It's invigorating, vulnerable and, at times, uncomfortably raw.

It's almost certainly the producer's most ambitious and most vital work since Untrue.

Whatever's at the heart of these sonic fictions, it drove Crampton to reach for new audio possibilities, not for the sake of novelty but to keep pace with the futurity of her visions. It sets the album apart from other pieces of audio collage because it's not sound design for sound design's sake: it's what's required to bring the drama to life.

The whole album bleeds into one magnificent mess, thanks in part to some incredibly short track times, but also to the nature of the music itself.

It never feels like Dreijer is playing catch-up. Plunge is the natural next step, a realization of impulses that have long lain dormant, or at least unrecognized.

Even if Have You In My Wilderness is Holter's most accessible record to date, it's riddled with enough puzzles, lyrical twists and delicate refinement to remain intriguing listen after listen.

Fetch picks up right where Horizontal Structures left off: von Oswald allowing the group's myriad tones and timbres to bleed out and coagulate.

There's so much blood and soul poured into Music for the Quiet Hour that it almost feels effortless. Along with the fascinatingly fragmented Drawbar Organ EPs, the box set presents what's either a closing chapter or a new beginning in the career of one of electronic music's most luminous illuminati.

The strength of In These Times is in its considered arrangements. The melodies take center stage rather than solely the kinetic rhythmic attack McCraven can unleash whenever he pleases. And when he pleases, his percussion charts can hit with a ferocity that shudders like drum licks plucked from a lengthy Fela-meets James-Brown after-hours live session.

Affection is everything one would want from a pop album—the way it shimmies along with catchy beats, whistle-along melodies and hooks that easily live rent-free in the long-term memory banks. The Jenkins touch here is an unmistakable charm that could very well nudge Affection into "cult album" territory.

For all its mind-melting attention to detail, Hertz's music has rarely sounded so evocative.

When a record is so dazzlingly abstract (or abstractly dazzling), it seems harder to interpret in emotional terms, too. But like LeWitt and his primary-coloured paint brushes, or Dan Flavin and his store cupboard of strip lights, Dillon isn't offering us a feeling so much as giving us a space in which to feel.

On ORCORARA 2010, Crampton fleshes out a unique sound world that's desolate but lush, harsh yet hopeful. It feels like one of her greatest, most permanent works.

The result is one of the most punchy, lyrically explorative UK rap albums of the year.

Arca's most accomplished work to date.

Some tracks, like "Mouth Mantra," simply feel overcrowded. The Haxan Cloak, who mixed the album, struggles to find clarity in busier moments. But the story, visceral and tragic, transcends these imperfections in the telling.

There's a palpable lust for life throughout the 20 tracks, but Edna is at its most arresting when Headie details his journey from custodial sentences to commercial success with unflinching candor.

There is a kind of pure, cathartic rage in Virgins and it leaves moments of intense peace in its wake.

once Random Access Memories unravels, it is, at its best, pretty magnificent.

serpentwithfeet is not a project that deals in restraint, but it's the mix of melodrama and newfound control that makes soil a great record.

What we're left with is an uneven album that's rarely as profound or as meaningful as it tries to be.

With nothing more at their disposal than techno's characteristically sparing palette, Dozzy and Neel have built something so rich that it has the feeling of a feature presentation.

Reform Club is full of conventional beauty; protracted strings and pads which soar, pulse, float or shimmer on a dub-tinged substrate.

The LP boils down a generation's worth of London music into a restlessly creative mix of dance music, infused with emotions both celebratory and mournful.

In anchoring her songwriting in the canon of '90s dance music, twigs shines with a quality we haven't really seen before. Eusexua is remarkably slippery, allowing songs to go anywhere and do anything, but propelled by the prowess of a songwriter in peak form.

Rema remains steadfast on his path to brilliance. HEIS is a capstone of an artist who's left an indelible mark on Afrobeats, but also Rema's realisation of his own singularity—not just in the great Benin Kingdom before him but the world.

Cheek's vocals are versatile, often soaring into her upper register, then trickling into lower notes. Much of the lyrics across the album are a challenge to make out, but it's a delight to pull scattered meaning out of the obscurity.

Roisin Machine captures the singer at her most triumphant, finally comfortable in her role as an alt-pop icon—there's something casual and more assured about this Roisin Murphy.