While he has first and foremost created a dance record, it is one that rewards the two left-footed listener with its intricate sleights, redirections and deconstructions. It is also a reminder of the joy of unfettered movement and the art behind craft of producers who provide music that encourages it.

The songs start bare and personal, and if they swell with strings or rollick with muted celebration (as in whirling “In Your Ocean”) they never really escape the quiet, contemplative category. Not that this is an entirely bad thing. There are still effortlessly shapely melodies, fitted like skin with perceptive turns of phrase. There are still very lovely arrangements, a little airy this time around, but neither slack nor stuffed nor overly attention hungry. And the musicianship is, as always, excellent.

Formerly Extinct is a little over-cooked, and the album would have benefitted from being left a little more raw at its core.

Psapp's music is so beautifully complex that upon first listen it might seem a bit haphazard or amateurish -- with all its bells, whistles, whizzes and whirrs -- but after repeated listens, the oddities take on a precise purpose and fit perfectly within the melodic structure.

It’d be hard to be disappointed with Convivial, however. It’s not necessarily an immediate listen; it took a few spins before the leaps Ripatti has made started seriously to sink in. But it’s the strongest thing he’s done, either as Luomo or under his Uusitalo or Vladislav Delay guises.

It takes an incredibly steady hand and a reservoir of patience to pull off this tone, but delightfully, still below the surface is that tension. There are these competing moments in her music then, and it is the way they compete that makes her aesthetic unique and beautiful.

It's decidedly a Pallett album, just breezier. I like it.

No posthumous album can be heard without a sense of loss and absence. No matter how much you enjoy these tracks, you must also acknowledge as you listen that the world will go on without this singular talent.

At its best, though, We Are Nobody nails an uneasy mood that feels like a natural evolution of the Chap's acerbic wit: waiting for a punchline that never arrives.

One of Jamal's best in recent years.

Répercussions exists in a completely different universe, far removed from rock tropes, and sits comfortably within the spectrum of modern electro-acoustic and minimal composition.

Just Say No… is quite probably the group’s heaviest and most abrasive salvo to date.

Its tracks are elliptical and abstract even as they stretch towards forming actual grooves. But in that respect it’s close to being the most rewarding for those who can stomach this strange, out-of-sync universe.

It’s all very nice and a bit surprisingly, like your grandma’s favorite stew with some unexpected new spices in it. For an impromptu gathering of talents, Bonny Light Horseman feels very lived in. Here’s hoping it’s not a one-off.

Sagittarian Domain is an intriguing offering from Ambarchi, if not something with a great deal of potential for repeat success.

This is not your parents’ contradance music or your cool older brother’s free improvisation or even your cousin’s slightly over-ripe New Weird Americana, but something else entirely. Amidon learned the old tunes by heart so he could stretch and cut and distort and juxtapose the pieces to make music that resonates and expands.

If you set aside some uninspired, cryptic-as-poetic moody fantasy lyrics (and a few forgettable songs truly as slight as whispers), Becoming a Jackal reveals a hidden stash of imminently memorable melodies.

It's another misfire with a handful of great moments that point to something better.

The opening seven tracks on The Sun Awakens are probably the strongest sequence of songs on any Six Organs release so far.

It's great that Natalizia and Willis are playing with the boundaries of genre, but the experiments feel overly cautious, leaving the album full of pleasantries and devoid of punch.

Though Good Sad Happy Bad do outstay their welcome across these 40 minutes, there’s plenty here to enjoy if you like sing-song sweetness that’s bent lysergic and girded with a sneering, switchblade edge.

Damon and Naomi and Kurihara have made art out of what was in front of them, and it’s a gorgeous, emotionally resonant reminder of the times.

Antibalas is charging ahead, poised for continued recognition and celebration among Afrobeat devotees, as well as first discovery by world music dabblers.

There's a number of visual pieces that lose their power, and while Notaro is good at describing what she's talking about, those visual bits interrupt the flow. In that sense, Good One feels like a straight showcase for her act, one that doesn't make concessions to the audio-only listener.

Despite there being a wealth of moods and stylistic flourishes on Distractions, it nevertheless coalesces into a forceful and homogenous whole.

Despite the subtle stylistic shifts and gradual momentum building and releasing, no song feels out of place or misjudged.

It's All True is exactly what mature dance pop should sound like in 2011.

If Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs doesn’t do anything that wasn’t done on his enthralling 2000 LP Carpal Tunnel Syndrome -- and if, at a scant 35 minutes, it’s almost over before you notice it’s on -- it’s still worth hearing.