singer/songwriter pop will find plenty to enjoy here.

One of the most impressive aspects of the whole endeavor is the fact that a bunch of South Carolina musicians were able to spiritually transport themselves so definitively to a Southern California state of mind.

Patience (After Sebald) succeeds as beautifully evocative music to accompany the documentary, as another distinctive entry in Kirby's Caretaker discography and as an inspired blending of different works that makes its own statement.

I Will Set You Free is the sound of Adamson's liberation as a songwriter, producer, and arranger.

The Russian Wilds is Howlin Rain's most accessible recording, but enormous ambition and musical mastery of rock & roll's mighty past make it an essential one, too.

Arrow is a brave and powerful work from an artist who isn't about to give up on her vision, regardless of where it takes her.

It's not a deep, demanding album, but it is a pleasant, often charming listen.

Tennis are making some of the best pop music around in 2012, and that's plenty good enough.

Dense, powerful, wild, yet immaculately rendered, Animal Joy blends the expansive, cinematic scope of contemporaries like Other Lives and the National with the arty drama of "San Jacinto"-era Peter Gabriel.

Even when Wire focuses on their not-so-classic material, they sound great in a live environment.

It's a much more focused and intriguing follow-up that may provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the guitar-bass-drums three-piece formula.

This is a worthy follow-up to its predecessor and, for all of its melodic sheen, darker and moodier.

Anyone with a little distance from their own pain will find much to admire in the honesty and craft of the album.

The third outing from the Punch Brothers picks up right where 2010's Antifogmatic left off, offering up another quality set of offbeat sophisti-grass that blends the whirlwind musicianship of Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, the spirited delivery of the Louvin Brothers, and the cinematic urban melancholy of Jeff Buckley into a sometimes impenetrable but always fascinating.

The Bats have managed to maintain a ridiculously high level of quality throughout their career, and Free All the Monsters is as good a record as they've ever made.

The whole is a portrait of a collective creative spirit that sounds as unsettled and fascinating as when the original recordings were made.