Captain Of None places Schott's voice front-and-centre and folds in her long-burning love for dub and reggae rhythms, making for her most approachable and otherworldly record yet.

Sirens is his best record because it's both his most straightforward and most experimental, his densest and lightest.

Conatus is Zola Jesus' most gratifying offering so far.

Even if Graef and Astro don't seem to be headed anywhere in particular, it's still fun to hitch a hot-boxed ride with them.

The producer's peacenik ambitions are never far away, though, and the more naked they become, the more his music loses its depth and subtlety.

Naturally, the good tracks are sublime... [yet] familiar overreaching, archness even, creeps in elsewhere.

"DB Rip" feels like a missed opportunity to bring techno into play, while the title track overdoes its gothic pomp. The rest are slight but elegant mood pieces. Dal Forno is good at these, but it's her pop songs that do more than just tick the BEB boxes.

Owens is an exciting new artist. Her voice is lovely. Her songwriting is accessible. Her arrangements feel smooth, and she moves with ease between styles. The only drawback to Kelly Lee Owens is an occasional tweeness that can come with such sweet, weightless music.

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

On Filo Loves The Acid, Dozzy has held back his more radical approach, as well as his typically subtle use of the 303, to deliver an exemplary acid toolkit.

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions, just slightly overcorrects with its mainstream-seeking direction, opting for more James Blake-esque electronic pop and reeling in the eccentricities.

With slightly more judicious editing, Let's Turn It Into Sound could have been a grand crossover statement, combining admittedly trendy synth experiments with freak-folk charisma. But that's not what Smith is going for here. Instead, the LP feels like listening to someone try out a new talent, learning as they go along, substituting practiced polish with a hunger for new ideas and self-expression.

Under The Sun isn't the major departure that it seems on the surface, but rather a pleasant detour through mythical, imagined landscapes.

The guest vocalists round out the album's satisfying balance of antiquated and futuristic.

A well-considered and promising debut album, one that knows just when to stop and breathe before breaking another sweat.

Synthetic birdsong, rustling keys and a contemplative melody suggest someone pondering the world outside. The album, in turn, offers a glimpse into Kate NV's rich imagination.

GOD's interest in questionable styles and its elaborate backstory seem designed to keep things interesting after the giant step forward that was R Plus Seven.

Sure, the LP has its eccentric moments, and it takes a long time to really get to know. But, as The Redeemer hinted and Black Metal proves, beneath all the YouTube sampling, bizarre press and one-off Russian blog releases, Blunt is a talented singer-songwriter with a keen ear for odd sounds.

It's this combination of shadowy unknowability and full-hearted melody that makes Pull My Hair Back such an intriguing listen, and certainly one of the year's best debuts.

Chardiet's presence on the album is so commanding, however, that you can almost feel her reaching out to you from beyond the recording. It'll shake you up, no matter what.

With vulnerability comes strength, and each Octo Octa record further builds a catalogue that serves as a rich, therapeutic memoir.

Sonically, Take Off Mode is not as ambitious as Da Trak Genious. ... But among these standouts, many of the other tracks lack the chaotic charisma key to the DJ Nate sound. His apparent abandonment of footwork in recent years could be at the heart of the LP's uneven quality. But changing one's style doesn't mean losing the soul of the sound.

Ghostly and grim, with the radiance of Stott's synths allowed only to penetrate the gloom in periodic bursts. It's telling that Stott somehow makes this aesthetic seem so compelling, a type of dark energy that makes you want to hit a punch bag or chair dance rather than wade in self-reflection.

Its best moments draw you to the formative dance floors of Space's past, the parties where he watched dancers react to the thrilling amalgam of styles that would become footwork, and where he danced himself, absorbing the lessons that would feed into a genre based on movement.

COW is the sound of The Orb stripped down its essence, revealing the splendor that's always been there.

Tenderness is exciting because of how simple and distilled it is, and how memorable its songs are even after just one or two listens.

ey clearly understand the value of the direct appeal, but on Coracle, the duo has rounded out the pre-manufactured pleasantries of their debut into headier, more substantive approaches to IDM, Chicago house, and nu-kosmische.

For a project of its size and vision, Vol. 1 is remarkably coherent. It's a testament to the label's endurance and vitality that they assembled so many top-notch exclusive tracks from friends both old and new.