What makes Manipulator one of Segall’s strongest releases to date is less to do with the energy he brings to proceedings, though, and more about just how evident his keenness to experiment is, from start to finish.

Alias is by no means a bad album--on the contrary, it highlights the maturity and progression of four highly talented and much loved British musicians--but it’s just not that fun.

[A] fantastic sophomore effort.

Great Divide is a definite step up from the flab of Free, blowing out its cheeks impressively hard at first but it does run out of puff all too quickly.

It is thanks to such a diverse roster of musicians that the album is as rich in instrumental character as it is in lyrical depth and intrigue.

It’s probably their most listenable, and that alone makes it highly recommended.

You have to admire the experimentation and musical audacity demonstrated on this album--i’s a shame that it doesn’t always work in jj’s favour.

Over ten short years, Hyperdub has managed to cultivate itself a reputation for quality with such style and consistency that it is difficult to think of another UK independent label that commands such a universal level of respect from devotees of its genre. Hyperdub 10.1 is predictably solid evidence of this.

When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day is in many ways an astounding album; unflinching in its tales of abuse, murder and death it marks Mirel Wagner out not just as a musician of immense talent, but also as a story teller and poet who’s able to weave gripping tales from bleak reality.

It’s simply not striking enough to elicit a stronger response than this, as well polished as it may be.

We never quite reach the mind-blowing heights of the first instalment’s greatest discoveries, namely Larry Jon Wilson’s “Ohoopee River Bottomland’ and Jim Ford’s ‘I’m Gonna Make Her Love Me’, although Donnie Fritts” does-what-it-says-on-the-tin “Sumpin Funky Going On” comes very close, but the quality remains very high.

The sheer variety of genres in this remix collection is just one indication of the breadth of influence that N.O.W has exerted over the past two decades.

Lacuna is a euphoric, ecstatic and effortlessly cool record which warrants your undivided and immediate attention.

This longform escapade is the real McCoy, and where the magic happens. The honeymoon period is over.

The Beyond Clueless album stands on its own merits; it is as much a soundtrack to your own memories/current experience of tennagerdom as it is to Lyne’s documentary.

Much of the album carries this sense of being a showpiece for one of its individual elements--more often than not, it is Ronald Lippok’s shuffling percussion which breathes life into Instrument.

Drumless and bassless, L’amour is as intimate as a late morning lie-in--bum notes (and there are an endaring few) are left completely in tact, you can hear shirt sleeves swipe against guitar strings, and the almost wordless vocals sound almost like Lewis is too scared to make his feelings known.

Although the album is perhaps two songs too long, Angus & Julia Stone succeeds because the whole outnumbers the sum, and does so with a light-touch intensity. Rubin might not be breaking new ground here but he’s mining precious stones.

[A] beguiling, all-too-brief album.

Brief as it may be, Frozen Letter covers a lot of ground for Spider Bags--it has them gleefully offering us tasty kibbles of what they’ve always excelled at while also boldly paving themselves a new path forward.

No matter how many times she’s labelled ‘the next Grimes’, there’s nought they can do about the fact that this one, well, she’s really one on her own.

Time Is Over One Day Old use a less is more approach, the understated subtlety of which results in their best album to date.

Gist Is shows a lightness of touch that’s few and far between on debut records.

They just make fantastic, intricate albums that sound like they’re not even trying. Spoon are a band with nothing to prove. They Want My Soul proves everything.

Incredibly enduring and undeniably influential, Anthology is a culmination of everything that prevails from this often omitted, golden era of music.

Hypnotic Eye is little more than a decent record with a few ideas above its station.

Overall though, this still feels like a missed opportunity; a more inspired roll call of contributors could have pushed Song Reader into essential listening territory. As it is, fans might well get more out of playing these songs than listening to them. Then again, that was always the point.

If your faith in the concept album is failing, The Grand Tour will restore it. And if you have any long, trans-national train journeys coming up, this album will be great for those, too.

No tracks on the record could really be said to be ‘stand out’ but they create, on the whole, something that experiments with psych’s current face, paying homage to the ‘far out’ creators who originated it.

We are treated to a collection of refreshingly care-free and up-tempo punk; well-crafted and not at all pretentious.

Lese Majesty gently disorientates you with dizzying vibrations, droning, ephemeral space sounds and abstract noise pieces (the weirdest being the utterly formless “Divine of Form”) that don’t so much blow you away, as lull you into a deep cosmic trance. It’s really quite beautiful.

Pe-Ahi, despite being entertaining, cries out for something we haven’t heard from them before.

There isn’t a weak track on the album--just varying degrees of excellence.

This lovingly and lavishly packaged reissue is a timely reminder of what a supremely focused and satisfying record Soul Mining is.

It also works as stand-alone propaganda for our friends north of the border, and album that feeds the imagination and makes you long for mountains, open space, and something a little more natural.

PS I Love You stand worryingly characterless--as nervy as that inadvertently muttered, instantly regrettable moniker--in the corner of the party; forgettable faces soon cast into history once the fresh night air hits intoxicated skin.

Alvvays’ record is a hard-hitting, multi-faceted anthology of awesome, and sits pretty as one of 2014’s brightest debuts.

This quaint duo has created a bold and unapologetic record that stands out as the best of its kind for quite some time.

It would seem that, even forty years on, the quartet is still brimming with dynamism and inventiveness.

While the album has its forgettable moments, there are points where McVicar and Tweeddale really show what they’re made of--and that, if you piss them off, you’re going to know about it.

For his fifth long player as White Fence, things have remained very much the same musically.

There’s a notable evolution here, and we see the lone Jackson strive for something you can sink your teeth into over the course of a few days, weeks, month, rather than something you can insufflate at a club in the space of a few minutes.

Calvi thrashes, broils, sweats, cries and lusts through the EP, and returns to reality remarkably unscathed from Strange Weather. Kudos to Calvi.

Riff’s lyricism, rightfully lionized for its eccentricity and boundary pushing--Riff Raff, along with rappers like Heems and Kool A.D., extend the idea of rapping as abstract expressionists did painting--is not so often hailed for its dexterity, which Neon Icon demonstrates in its barbed hooks, lackadaisical lopes, professional wrestler entering the ring peacocking.

1000 Forms of Fear is a anguished pop album for our uncertain times, crafted by an artist who is conflicted and torn by her celebrity as well as her vulnerable heart.

Every bit as dense and nuanced as their more traditional work, Celestite might end up finding itself falling between two stools, but no-one could accuse Wolves in the Throne Room of going at this half-heartedly.

Slow Club are grander than ever, shimmering like disco balls, toting an LP that’ll break them into mainstream darlinghood; by the sounds of this bolshy confidence and tune-garlanded melange, they’re not only ready, but expecting it.

While it may not be as charmingly naïve as he claims, L’Aventura is an unexpected transformation of the classic Tellier formula: pure electro-madness and bearded sex-appeal.

Shattered is a deeply comfortable and comforting thirty minutes of expertly curated rock-and-soul.

There are no question marks next to ambition here but rather a general air of confusion in the artistic make-up of the songs that makes Mosaic a slightly frustrating listen.

CSNY 1974 does an unerring job at capturing a must-capture moment in music history, it’s just the moment acquits itself as more a valiant effort than a resounding success.

Combining the pop world’s two biggest current loves--forward-thinking dance music and throwback soul/funk--Jungle are ticking every box on the ‘perfect debut’ checklist, and they’re doing it with pizazz.

Once again, they’ve treated genre boundaries with genuine disdain on Paperback Ghosts, and the result is a reassuringly eclectic collection of songs - Feck is one of Britain’s true originals.

It could be argued that you need to put in some effort yourself to fully enjoy music like this that demands activity from your brain, but with a catalyst like The Phoenix, all you need to do is listen and let your mind wander into a galaxy far, far away.

The real flaw, if there is one, is that they might have strayed a little too far from their roots. The uninitiated, though, will see this as an intriguing electro-pop record, first and foremost.

Futurology just happens to be their most daring folly yet.

While No Coast is more resurrection than reinvention, hearing new Braid now after 15 years without drums up the realization that nothing has sounded quite like it since.

It’s a more evolved release for sure, and with less it seems Eugene McGuinness can actually achieve more.

The glue holding Martyn’s third LP together is his immaculately-produced tone rather than succinct emotional movement through the album. The individual tracks don’t suffer from it, but it makes sitting down and listening all the way through The Air Between Words a less attractive prospect than doing the same for Immunity. That being said, there’s plenty to take away from Martyn’s third LP.

There’s evidence that he’s pursued some kind of consistency to the album’s mood, but it’s sonically so scattered that you can’t help but feel he’s fighting a losing battle; ultimately, he’ll end up back where he started--with devotees satisfied, but little in the way of fresh converts.

This is a great entry point into the catalogue of one of Britain’s most inventive, iconic bands--but the shallowness of the record makes it largely unnecessary for anyone that owns the Original Sound compilations, or indeed the albums themselves. ​

It’s not quite as appealing generally speaking, but does feature music for those moments when a soundtrack to a subtle atmosphere is needed-- whether on screen or in imaginations--with hints of more life slipping in between.

At its best, the album is all at once loud, ethereal, and haunting--as if being violently jolted awake from a lucid dream you can’t quite remember.

Forgetting The Present is the latest and most perfect union of Remember Remember’s distinctive blend of styles. Expect that record to stand for as long as it takes for their next album to appear.

If this is the end of whatever this is, they’ve recorded a superlative piece of work which leaves us on one hell of a high, despite it sounding anything but high itself.

Strand of Oaks’ particular synthesis of modern sounds with retro feels is as entertaining as it is uplifting. Just don’t expect it to stir you like the Boss can.

Lazerbeak’s imaginative, propulsive beats continually push things to the next level, with Olson’s refined recording and edits (along with hypeman Cliff Rhymes lyrical flourishes) giving these tracks an inspired pulse. But Lizzo still has more than enough room to eloquently and intensely express herself.

RTXIV was a superb, full-throttle rock ‘n’ roll record, but Electric Brick Wall is a next-level release.

There’s a communal ambience on show here; using three vocalists gives it a mixtape aesthetic, the music feeling like a bulging bag of pick and mix.

A Sunny Day have just about mastered the pleasure principle of a certain kind of agreeably arty pop music.

For those that do connect with the concept of this album as a whole and allow themselves to become immersed in Abbott’s analogue world, Wysing is as beguiling and intriguing as any record released this year.

The cleverly engineered structure makes you feel like you once again understand why the album is a thing of beauty. It makes sense. It flows. And Joakim just makes it look so easy…

What makes Jaded & Faded great is the fact that you can still be stuck humming the buzzsaw riffs or cooing a vocal line to yourself hours or days later.

As heavy, hard rock records go, Once More ‘Round the Sun isn’t necessarily a bad one; it’s just that it seems, like The Hunter before it, to be nudging Mastodon further and further away from what made them stand out in the first place.

Krell’s voice could never get tiresome, but the album seems unclear as to what it wants to be--too restless for heartbreak, too downbeat for the dancefloor, like a candle that’s trying to illuminate a club.

Love Frequency isn’t a terrible album, but at times it does feel terribly unimaginative.

Whilst Heartstrings is unlikely to break new ground in the way they have before, it’s a return to brooding form from a band many thought had rung out.

Perhaps that great crossover will now never happen, but they’ve made a refreshing, bold record here, that, a few trips aside, leaps the barriers of genre with ease and satisfies throughout.

Their eponymous EP was pretty great--and are showing on Weird Little Birthday that that’s not all hot air.

The uneven narrative is often jarring, but as an attempt to put a modern spin on old-time rock and roll, Liberation! hits more than it misses.

Ultimately, Seek Warmer Climes subsists on mood and atmosphere, seemingly hoping that the listener will too. At its best, it’s an engagingly stylish record, an agreeably abstract work of oblique angles and wintery spaces.

Pink still remains Boris’ best record, and the best entry-point into their staggering catalogue. But Noise is the best album since that, a staggering, cathartic masterpiece that won’t have much competition in terms of quality in 2014.

As great as the album’s opening four songs might be, they hardly break new ground for the Felices.

Rage is, by turns, ridiculous, overly-serious, and self-satisfying. It’s also one helluva EDM record and an intelligent send-up of an otherwise difficult-to-work-with (and work in) music genre.

Colfax, then, resembles best of Richmond Fontaine’s work: unassuming, deceptively simple songs that gradually gain the resonance of a great short story that happens to be accompanied by great music.

The album’s great triumph--The Antlers’ great triumph--is the intelligence with which Silberman’s masterful lyricism is matched to its backdrops.

Ride The Black Wave is both a joy to listen to and a pain to consider critically: The type of music they’re playing could realistically be called superfluous or superb, depending on your level of engagement with it; the tunes could be called plagiaristic or panoptic depending on your state of mind when you’re listening to them.

One of the best albums of the year so far.

Amongst the album’s subtler shades, some might miss Lone’s trademark fireworks, but while Reality Testing might not bear the genre-defining feel of its predecessor, its personality and refreshing humanity provide ample compensation.

This is a very tight set, sympathetically produced and moving towards the mainstream.

Wooden Head is a more than agreeable rethink of late sixties rock.

A brutal yet glorious release that doubles up as an unbending overture to fervour and force.

This is twenty seven minutes of searing punk rock, blistering guitars, brilliant singing, incredible drumming and there’s never a dull moment or weak point.

This is a really surprising record, and one that you really have to spend time with to let it fully hit ya.

This is another lo-fi gem, and most encouraging is the fact that there’s apparently plenty more he can wring out of this particular sonic platform; he might not need slick studio production to genuinely capitalise on his potential.

International is a sign of gradual progression for Lust For Youth; there’s occasional backward looks by Norrvide, but slowly and surely this music is stepping out of the shadows and into the light.

It’s phenomenally exciting to have that sense of danger back in music. It’s subtle, malevolent and utterly charming noise, and if Glass Animals turned out to be buttering you up with a cannibalistic lick of the lips, you’d let them gnaw away.

They’re not ceasing their distinct punk-rap, but they’re offering a new portion of the spectrum. If you found it had to stomach their previous material, CLPPNG will provide you a rope, from which you can drag yourself into their miscreant lair. Fair warning: they may not let you leave.