Taken as a whole, The Electric Lady is a convincing argument for the virtues of micromanagement, but some of the most powerful, tender moments come from acknowledging limits.

The end result is a rich, triumphant sonic tapestry; you can hear every dollar that went into it.

While written with absolute precision and poetic skill that rivals the best rappers currently working, Chance's words tumble from his mouth effortlessly, as if he's already done with the verse by the time he recites it, looking to what's next.

Okovi’s dramas are hard to miss.

In terms of a debut record-- and especially given the weight of expectation placed on her to deliver something special-- Alright, Still isnâ??t anything else but a fantastic success.

Through the Windowpane is at times a last-dance hallelujah, at other times an open wound, but it's never meager, and hardly ever mundane.

Andorra will undoubtedly win Caribou a lot of new fans and rightfully so; it's a big, bold, tuneful collection that impresses with its ambition and meticulous arrangement.

The resulting Shall We Go On Sinning carries itself with the strength of a soft prayer, masterfully fusing jazz, deep house, and minimalism into an enormous, featherlight shield.

New Blue Sun is the most emotionally direct music André has ever made. The methods might be oblique, the instrumentation often unclear, the man himself occasionally missing in action or off on his own pursuits, but the sense of intermixed sadness, loss, and peace that permeates this music is impossible to miss.

Ambitious and complex, it's stuffed with cocooning harmonies and shimmering, sunlight-smacking-the-Pacific melodies--a languid, easy West Coast record (think Randy Newman or SMiLE), infused with classic East Coast anxiety.

Hundred Waters are always set to simmer. That mostly works in their favor on The Moon Rang Like a Bell, as the album’s strength comes from its gradually accruing moments.

Even the dubious choice to make an official live album out of a lo-fi audience recording proves a good one. A little added echo goes a long way for Morphine's spare sound, and fills in the blanks far better than a crystal clear soundboard recording ever could.

High Land is not only his first statement of intent as a songwriter, it’s his most innovative, his most influential, and his most timelessly vivid. Peaking early can be bittersweet, but the album is all the better for it.

A record of achingly gorgeous dance-pop that captures both the joy of nostalgia and the melancholic sense that we're grasping for good times increasingly out of reach.

You don't judge a compilation by its hits alone, and it doesn't take long to find the set's weakness: sequencing.

An album by turns beautiful and possessed, by others raucous and fiery.

Days Are Gone's is so polished that Haim could easily be seen as clinical and lifeless, but their lighthearted attitude complements their recording rigor.

Dreamt for Light Years proves less targeted than 2001's It's a Wonderful Life, but this is a check in the plus column: Linkous sounds best when he's warring with structure and sound, when his songs sound unsettled.

Impossible Spaces isn't simply the most accessible and immediately rewarding album to bear Sandro Perri's name, it also serves as a handy musical roadmap to its maker's sinuous creative course.

Pool is an introspective record, tailormade for lonesome nights.

But Homesongs is not simply a procession of trembling troubadour tunes. For each turn of boxwood fragility, there's also one of bold and confident songwriting.

If you come to Girl in the Half Pearl looking to find a soothing voice in the wilderness, you will instead find a complex maze of battered beats and warped shouts. The gripping soundscape doesn’t allow you to watch its protagonist’s transformation from the safety of the back row—it shoves you through the screen.

It's a feat the band manages to pull off again and again, track after track, over the course of Skeleton, and the true heart of the record: making the familiar seem fresh and giddy pop seem like indie manna.

Her lyrical tricks are unexpected and endlessly quotable .

The songs here are almost all identical: polyrhythmic miniatures built by small drums and shakers, clouded by blankets of echo and reverb; deliberately basic structures; short, and in their own way, catchy and pretty.

Masta Killa has delivered one the most urgent, straightforward Wu releases since the group's debut over a decade ago.

So this is what A Ghost Is Born is supposed to sound like.

These songs contain a newfound lushness, an O’Rourke-ian vibrancy that allows each instrument to express its particular tonalities to the fullest.