A truly wonderful record that deserves attention, as does the work of Arthur Russell.

By starting from scratch and going in with aim to create something that is a direct reaction to the onslaught of modern music, Hemsworth has created a piece of music that lives in an environment of its own making.

Perhaps the reason for the feeling of emptiness at the well-meaning heart of No One is Lost is in its striking over-familiarity.

Michael is everything one would expect from Les Sins' highly anticipated debut and more.

Unravelling is an album that needs time and patience lent towards it. It's a slow-burner of a record, both in the tempo it sets and the amount of time it takes for it to reveal itself.

If you've got the patience, then this is a remarkably rewarding listen.

La Isla Bonita is harder, edgier and noisier than 2012's Breakup Song, but just as charming, off-kilter and curious.

Grouper tenderly and quietly beckons you nearer, allowing the sadness to seep into your bloodstream. Lyrics are distant and difficult to decipher, however it isn't hard to comprehend the emotional weight of each track.

Rarely is it as uplifting as his debut, but it's often as anthemic, and nurtures an ember of depth that may have been glossed over before.

It's just a shame that these gems are surrounded by material that's just not as strong, or consistent as we've come to expect.

Ultimately, Ought have created an EP that does not draw attention away from their debut album, but instead builds on it, driving their intensity forward and reaching further outwards for raw emotion and energy.

This is a scribble to go up on the fridge alongside other much-loved items, even if those items are photographs which remind you what real life looks like. Stick a magnet on it. It's done.

They sound as powerful as ever, and their penchant for weaving subtle folk melodies amongst their noise is still pretty special.

Ultimate Painting is a charming start point for a band who show enough charm to suggest they can turn out any number of superior follow-ups. On one or two tracks, they might one day prove essential.

You can hear [that the songs were written very quickly]; the atmosphere across the album is very constant. However, it makes them very similar by the same standard.

All that's left are tightly compacted songs that may not have a reflective gloss to them, but instead light their own way.

This is what it sounds like when an artist matures, discovers a confidence they perhaps never knew they had, and return, revitalised.

McNany's own sensitivity on Museum of Love can, at times, feel like fastidiousness; each track is so carefully structured that the album as a whole suffers from a slight lack of flow, as if the listener is simply moving from one exhibit to the next. However, that is a small complaint on what is overall a satisfying and deeply rewarding project.

It's decent and fairly enjoyable, but nothing astounds.

There's an abundance of feelings created in the listener from this album when played in full.

At just under 30 minutes long, the record is as brief as it is uncompromising.

Atomos is a very powerful work and one which could well bring modern classical music to the attention of people with only a passing interest in it, in much the same way as Philip Glass and Steve Reich have done.

An incredibly physical record (both tonally and lyrically) with a greater focus on percussion.

Marigolden is yet another triumph, not only for Partisan but for the frozen tundra of America's Midwest.


Although it becomes a bit too intricate (and therefore slightly boring) at times, the album is a fine example of the infinite possibilities created by the so-called post-indie/hipster-psych scene without taking itself too serious.

Kele has instead chosen a route that doesn't challenge the listener or, it seems, himself.

Weatherhouse houses its own experiences but could just be listened to as a sub-experience of Radiohead. It shares many of experimental shifts using beat and synths to explore mood, only without the hooks and utterly unique melodies that nobody but Radiohead can produce.

This is an album that will not send Shintaro Sakamoto into super stardom, but will further cement his place as an experimental and eternally intriguing cult artist.

Although she has not perfected her sound, and her vision maybe a bit more blurred than she believes it to be, there is no denying that Tinashe has the factor and appeal to go extremely far and Aquarius is an exciting first glimpse of this journey.

This record is a wholly singular work; not only does it defy expectations of what a Flying Lotus album should sound like, it totally obliterates any preconceptions about what can be released by a remotely popular contemporary musician.

Certainly some tracks could use grounding and a smidgeon of common substance to prevent a stupefying hypnosis--but in many ways that's the appeal.

Heartleap works superbly as a collection of songs, and can only serve to extend and preserve her legacy.

Its songwriting and overall conceptualising is definitely miles above the duo's experimental adolescent triple album. ...And Star Power is not an album - it's an out-of-body experience.

The new sound stands up straight as the original iteration, but is backed by the depth of his previous work.

The standard of hook is pretty consistent for the whole album, and there's very little that could be described as filler. It's just that, considering that the whole seems like an exercise in similitude, it's not that easy to get excited about.

The tracks here, whilst enjoyable and (for the most part) produced extremely well, amount to a record that lacks the impact of SBTRKT's debut.

NEHRUVIANDOOM is not the album to catapult Bishop Nehru into the mainstream but it's an invaluable step in his hip-hop education.

It's not a radical upheaval and it's nothing especially new--at least as far as Yorke's output is concerned-- but then it doesn't have to be; he's been pioneering an often-unique sound for so long now that I'm just happy to have some other songs to listen to.



A pleasant, but ultimately unspectacular adventure.

Unfocused in places, it only comes together as a whole in fleeting moments... but those moments are really rather lovely, so there's enough here to say that Lia Ices remains a talented artist and one to keep watch over.

There's a strong sense that Our Love is an important step in the evolution of Caribou. Whatever the formula is, it's working.

This album is never afraid to speak its mind and voice its elastic relationship with love, pulled close only to be pinged apart.

At times it's quite boring, but at times it's very good.

If you want a nocturnal classic packed to the brim with contemporary disco genius, this is the record you need to buy.

He wants to continue to be happy the way he is and that contentment is helping him to produce some of his finest work. For a musician, that's truly unique.

For the time being their concoctions remain a successful blend of sardonic and mystical, and will most likely win them a stream of new fans.

The more you listen to this collection of songs, the more it develops.

Too Bright is a strident and bold statement from an artist who has finally undone the knot of his past. It won't be the record which brings him mainstream success but it will be the record that frees him from the pigeonholing of his bruised and broken singer-songwriter image.

There's some great individual tracks here, but they need their next full-length to be less Jekyll and Hyde and more Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson.

Vessel's ambition has exceeded his abilities. By trading in his synth for sheet metal he has lost out on what caused people to stand up and take notice.

Nothing much sticks out, other than a campy nostalgia for an age when indie pop was still novel and there was a thick dividing line between this kind of guitar rock and the mainstream.

As with everything Tennis have done to date, it still sounds very light; the percussion, as usual, is kept unobtrusive, and Moore's vocals never threaten to bubble over into a snarl; you can't help but wonder what they might sound like with the shackles off, but perhaps that's to miss the point.

This is a record created entirely on his own terms, and in doing so he has also produced one of the finest records of his remarkable career.

The second half of Worship The Sun is weaker than the first, it has to be said. And that could just be because the first eight songs (minus 'Recurring') are so damn good.

Minus Tide is a record that lets you recall the best moments from vacations both real and imagined in a way that's better and brighter than the original experience.

Pink City is a richly lyrical and instrumental tapestry weaving new life into traditional folk music by placing it in a Canadian backdrop which typifies her interpretation.

Beats skitter, churn, and bubble with a menacingly magical quality but never do they outshine BANKS' vocals.

It's a tremendous record, that simply, and effectively puts their contemporaries to shame.

He has a release that bifurcates between sparkling, let-it-rip takes, over to a self-antagonistic, ball of constructed chaos.

The Physical World confirms everything we'd hoped for: DFA still know how to produce unstoppable energy, they still know how to push a bass guitar to its full capacity and they still know how to inject tonnes of fun into not just their product, but the wider spectrum of music itself--and there's not much more you can ask for, especially after so long.

You never feel as if Wooden Aquarium lets up, and whether that's something that the band have picked up from having to cram as many songs as possible into their quick-fire live sets or just a nod to their long-held influences, it works very well indeed.

At Best Cuckold is much like the autumnal vibe it tries to project in that, like autumn, you don't mind its existence but you kind of just want to go back to that excellent summer again.

What it sometimes lacks in immediacy and depth it makes up for in a number of moments of genuine transcendent beauty. Not the definite article then, but increasingly the real deal.

The differences are subtle, and calculated steps as opposed to humongous leaps, but they achieve bright results--it's like the relationship between butterflies and hurricanes.

Overall, The Dew Last An Hour is a solid debut.... it's all been done before.

This is indeed an astonishing and absolutely infectious debut album: the urgency that each and every track is communicated with makes even the smallest detail surface as necessary and never misplaced.

Junto holds few surprises and its not the strongest album to sit in their catalogue, but it is reassuring to know that the boys are still making the music they love for a global dance audience.

Castanets manage to keep those raw influences in sight, whilst tweaking and twisting them into something different, and at times intriguingly strange.

Yours Truly kept you singing until the moon shined and My Everything will make you want to dance until the sun comes up.

It's pleasing to discover that, even when taking his time, Ty Segall is still able to deliver the magic of spontaneity and urgency that was scorched across his previous albums.

The most vital strand of Sparks, probably, is its quality.

Even if they might not be able to quite recreate the same magic that they did on their early albums, The New Pornographers still behold a wealth of talent, and when it comes together just right--as it does a fair number of times on Brill Bruisers--the result is truly triumphant.

It is worth a listen but won't hang around in the memory for long, which is not what we've come to expect from a legend like this.

Being is a bit fragmented, and purposefully so.

Electric Würms as a whole: cool and weird with some great moments, but little structure or direction.

It feels less like album and more like a smorgasbord of everything Kimbra loves, and not in a bad way at all.

When The Cellar Children See the Light of Day is an excellent record, and one which reinforces the role artists like Mirel Wagner and her like can still have in a modern music setting.

An album filled with songs that seem unable to grab attention.

The handful of traditional band tracks that make the cut are a mixed bag.... On the whole, though, I was pleasantly surprised by Beyond Clueless; it's first of all proved Summer Camp's musical talent beyond doubt, by taking them in a direction so far removed from what they've been doing so far, and secondly lends them a little substance and credibility.

It builds upon the psych-folk elements of Dan Reeves' first project, but delivers them in a way that leaves you at the mercy of their power.

Their latest adds a number of new facets to their performance, without diluting what makes their reality any less romantic.

The slow pacing of the tracks, particularly the likes of 'Feet of Clay', 'Mister Skeleton' and 'Secrets of the Earth', are almost meditative. Richly detailed, so you're constantly finding new sounds and curiosities, but not so busy as to draw too much attention away from the trip.

You don't have to be a strict devotee of the R&B underground genre to realise that this is a great album. The sound is her own, and she's capable of making an album work as an album rather than just a collection of songs.

Ten tracks of beer-soaked bar-floor bliss, Television Man sweats through with an octane of badassery that's hard to come by these days. And while it's far from album of the year material, it probably is one of the best rock 'n roll recordings to bless the scene in a long time.

Not so much breaking up with old ways of thinking as redefining and refining them, Bear In Heaven have gone back to what they do best.

Far from diving deeper into the bleak, sonic maelstrom that has characterised most of their work, Pe'ahi is their most open, emotional record to date.

These Days... is a messy album: half completely unimpressive and half brilliant; botched skits; combined songs and an occasional identity crisis make judging the album as a cohesive whole very difficult indeed.

As with all instrumental rock, Forgetting The Present is hugely evocative and powerful.

Whilst Hard Believer has its moments, this sense of playing it safe permeates throughout the record.

Passerby may not be so suited to the blazing sunshine and the accompanying revelry of summer, but there are few albums that provide a better soundtrack for blissful solitude.

Where some of the cuts, like 'Gitter', 'Pro Model', or 'Many Descriptions' evoke vibrant feelings, others ignite a giant pile of 'meh' inside your brain.

At eighteen tracks, it never really drags at any point, and a lot can be said for Butler's captivating songwriting.

Leaving themselves with no room for filler, the band set out to deliver on the promise of their singles, and we're thrilled to report that they've succeeded. Stardom beckons.

The joyous moments continue to come thick and fast as you work your way through The Voyager.

It pains me to overly criticise an album that may be quite enjoyable if you were born in the '70s and have only ever looked forward for your music, but there's no avoiding this particular White Fence could have done with a second coat to better hide what's beneath.

On the Strange Weather EP, she takes this signature style and applies it to the songs of other artists who share the same particular penchant for music that finds inspiration in the dark recesses of our minds. This proves stunningly successful, no doubt responsible in part for the help Calvi recruited in the form of producer Thomas Bartlett (The National, Antony and the Johnsons) and one Mr David Byrne.

It's really worth putting aside 12 minutes to sit and decide what side of the fence you want to sit on. Or an hour, because the chances are that you will probably have it on repeat.

You don't get the sense of elation one might receive for being paid to pose for an art class because to listen to Dawn Golden's debut of course, you pay them for the privilege.