I'd be surprised if anybody, in any field, drops something this potent in the next nine months.

If the first third of the record was maybe a modernized version of County Records, and the middle third was Windham Hill, the final third is decidedly ECM territory, fusion with a folk twist, because that fingerstyle mastery is omnipresent. Hearing Williams’ fuzzed out lead on “Dream Lake” will send chills down your spine, it is completely inspirational musicianship.

The most surprising aspect of DNWMIBIY is that for a double album, the quality control is high and the sequencing is especially effective. ... In the meantime, DNWMIBIY is the first album to join my best of 2022 list.

What's more remarkable than her fascinating biography is her bold music. Like her life story, there's hardly anything like it.

It’s heavy in concept but sprightly and reverential in its execution, its hallucinatory breadth reminiscent of the outre jazz of Sun Ra and the wily funk of Parliament, of mid-’70s Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock.

If the Sadies had set out to make a final statement—and let’s be clear, they did not—they could hardly have done better than Colder Streams, a swirling, trippy summation of their journey so far. ... The whole album is great.

Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a quiet album that will tell you about the succession of small, resonant moments that make up a day, a month, a life. Sit still for that, soak it in and let it breathe, and you start to see the glow behind the ordinary, not just in Callahan’s album, but in the world itself.

Not only is Ilana Moctar’s best record, it’s also one of the best Saharan records to reach Western ears, and an early contender for the most exhilarating rock record of 2019.

Vernon’s voice is the showpiece here––a fragile, technically imperfect falsetto, he multi-tracks it into a shimmering, heat-giving force on each of the record’s nine songs.

The music can sometimes obscure the words, with only snippets allowing themes of love, loss and solitude to creep into the listener’s consciousness.... Have You in My Wilderness is another arresting album by an equally arresting artist, one who is clearly at the forefront of the global avant-pop scene and will be for some time.

At times, it sounds as though the band was still working through exactly how they wanted all of the various elements to work together, such that there are some immediate, hook-filled songs ("White Winter Hymnal," "Your Protector," "He Doesn't Know Why") and other songs whose more complex structures require more from the listener.

Last year, the Moritz Von Oswald Trio sounded like they were headed for space. This year, I'd say the mothership has come back home.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an overarching concept. It doesn’t matter one way or another. It’s a gallop from start to finish. Blue Record is going to be hard to top.

The album seems like a simple, straightforward work, yet every song carries fitting surprises within its construction. ... It’s the singer’s own version of reality, but it probably isn’t that far from whatever’s actually out there. If it’s a little bent and a little brighter at the same time, it somehow only feels truer.

In a year that will feature not just a new long-player from Lennox's Animal Collective but also a box set's worth of rare material, it may be hard to surpass the haunting, blissful pageantry of Person Pitch.

Shackleton, if there was any doubt, can do big picture and tight focus equally well; he can lead us into the future musically while digging in his heels against the one that's actually in store.

Responses to Tyler’s previous release, Stratosphere (Merge, 2023), were mixed (more accurately, pretty much everyone liked it but me), but Time Indefinite is so deeply engaging and flat-out beautiful that pretty much anyone with even a mildly adventurous taste in music will be playing it all summer.

[This] is the first time Bowie’s been interesting since 2002’s overlooked Heathen, and if you prefer his avant-garde side, this is the first sustained material of its kind in far longer; both of these are certainly things to celebrate.

m b v is an impressive work, one in which adventurous and nostalgic listeners alike will find something to appreciate.

Whatever ensemble he employs, and in whatever style he plays, unpredictability is a major component of his M.O. Silent Movies is no exception, and his formidable technique services music that continually thwarts expectation.

A New Way... didn't need reinforcements, and taking in all 14 tracks in succession can be tough going, but a little bit of overkill doesn't dull the bracing energy of Orcutt's kinetic, four-string idioglossia.

While the bossa nova drum machine on “All the Things You Do” and the scratchy funk guitars on “Pyramid Schemes” introduce a bit of welcome variety, both songs wear out their welcome over the course of their combined 10-minute runtime. Thankfully, “Solarised” takes the album out on a high with its swooshing synth pads underpinned by a hard-grooving bassline and soaring vocal melody. It’s a fitting close to a vibrant collection of tunes.

For Mahalia, with Love, like Jesup Wagon and Lewis’s “Molecular” releases, is fairly high-concept, but the music is spunky and easy to enjoy, with plenty of groove and intensity.

The spareness of the arrangements give these cuts an astonishing emotional directness. .... It quiets the clatter and stills the swell around one of Africa’s most beautiful voices and allows us to experience the spectral essence of this extraordinary artist straight on.

Showtime’s length dilutes the bursts of exotic spice and flavor laced throughout.

Agriculture comes closer earlier on the record, when “Micah (5:15 am)” commences its final run through the song’s compelling set of tremolo chords and then the massive riff of “The Weight” crashes down. It’s the best part of a good record, excepting perhaps the middle portion of “The Weight,” when the band’s playing reaches an acutely feverish pitch.

He sacrifices none of his newfound momentum on the fantastic Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his sharpest, wittiest, most resolute album in over a decade.

Her soundscapes are transportive and evocative, but they also contain detail and texture that plays with a sense of natural versus unnatural soundscapes, the real versus the imagined. Left in the between space, this is fascinating stuff.