Duelling forces are wonderfully rendered in the sound palette that Sampha has pulled together here, with production assistance from El Guincho on a number of tracks. The presence of myriad other talents including Yussef Dayes, Yaeji, Laura Groves, black midi’s Morgan Simpson – to name just a few – emphasises the album’s underlying theme of communality.

YTILAER finds Callahan at his most personally enigmatic, taking inspiration from his own life and filtering those experiences through a prism of modern folktales. He offers us all the most enticing details but manages to keep it wonderfully vague at the same time, a treasure trove of musical obscurantism.

Even if GNX may be regarded as a “lesser” entry in Lamar’s mighty catalogue by many (if there even is such a thing as “lesser” in brilliance), it is a love letter to black culture. It never dodges a punch, never compromises. It’s both as far from the mainstream as a rap album can be, yet Kendrick’s most populist work. It’s a muscular and physical record, occasionally reserving the right to be as however banal as it wants to be, right before turning around and tearing into the culture.

The set might get a little long in the tooth, even in its individual parts, but on both parts Shackleton is treading fresh ground in a whole different solar system than the rest of dance music and all its various eccentrics.

Hum may very well have just released the most pertinent post-lockdown record: it has claustrophobia embedded in its DNA and hysteria woven throughout. It’s weighty and suffocating, pressing down on our shoulders and restricting our airways with nothing more than brittle bones and exhausted lungs to keep it all from collapsing – then it releases us, just in time.

His voice soulfully conveys the journey in all its deviations and obstacles unflinchingly while still providing listeners with the means to immerse themselves and bop their heads along.

Whether approached with the utmost skepticism or the most fervent zeal, m b v proves itself not merely a reputable album, but a spectacular and unforgettable experience.

Digging further into the singer-songwriter aesthetics of Seven Swans and Carrie & Lowell, Stevens has crafted an element of rare beauty, meticulously extracted from a host of sorrows, affections, and other confounding sentiments.

Ultimately, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me feels less like a radical departure and more like a deliberate deepening.

It is a monumental piece that dextrously straddles his musical epochs; it is an account of history and a document of where he is now.

The music of Angel Tears in Sunlight is in no hurry, but stick around and it will take you to zones that breathe with ancient life.

Filled to the brim with pathos and lived-in melancholy, she has crafted yet another jewel for her ever-expanding crown. It might not be quite as cohesive as songs was, but it benefits from being more varied, and from having some of her most affecting vocal performances.

The sound of Phenomenal Nature, too, is both fractured and coherent, as Jenkins has expanded from a simple guitar-bass-drums set up to include violins, saxophones, and synths in her compositions. At its best, all these instruments cohere into a delicate drone, a shimmering thing that sounds like an infinity pool: no edges, just a reflective surface.

Secret Love may well capture the vapidity of the consumeristic life, but does it, in the process, dip into vapidity itself? Rather than critiquing or lampooning end-stage capitalism, Shaw in particular seems to have succumbed to its toxicities. Perhaps the album is best heard as a memento mori, a dying declaration – art, like everything else, drowning in the waters of mendacity.

The cohesion of Pain Olympics is quite the miracle. Even if there are moments that diverge into unpredictable passages, there’s always a sense that Crack Cloud know where the track is heading – it’s obvious that, despite their size, they are always operating from a single artistic vision.

We Buy Diabetic Test Strips goes deeper, darker than any of Armand Hammer’s previous albums. It even eclipses woods and Kenny Segal’s stellar Maps as the best hip hop record this year, at least so far.

It’s a rich tapestry of sound, message and meaning with multiple layers to unpick with each listen.

Her storytelling eye is sharp and her ear is honed to bring the most out of it melodically and instrumentally (with a tipped hat to Jonathan Rado’s excellent production). ... She is a torch bearer for our times.

Just be thankful that the new Swans are as clever, as terrifying, and as proficient in their craft as presented on The Seer.

A subtle shift toward curated production and raw lyrical revelation. Which isn’t to say that her earlier records didn’t have those things, but they feel far more present and deliberate here. Running once more in complete sync with inflo, these songs are some of Simz’s most personal and most vitriolic, masked in measured rhythms and encased in the wrath of someone who’s too tired to give a fuck.

It’s Noname’s most convincing album yet – as a whole, it defies any attempt to be embraced as “mainstream” or “digestible”.

Despite running for over 2 hours, the album feels notably succinct, even concise.

Free I.H. may have been Tudzin’s war cry, but Let Me Do One More is a comfort record. It shows resilience and passion from one of indie music’s most intriguing risk takers.

Ohms is the first Deftones record to feel entirely like all of the rest but also like none of them. It somehow manages to push the band into a new direction while leaving breadcrumbs from each album. With a wide range of enjoyment coming from each cut, Ohms further cements Deftones as the premier mainstream rock band to reinvent themselves every decade.

Her vision of R&B is unfiltered and uncompromising. At her most modern, she is advancing her genre rather than watering it down for current tastes. Things her songwriting could only hint at in the work of others are here in full, and they make for a beautiful end product.

In many ways, it’s Wet Leg’s small imperfections that make it the perfect debut – an impressive, tantalising exploration of their core talents that leaves just enough room for improvement.

RAM can oftentimes feel scattered, too ambitious, or too similar to the era it’s working from, but, in the end, it’s an album held together by that palpable reverence.

With Umbilical, Thou toe the doom-metal line re the inevitability of suffering/the urgent need for defiance while rummaging in an expanded playbook. The band flirt with songs and song structures, writhing, per usual, in a hellish din, Bryan Funck exuding immeasurable discontent.

Even in his lost moments, like “A Random Act of Kindness” where he repeats “Out of time, out of money”, he searches out the hope while faced with setbacks and sorrow. It’s in these moments that Morby shines as that everyman – a role he has been crafted into through those various influences he holds up so high.

With Celestial Lineage Wolves in the Throne Room have managed to craft a seamless and moving record as well as exceed the potential they'd previously left unfulfilled.

For all its horror trappings and flat-out aggression (the album-closing title track even ends with one last fakeout jump-scare blast to the face), We Are Always Alone is a deeply emotional record. It is catharsis writ large; a writhing, wailing, violent resistance against the injustice of a cruel world full of self-serving people.

Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? is a wonderful record of majesty and enveloping textures that radiate a sense of collective positive energy. Daniel Drew has produced an album of exquisite delight; mature enough to know its place in the world yet filled with childlike awe at how things could be.

Exquisitely textured. ... Every song has terrific sonic and narrative depth.

[A] sprawling, at times impenetrable, but most outstandingly, engaging ramble.

Though album’s influences go as far back as Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” (“Deeper”), the overall tone is suitably compressed and claustrophobic. The taut paranoia and confusion that belied Prince & The Revolution’s 1999 and Purple Rain forms a touchstone, modernised when the tenor shifts to Rhye.

The Italian duo have put together a timeless and beautiful dance record that slides easily to the top of 2012′s best.

It's an album that continues to unpack itself after half a dozen listens--as beautiful as it is detailed.

With Scratch It, it’s hard to image a finer U.S. Girls album.

The core of the album's success is its fantastic establishment of tonal environment--a brooding sexuality both sadistic and carnivalesque.

It is him following a path of lesser resistance through the landscape, writing actual choruses and melodic hooks, and finding that there is just as much natural brilliance and artistic merit to approaching his work in this manner.

Her third album leaves no stone unturned, turning darkness into sheer catharsis. Sounds like something we all could use.

On Life On Earth, marginalized voices are amplified and given credence. Segarra is the kind of potent lyricist who can flesh out characters and scenes with just one or two lines, paint entire panoramic worlds within the succinct space of a song.

As long-term fans are treated to a new classic that can both match and expand on the greatness of her previous work, new fans will be treated to her genius at its most accessible.

This is rager music, the fun and frantic rock anthems that the weirdos and the geeks who have grown into successful entrepreneurs and innovators can dance to while the quarterback from their high school bags their groceries.

A dimly lit, lo-fi hybrid, Shake takes its cue from some of Harvey's most successful past works, but has its own uniquely brash textures.

Heavy, Heavy never buckles. As a testament to the constant, psychological stresses of being an artist in the 2020s, it is bright, inventive, vulnerable, and rewarding. Pressure making diamonds and all that… maybe there’s something to it.

Fatigue, for all its many-sided intrigue and snatches of moving beauty, can be a bit like driving by a series of natural wonders at 150mph – too fast to truly appreciate what’s there. There’s a purposely otherworldly vibe to these 29 minutes, but the moments when Cheek the artist is most nakedly visible in the constellation are when Fatigue feels most successful.

The title Beware of the Monkey may come across as a warning, but it’s a lively adventure destined to pull more in than repel. Here’s a man who loves the antique sounds of yesteryear, finding use for them even in the 2020s.

While Róisín Machine is probably the most straightforward album she’s made, and is clearly within her wheelhouse, it just leaves a desire that she had pushed things even further, as we know she’s capable of doing.

To be fair, she's still in the process of resurfacing, rather successfully actually, and Body Talk is a fine dance-pop album.

Though the album now comes with studio polish and masterful songwriting, W H O K I L L still feels like an underground tape, challenging the listeners with oddball melodic choices.

The result is the rawest and truest set of songs in his career to date.

Like its title, Loud Bloom is undeniably a blossoming. It’s a flourish of individual style and a record of following your gut for what feels right; some of the tracks might not work for everyone, but they work for Dreijer.

Bon Iver, Bon Iver settles itself around a more narrative structure, letting the baroque arrangements move from one destination to another.

It’s music for mending the soul and opening the eyes of skeptics to what music – what really good music – can do for us. No matter what walks of life we come from, there’s legitimate emotion attached to Mdou Moctar’s music, and it should shake any living, breathing being right to their core.

She hasn’t fully ascertained how to recast her aesthetic without diluting her presence, but with Dust she inches toward reinvention. Mutinta’s a magician who’s expanding her repertoire, forging new alchemical practices. Dust is ultimately a “between” project; we’ll see where it leads.

It’s a little loose, a little shaggy, and sometimes simply unimaginative or rote, but it also provides an intriguing glimpse into the archives of one our most beguiling artists.

Intriguingly, in a game where we’re consistently told that remaining hungry is a necessity, the most enjoyable moments of King’s Disease II come when Nas is simply stating his satisfaction.

It’s effortlessly buoyant, especially now that he’s reclaimed his image; he’s not the sad and desperate crooner he was once made out to be. Wise sounds more liberated because he is. This serpent is brandishing new skin, redefined and transformed, not by the will of others but by his own love-led volition.

Ultimately, this is sound of two dons recognising their rightful place at the top of the summit, surveying their kingdom and proceeding to piss all over it. And it sounds fucking glorious.

Rediscovered domestic happiness imbues Night Palace with a newfound ease, which has yielded his most diverse and longest record to date.

It never stands still and stops to rest – for better and for worse. It’s somewhat of a transitionary moment. Even if it remains to be seen what destination it leads to, there’s still enough interesting material here to fulfill its destiny.

Eagle is definitely Marling’s most considered work, and most of that comes simply from the fact she’s stripped away a lot of the decoration, and yet ultimately it feels easy for her, if not a little predictable.

Heart’s Ease captures the Shirley Collins of the present day, and is in no way an attempt to recreate times passed. And yet the continuity is crystal clear: Collins’ devotion to the folk tradition is as strong as ever. She continues to bring new life to the musical artefact that is the folk song, and the fact that she brings so many years of her own to these interpretations makes them feel all the more authentic.

This is smart, smooth, high thread count dance-punk.

But Here We Are is such an honest and raw record that it’s hard to judge but easy to feel and empathise with, especially if a listener has been anywhere near the grieving process.

It’s not a perfect album – “Blue” feels slightly underdeveloped and I question whether the Robyn Hitchcock cover is completely necessary – but it doesn’t have to be. It’s mysterious, slightly messy at times, and filled with a gentle wonder that settles onto our skin like early morning sunlight. It’s a privilege to be in his company once again, even if it is just for 40 or so minutes.

“Movement 9”, at just two and a half minutes, puts a resplendent cap on proceedings, the LSO’s strings tying things off with forlorn grace and pomp. It’s like an echo of what’s come before, the tremors from the encounter between Sanders and Shepherd resonating out into the infinitude. It leaves us in no doubt that we have just witnessed a meeting of monolithic proportions.

It's a thoughtful and meditative affair with a meaningful and felt collaboration at its core.

Sonically, Jenks and his crew opt for a simplicity that borders incidental music, a soundtrack to his existence as quotidian as the city streets. A familiar mixture of soulful jazz, jazzy soul, and beats that range from distorted snares to spartan R&B have one goal: stay out the way.

It is, in every way, a transgressive, brutalist piece of art. In its unbelievable size and musical scope, it holds unnerving power, channeling the mind of someone suffering from this infliction Berdan sought to capture in disturbing forms. And yet, it also instills hope. It shows the artist willing to open up and reveal himself.

God Save the Animals’ production approaches are understated compared to those employed in previous work yet still precisely rendered. What stand out – prominently and unabashedly – are Alex’s impeccably crafted and irresistibly delivered songs.

Kelela‘s second album is a transformative work of art that merges house and ambient, soul and dance, and resides within interzones – like the titular animal, a mediator between the material world and the realm of the spirits. It’s a vast canvas of cultural expressions, emotional tones, erotic exploration and musical brilliance.

Shields is both well-mannered and demanding, subdued but always bubbling under the surface.

Ram's 2012 reincarnation sounds impeccable. Though the bonus tracks don't pack much punch, the LP's dozen original cuts, crowned by the breakthrough sensation "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey," arguably make this LP McCartney's seminal solo effort.

Sound Ancestors is a realisation of what the Madlib and Hebden are capable of in tandem. It’s bold, different, and takes the genre of instrumental hip hop to the next level.

An essential and enlivening record from start to finish.

This is music for the mercurial bunch in need of a break from their own chaotic lives, who need to experience someone else’s even if it’s momentarily. It’s something the genre was intended for, and bands like Duster will continue to provide it for years to come.

As moving as those songs are, The Smile are more intriguing when they shift slightly further away from Yorke and Greenwood’s established palette.

People shouldn't expect a "completely Dr. John" record, but there is a lot to enjoy from the simplicity and overall throwback feel to Locked Down that provides a positive and hopeful experience.

Throughout this album, despite its structural flaws, Shah paints several affecting and profound images. Her words are almost always sung in her trademark jazzy, vibrato-heavy style, which adds some dramatic flair to even the more mundane moments, as do tiny instrumental touches.

At every turn acts of rebellion is deceptive. She preaches simplicity, reveling in the individual power within all of us, but the music layered and complex, full of bubbling and whirring elements behind every danceable beat.

Vocally, lyrically, and sonically, Fratti captures the way in which the micro and macro are forever colliding, shrinking, erupting, dissolving around us and, more pressingly, within us.

On Reflection, we truly see the breadth of her resourcefulness as an artist: both as translator and purveyor of gut feeling. The elemental building blocks are all you need to shape something completely new.

It makes its own statement, and it does so with the level of maturity and succinctness that we've come to expect from Hecker, an artist who has well earned his place as a leader amongst his peers.

While Balsams was supremely confident, something special, The Cinder Grove reaches even further forward and inward at once, arriving on some far-flung shore that is entirely, supremely Johnson’s own.

It’s an electronic album from DJs who love to sample the music that inspires them, and in the past they’ve successfully done, furnishing us with some of the most golden-crisped memories. With some trimming, We Will Always Love You might have been a victory lap, but instead it feels like The Avalanches would have been better off taking another decade to fine-tune it.

Far In handles weighty themes outside of love, such as the apocalypse, but Lange’s gentility is what we take from it. His presence is always thoughtful, sincere, never forceful or selfish.

The music feels traditional, yet modern and accessible.

She reaches through your speakers and pulls you into her fold where you ride buoyantly through her musical world, just as Peter Vajkoczy became part of her life of movement and dance.

Yes – this is possibly Aoba’s best work. Music incomparable to anything else, beautiful and eternal.

Fucked Up actively refuse any sort of definition, and David Comes To Life proves that they're more than capable of shouldering that burden.

A honed songwriting approach from Rankin seems to fuel Blue Rev, with only a few songs inching beyond three minutes. This excess-trimming approach makes Blue Rev the leanest the band has sounded, but also makes it their tightest work to date.

Dry Cleaning seem a working-class band, but they are not a political band in that same sense. This concept is mimicked across many post-punk bands past and present, but instead of trying to stay firmly between those politically-charged guardrails they have stepped outside of them and created their own scenic route.

It may not stand at the forefront of its creator’s dauntingly strong body of work, but Gold Record more than earns its place among his never-ending soul searching.

Aesthetically, it may be polarizing compared to the hit factory that was her debut, but Happier Than Ever stands on its own as a powerfully flawed, overstuffed, but meaningful exploration of what it’s like to live as both a teenager and a superstar in ways that none before her felt comfortable saying.

SICK! is a pure rap album, as only Earl Sweatshirt could deliver.

If any record of this relatively young year demands your full attention then Shaking the Habitual is it, as it opens up as a vast chasm of unexpected possibilities, and despite any possible subconscious misgivings, you’ll immediately want to jump in without thinking twice.