The record holds up alongside standout moments from Dear's discography, but adopts an unexpectedly rugged disposition.

Less is more has never been a part of Kaytranada's creative ethos, and while there are many ear-catching tidbits on Timeless, the LP also has its fair share of moments that get lost in the shuffle. .... But even with these misses, the album never fully slides into outright dullness—there's always a big idea or complex breakdown right around the corner.

There's no doubt you'll hear a lot of records in 2012 that sound like Whispers in the Dark, but you'll rarely hear it done this well.

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

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.

All Melody is remarkably well-rounded. It's not a techno album, it's not a classical album and it's not an ambient album, but it at times resembles all three.

The mixtape jumps from acid basslines to Daft Punk-style chops in the time it takes to draw a breath. Just take "Stateside," which layers a goody bag of textures (scratchy percussion loops, vinyl scratches, stratospheric leads, and no fewer than three different bass tones) that whirl away from a breathless hook like petals. With her third full-length project, PinkPantheress refurbishes the refurbishers for yet another new generation

Visa finds Ripatti attuned to a very specific, focused energy, and the result is some of his best work.

While Active Agents And House Boys slows the aerodynamic rush of the duo's live sets, it reveals a new dimension to their work: something you could almost call songwriting.

What I Breathe feels like both a jumping-off point for dance music newbies and a feast of great ideas for those who have been around the block a few times. It's all held together by great pacing, frankly amazing production and a lack of cynicism that feels refreshing, open-hearted to the very last moment.

It always felt like the UK dance community was collectively cheering for Katy B's success, and Little Red shows how much she deserves it.

A surprisingly coherent record full of vignettes that feel alternately archival, ethnographic and as usual, flickering and ephemeral-glimpses of musicality that flutter away just when you get comfortable.

It still sounds like music from the furthest reaches of the galaxy, but after three decades of getting to know Sean Booth and Rob Brown, the feelings wrought in their work have never been clearer or more heart-rending than on SIGN.

Gamble successfully deploys his robotic collaborators as tools in his sonic worldbuilding rather than as ends in themselves.

Phoenix fully establishes a distinct Eartheater style, building mountains underground and finding worlds of meaning in deep introspection.

Pinned down somewhere between pared-down jazz and emotive R&B, Duval Timothy continues to find insightful ways to tell stories by way of repetition. When ideas are this robust, the extra stuff becomes less important.

Throughout the album's darkest passages we're struck by a sense of possibility: that everything Richard has endured, fought for and overcome has merely allowed space for beautiful new beginnings.

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

For fans of Ø, or anyone keen on abstract, contemplative electronic music, this is a fine release with more than a few fantastic moments.

Overload is suffused with love: love for self, love for community, and especially love for Muldrow's longtime creative and romantic partner, the rapper Dudley Perkins.

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.

Pleasant is the word. But not simple. Quiet has just as many corners worth peeking down.

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

t's a work of clever, classy and timeless R&B that builds on some of the most enduring and ubiquitous music of the last 30 years.

[A] formidable, baffling, often delightful behemoth of an album.

It's a confidently self-referential record that goes with her own flow, settling into a sensual downtempo sound as effortless as it is studied.

For many, it was going to be hard for Tellier to surpass Sexuality's sensuous odyssey. Thankfully, My God Is Blue does at least equal it.

Like all good pop, News From Nowhere is brief, never falling victim to the temptation to get lost in soundscaping. Instead, it builds those immersive realms in just a few minutes with each track.