Volume Massimo embodies Cortini's deep connection with the Buchla. His commitment to melody, though it makes the album approachable, often detracts from the music's noisy (and more interesting) imperfections. Even if you follow Cortini's instructions to play the LP at "a very loud volume," the full heft of his sound fails to translate outside of its onstage setting.

Sure, it's still quite messy, but in separating the vast array of influences and ideas present in Ras G's deceptively complex music, Earth lays it all out in a much more digestible manner.

Psychic doesn't quite burn itself into your memory.

The best moments here are almost indistinguishable from Grouper's best work.

It's both humble and ambitious, wonderfully arranged in some places and slightly clumsy in others (the Popol Vuh-isms of "Start A New Life" kill the album's momentum just three tracks in, and I've yet to be convinced by Weber's humdrum vocals). But for an artist who has always been earnest and upfront about big melodies, Garden Gaia feels like the logical next step, freeing him from his techno past.

At its best, Black Star shows an artist amplifying Afrodiasporic club music with modern verve, unlocking a new wave of Black pop stardom all the while.

Death After Life is so seamless and consistent that it might grow tedious for less patient listeners.

This is a perfectly fine debut, but probably nothing compared to seeing them live.

Tightening up the chaos that blighted his sophomore record, The Rat Road doubles down on SBTRKT's multi-genre vision and pulls it off slightly better. His cocktail of pop and underground influences sounds more decisive and refined, though there are still moments that fizzle rather than ignite.

Most of these tracks feel like they would evaporate instantaneously if they tried to leave the house, let alone take their place in any public space. As a debut collection of electronic oddities, it works just fine, though.

Ultimately, in the cold light of day, it all begins to sound unrelentingly grey and one-paced.

While this scrappier, DIY vibe feels like a natural fit for HTRK, Venus In Leo lacks some of the depth and mystery that makes their music so powerful. ... Still, HTRK create something their fans will never tire of: a dark, sensual, poetic languor that's theirs alone. Venus In Leo delivers a welcome fresh take on that sound.

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.

It's a record more about sound design and structure, an abstract deconstruction of Night Slugs' sleek chrome aesthetic.

Chromeo still aren't the most serious guys in the world, but White Women is a smart pop album rendered in vivid, 3-D detail.

The inclusion of dynamic percussion, as well as Darkside's openness, beckons music that is more kinetic, haphazard and melodic than anything the group has made before. .... Although it's hard not to miss the eerie glitchiness and endless meandering that made Psychic so explorable and viscerally unsettling, Nothing can be unnerving in its own way.

Jakobsson's DJ-Kicks is a smooth and enjoyable hour, and a reminder that, whatever name he's releasing under, he's worth taking seriously.

If only Tension lived up to the promise that she might be given something different. As it is, though, it's another entry in a rock-solid catalogue of dependable, uplifting club pop.

Kompakt's recent box set for Voigt's Gas project is arguably the ne plus ultra of emotionally resonant ambient music from the past two decades. Its influence looms over Pop Ambient 2017, but this music can nonetheless be its own soundtrack for daydreaming. On that level, the series continues to be worthwhile, but if its reach was just a little wider, it could be even more.

And while there's no percussion in any conventional sense, the likes of "Uptown Psychedelia" jerk manically to their own spasmodic rhythms. Yet where those tracks are marked by an almost feverish nervous tension, from "Racist Drone" onwards Hecker and Lopatin seem to drift into an almost tranquilised state-one which strays closer to ambient clichés.

As strong as Dillon's songs are, the idea that there are some missed opportunities here can't help but nag at even its strongest moments.

Even when Clark is firing sounds at bewildering speeds, it's never a chore--in other words, it's a lot more fun than Clark's reputation might suggest.

The album stays reasonably well-balanced throughout, straddling that fine line between understatement and being sledgehammer-esque obvious.

Midway through RR7349, "Wardenclyffe" cuts back and forth from cheeky synth pop to stratospheric synth vistas, revealing how much better S U R V I V E are with the latter approach. They finally concede to their strengths in the album's second half.

Fascinating and vibrant, Texture Like Sun finds Deenmamode less concerned with his own life and times, focusing instead on the world around him.

This is a minor work, but a minor work from a master of his art.

These might not be Martin's most envelope-pushing beats, but it's hard to think about that when the walls are violently shaking.

It's an interesting diversion for Romans, and might just be the most admirable part of Valere Aude.