It's in this border between a club setting and the divine that Fountain comes alive. Using her voice as a modular system, Pramuk suggests a ritual that's both folkloric and futuristic.

Fire is a classic-style Bug album, just with everything turned up to 11. It's more intense, but the rhythms are familiar and the format is the same.

On an initial spin, the record's cold sheen is its most appealing quality. But what makes it so replayable is the layers that emerge once it thaws.

Working Class Woman is special because it looks beyond the personal highs and lows of touring to the cracks in the foundation of a lucrative club culture that requires constant, exhausting effort to achieve some semblance of stability.

Whether he's rapping about stripping copper out of abandoned houses or addiction, Brown manages to wring humor and, somehow, relatability out of grim personal stories.

It's hard to argue with the result anyway: Its slow build and aching vocals stand out as a purposeful moment of perfection on a record chock full of them.

Adorned with production that's as sympathetic to UK underground dance as it is to modern R&B and classic soul, Devotion is a classy affair that delights in its own refinement yet stays pinned to the earth, a talented singer and songwriter realizing her potential at just the right moment.

Loscil's tenth album for Kranky sheds light on unexplored aspects of his well-established sound. That he makes subtle breakthroughs via the decay and manipulation of a single brief recording makes Clara a quietly impressive achievement.

Not sequenced in simple chronological order, Livity Sound feels like a real album even when you know it's not. That's a testament to the unity of their aesthetic and the clarity of their vision, with three years' worth of tracks from three different producers all sounding like they could have been made in the same session.

Shepherd's flawless Eglo catalogue had the power to coax his followers off the dance floor with him, and Elaenia's sophisticated sense of musical accomplishment ought to keep them there.

For Those Of You stands apart as a significant step up in Leeds' journey to carve out and master his own musical form.

While Demdike fans will have heard a lot of this stuff by now, Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker are still better than just about anybody else in the way that they thread found sound, field recordings, library music and generated sounds and beats... one hell of a package.

Martin and Robinson cycle through stages of grief, derision, self-hatred and abject loneliness with an honesty that could make you flinch.

Piñeyro taps into the rarefied air of so many early IDM records, a mix of beauty, nostalgia and melancholy.

Like any such grand project, it's daring and indulgent, occasionally weighed down by its own pretence, and the result is several songs on the album that seem to unspool in no direction in particular. But that unwinding is usually gripping, and like the other two albums Björk's recent renaissance—Utopia and Vulnicura—Fossora stuns more often than it doesn't.

The slow-motion throbs of Davachi's warm, uncluttered electronic pieces achieve something intensely serene. On her new album, Gave In Rest, the music occupies the peaceful spaces she found lying between religious and secular realms.

Even the most careful listener will be left wondering what it all means. Luckily, Boards Of Canada have laid out a riddle we won't tire of teasing out, embedded in a timeless sound unlike any other.

On Loom, she takes her interest in found sound to a gloomy, thought-provoking new depth.

You Are Eternity is like a long and endless tunnel: for all its twists and turns, you're always in the same sensory deprivation chamber.

At its best moments, async combines Sakamoto's history in acoustic music with his legacy in electronic music.

A mind-expanding debut compilation. More than just a primer, A Dancefloor in Ndola is a captivating exercise in crate-diggery. .... Kampire is doing more than putting together a compilation—she is helping form African pop history.

Shell~Wave reaches intense highs. But, at times, it falls victim to the imperfect nature of spontaneity due to the pronounced use of delay. .... Shell~Wave bottles the veteran's personal experience with his machines and delivers it to listeners with the improvisation of a free jazz musician.

The songs reunited on The Singles should be celebrated by anyone fascinated by the UK's long tradition of tuneful eccentrics.

"Junkies" is the album's only weak moment. The others, while never delivering the thrills of "Six Figures" or "Solemn Days," slowly reveal a different kind of charm.

Whatever Loop The Loop's flaws, Jenkins has definitely found his C, and he's justifiably pleased about it.

It's the most relaxed, comfortable album he's ever made, and it's a delight to drift along with him.

trip9love...??? is easily one of the greatest accomplishments in the small but impressive Tirzah catalogue.

Because of its occasional bursts of rhythm and melody, Post Self is one of the more accessible Godflesh albums.

Serenitatem, the latest volume in RVNG Intl.'s FRKWYS series, harks back to Ojima's environmental music of the period. The delicate synthwork across the LP is uncluttered and unobtrusive.

She's a musician adept at using her voice as an instrument, and with it she can convey appealing, addicting hooks. And these strengths are complemented by her crew of reliable producers. ... Even with a roster of collaborators like this, the record occasionally hits a bump when the ambitious, sometimes challenging production doesn't fit her idiosyncratic flow, like on the Sega Bodega-produced "Little Bit." But on the best moments, her vocals mesh seamlessly with off-kilter backing tracks.

She's continuing the very tradition she's studying, ending her intimate and vulnerable album with a cover that finds new purpose by making someone else's words—and grief—all her own.

Dependent and Happy sounds like the hungriest dance music that Ricardo Villalobos has recorded in some time.

Nazar's deadpan delivery bleeds into Demilitarize's rough parchment of kuduro, blotting out Guerilla's sharper-edged scroll, sometimes more heavily than it needs to. It's a slight blemish on a record that otherwise sees Nazar further reshape kuduro into a singular style that speaks to the shut-ins as much as it does the dancers.

Dreams Are Not Enough is a remarkable return that achieves things the first three Telefon Tel Aviv albums were never quite able to.

Islands might not have the far-reaching social insights of Routes, but it shows that Idehen's personal world is almost as gripping.

The music on µ20 is equally a view into that mind and its peculiar tastes. Though he rarely gets the level of recognition and respect as his good friend and one-time collaborator Aphex Twin, Paradinas is a visionary, an incredibly talented producer and a savvy curator.

Shygirl remains tough and unforgiving across ALIAS, and her voice as an artist has never been stronger. She's a full-blown pop star driven by her luscious fantasies.

Rare, Forever has all the hallmarks of a big, crossover dance music record, but no one's doing it quite like this.

This is an album about possibilities rather than parameters, and it's a highlight in both artists' recent catalogs.

He can't find a way back into the very culture that created him. This tragedy, and its lack of resolution, defines the saccharine and overdone sound of In Waves, whose missing of the mark is evident from its earliest moments.

It highlights the long-standing chemistry between a group of talented musicians, and, unsurprisingly given the setting and Murphy's skill in the studio, the recording and production sound exceptional.

Black Metal 2 has all the elements that made its predecessor a masterpiece, with sentimental instrumentals and yearning vocals all packaged in a crinkly lo-fi setting. But Blunt has opened up even more on Black Metal 2.

The mixtape moves through a few different sections, starting off slow and dreamy, taking in woozy hip-hop and twinkling dance pop and ending up in UK club territory. There's a wistful vibe throughout.

After so many records, a debut novel and another book on the way, it's a privilege to be invited into Hval's private mental space. Like picking up a conversation with a much wiser friend, each new album compacts her advancing thought into a kind of guidebook for those who aren't quite so mentally together, all her latest learnings folded in. ... Obviously, Hval is anything but ordinary.

Rhythmically, Ben UFO is giddy, ebullient even. Which is why, even at his most corrosive, he is not just a very smart "crate-digger," but also a phenomenal party starter.

Halo's records have always posed tricky questions, and Dust features her most complex and engrossing yet.

The real freaks can nerd out on the harmonic theory that will wash right over most ears on this divinely sequenced record. You don't need to be educated to enjoy Malone's music: it's emotive, world-building and all-encompassing. The beauty lies within that.

He might have translated his sound into electronics with Excavation, but here Krlic's music feels more wrenchingly human than it ever has been.

A strange, deeply impressive pop album, and the overall mood reminds me of the mix of ennui and boundless imagination that define childhood, images flitting across the screen, a colourful window to a world that doesn't exist.

On It Is What It Is, Bruner—unlike Pastorious—finds a way out, channeling his pain into great, uplifting art.

At 16 songs and with impressive guest features, it's a sprawling portrait of James, one with mostly dark and subdued tones.

Over its 20 minutes, the EP pushes dance music through violent twists and turns until it becomes disorienting and startling.

Quivering In Time is a kaleidoscopic sequence of house music tunes that tend to blend into one another, sounding more like a DJ mix than a typical electronic album.

Agora is both a return to form and a leap into the abyss.

The mix of familiar sounds and snippets of intimate conversation makes for dance music that can feel deeply affecting, even as its spastic rhythms keep the energy at a constant high.

Inner Song's highs are very high. Beyond the bang-on production, the LP feels like as much of a journey for the listener as it does the protagonist.

Ecstatic Computation is marked by sudden breaks from predictability. Stylistic influences and sonic textures are varied, yet they're cohesive. The result is an album that's both provocative and blissful.

A comparable transition on Singularity, between "Everything Connected" and "Feel First Life," is made to feel seamless, less like a change in circumstance than an ascent onto some higher plane. Some will feel completely immersed in that; others might simply admire it from a distance.

This isn't exactly club music, but Yorke and Godrich write incisive beats and basslines, which they match with ever-interesting sound design.

Trying to follow these songs as they unfold is a bewildering experience. But if you take Hassell's advice, and "scan up and down the sonic spectrum," taking in the moments of beauty as they occur, the album's title makes a lot of sense.

This is all delectable, sure, but what's memorable is how Davidson—who has the dexterity to crack a joke uniting Friedrich Engles and LNR on 2018's "Work It"—maintains her dark sense of humour.

Like most Caribou albums, Our Love is a grower.

It may not have the broad appeal of past Steffi albums, but that was never the point. It's modern-day braindance for listeners willing to find meaning from within.

This is straight-up fight music. 2017 - 2019 isn't quite this lairy elsewhere, but most of it is jagged, hard-hitting and seriously over-driven. The change has Jaar sounding artistically replenished.

It's her strongest project to date, a thrilling fusion of classical and electronic music delivered in astounding clarity.

Patience for Take Me Apart validates her audience who saw her as the future from the start. You won't soon break free of it.

As excerpts of poetry sound like heart-stricken dialogue and foggy soundscapes take the shape of a score, it often steps out of the confines of music and begins to approach theatre.

Suddenly is a frustrating listen. Snaith's talent for writing earworms, hooks and choruses has never been so apparent. But overall he sounds like he's trying too hard, taking influence from too many places.

Where 2009's By The Throat was ruthless but exacting, this one feels genuinely unhinged--and that unpredictability makes it far more thrilling than any engineered suspense could have been.

Inspired by this sentiment, as well as Halo's time scoring a film for the Dutch art collective Metahaven, the more abstract aspects of Raw Silk Uncut Wood allow her to establish moods that are at once non-prescriptive and immediately visceral.

Sexistential is a document of Robyn the artist reaching full potential, thanks to Robyn the human reaching inner peace.

It is difficult to pick any more jewels off this dance floor diadem, making the most as it does of the long player context.

As a whole, the album succeeds at doing something tricky: pandering to fans of theory, minimalism and ambient music all in equal measure.

These tracks are rescued by gorgeous chords and melodies, which give otherwise grey arrangements rich shades of melancholy and optimism. Avery had a knack for a hook back in the days of Drone Logic, too. His attitude to the dance floor might have changed, but the important stuff hasn't.

Another excellent long player to savor from Monolake.

Van Hoen may be submerged in his own past, but the melancholic apprehension of the record is thoroughly universal.

To say that Sommer is a piece of sonic architecture of which Klein himself would be proud is more than just hot air.

With By Your Side, Ed Banger and Breakbot seem more and more lost in a Tumblr-tinged display of self-referencing: very now but just not very new.

If there's one major criticism of this record it's that its excessive length--13 tracks totalling 58 minutes--means that standout tracks can be missed through sheer volume of material.

Taken as a whole, Incubation is an album that lures you into dark places in your brain rather than moving your body on the dance floor.

Homogenous and slightly predictable, Panorama Bar 05 is not Steffi at her most adventurous.

Black Jazz Records is a label worth knowing. As far as introductions go, you could do worse than a tribute mix by Theo Parrish.

While Self's experimental productions showcase the versatility of the voice, his poppier songs luxuriate in its timbre.

Fear In A Handful Of Dust is a very approachable Amon Tobin record. It is highly unconventional, full of alien timbres and strange logic. But, as was the case with much of his music in the past couple decades, you don't need to be in a specific kind of mood to enjoy it.

By stripping down his sound, making it more like punk, he ups the energy levels without crowding the sonic field. It proves Schofield is as much a master of subtlety and balance as he is of feral chaos.

Dis Fig transcends In Blue's origins in genre exercise into an otherworldly fever dream, an album of tectonic bass and thundering drums that somehow feels intimate and sensual. It's as much her triumph as it is his.

Like Reed, Tarelle and Inyang are involved in gritty, street-level investigative poetics. ... This is detective work, through which they hope to discover their own place—figuratively and literally—a sense of purpose, of honest labour.

Where her past work could sound like it was written for a grandiose 18th-century opera house, Living Torch is closer to the long-lost sonic component of a modern art installation, endless in its possibilities and imagination.

Crash Recoil relishes in the same spontaneity offered by Child's live performances, composed of songs that feel more structured like cinematic scenes than traditional techno tracks.

The spirit of those dance floors lives on through this second volume of the Legacy series.

Tyla's music hovers in a zone that occupies amapiano, Afrobeats, and R&B all at once. That she's able to occupy all these spaces in a way that feels familiar is a testament to her poise and ingenuity.

On You Said You'd Hold My Hand Through The Fire, they lay bare their heartbreak through squalls of sound, managing softness even in the album's more hardened sonic environments.

Behind swirling clouds of synth and reverb, her perspective is clear as day.

Muzeyyen's technical proficiency is undeniable, but somewhat beside the point. Beside Myself comes off less like a manifesto than a scream—and it's all the stronger for it.

Of course, this repetition is the point of a record titled Endlessness, yet it feels like a central motif seemingly existing for its own sake.

Though Autobiography may seem like a departure from Jlin's past work, many of its themes have been present throughout her catalogue. The LP succeeds in challenging expectations for a ballet score while expanding the possibilities for the artist's post-footwork sound.

It may have taken him a long time to release a mix in this way, but the quality of DJ-Kicks makes it worth the wait. At 30 selections, the tracklist is remarkably long, but nothing feels rushed.

Because Of A Flower pieces together a similar set of songs to ~~~, but with a more open and assured mindset.