Tomorrow Was the Golden Age, one of the finest left-field releases of the year, transcends geography, inviting you to close your eyes and build your own richly detailed world.

It's bound to ruffle feathers and turn off old fans, and in a way, going so outright "pop" is one of the gutsiest, risky things a pillar of the scene like Scuba could have done.

hey've never been as good or as distinct as they are on Steal Your Face.

Whatever the case, he and Switch are kicking off summer with an armful of perfect cookout-, top down-ready songs, like the daytime soundtrack equivalent of all of the summertime night's rooftop music that's been coming from Swedes Air France and the Tough Alliance and their new wave of American indie disciples, such as Real Estate and Memory Cassette in the past year-plus.

By presenting a more rounded portrait of Guthrie in which politics is only one subject among so many, The Complete Mermaid Avenue Sessions shows just what Guthrie was fighting for and provides a persuasive rebuke to anyone who might whittle the man down to just one dimension.

New Start proves that the prowess of footwork’s first family is intact, and Taso might just be the glue that holds it all together.

White's gift on Big Inner is taking sounds created by actual southerners and turning them into figments of his musical imagination, which he bends and shapes into bottomless columns of ethereal soul.

In Prism ultimately sets a new standard for them: don't just make it sound like you never left, but rather make the past seem like a mere warm-up for what's to come.

On Culture, their world is richly rendered, full of hopes and paranoia and unbridled joy.

It's a strange combination-- big, lush beats and stories about small victories-- but it turns songs that are celebratory of simple things (a girl sending sexy cell-phone pictures, visiting Paris for the first time) or full of thoughtful sentiments (supporting family, helping community) into something epic.

It's flighty, frustrating, and at times a little frigid, but intelligent and never lacking in momentum.

If the concert starts off jittery, with the frenetic 13-minute “Invitation”--the band seems almost too hyped-up--the remaining two-hours are a seamless, pitch-perfect display of A-game professionalism married to virtuoso sparkle.

Rather than re-tracing the path that made him popular, he has hacked into the wilderness of his new inspirations, no matter how divergent, and emerged triumphant.

At a lean 28 minutes, it’s their shortest and most instantly rewardable—no instrumentals and none of the longform post-rock indulgences of 1998’s Terraform or 2007’s Excellent Italian Greyhound.

Honest surges with the self-assurance of an artist finally coming into his own.

Though Crow and Now Only are spare records, Jacobikerk makes the versions on (after) sound hollow but full. Elverum’s voice, impossibly soft, fills the space with solemn clarity. But the most striking thing about (after) is that, even after so many performances, these songs sound as raw as they did when Elverum first committed them to paper and tape.

Their debut does more than enough to stand on its own, not only ambitious in its own right, but leaving little doubt about Hundred Waters' capability of handling wherever their ambition takes them from here.

Her lyrics mostly return to subjects she has revisited so many times that, on Jellywish, she also reflects on her weariness of talking about them: grief, death, and mortality. Here, though, even these topics are part of the record’s life-affirming warmth.

The trio is so refreshing and exhilarating because of the space they elbow-out for themselves and the vibrant spirit they pump into the exhausted genre, proving that simply adding some cavernous echo to a track isn’t enough.

The record is self-assured and polyvalent, a current of shifting emotional states that MIKE’s exquisite word and production choices shape into rich affirmations.

It's hard to predict where they'll go from here when Receivers sounds as if they've stretched their favorite sonic ideas to the very brink of saturation--but no one could have guessed they'd take them quite this far.

For all its psychedelic tendencies and marketing trappings, Goat's World Music feels as assured and unfussy as folk music.

Rebound isn’t seismic—longtime fans will have no trouble cozying up to many of these songs. There are elements, however, that separate the album from its predecessors and suggest some tentative movement toward a new way of working.

This is an album that sounds invigoratingly abrasive when you're moving and pins you to your seat when you're not, a study in pushing the limits of distortion that works as just plain good club music.

There have been times in James’ career when his knowing smirk threatened to eclipse the music. But here he’s obviously having a genuine blast, and his joy is infectious.

A compact reminder of the overwhelming force carried by Antony's best music.

YG and DJ Mustard have been dress rehearsing for nationwide stardom all along, but My Krazy Life is ratchet music’s Technicolor reveal.

That the archaic should sound this fresh is at least a mini-miracle.