It feels almost too intimate for the world to hear.

The greatest achievement across Charm remains Cottrill’s execution of another large-scale reimagining of her desired sound.

The only way to respond to the sourpusses is to ensure the music is very, very good, something that KoKoro can more than justifiably claim.

There’s so much passion under the surface that Blumberg presents that some form of purging is not only needed, it’s inevitable.

Despite their EDM club appeal and pop sensibility, seven strikingly dynamic and expansive maximalist compositions are still locked in a very private headspace, a kind of solitude that contains multitudes.

Give this album time and an open heart, and you'll get an album that initially seems slate grey blooming into colour. In The Seams is Saint Saviour's best yet.

It's rich and hypnotic, but it's not an easy listen: the gloom of many of the tracks will feel oppressive to some.

Especially during this first cut, there are glimpses of rawness in the playing of the group, moments when they seem unsure of which direction to take. But it’s exactly this unpredictability that makes the quartet’s evocative sounds thoroughly captivating.

For anyone who has enjoyed the great guitar music coming out of Mali in recent years Albala is essential listening.

At times a song can simultaneously be baroque and noise, harsh and beautiful, and the contradictions aren't evident because their voices are one--but there are also times when the record is triumphant, precisely because they're torn away from one another.

Despite the inevitable ending, Amelia is an unexpectedly soothing record. This is largely down to Anderson having a calm, meditative quality to her voice that holds steady whether the arrangement is minimalist or intense. But much of the relaxing quality of the album is also related to Anderson’s ability to look at a figure frequently only cast in tragedy and mystery as a whole person.

Ultimately, Aventine is a triumph of carefully sustained mood; of a sadness that is not so much overbearing as it beautiful, and one that lingers in the silences between listens of this unusual, unusually compelling record.

At turns subtle, delicate, naked, brutal, and deeply affecting in a way rarely managed by contemporary dance producers, and it's both a continuation of his previous work and a departure further than ever before from the DJ weapons that made his reputation.

Holy Spring is a mature and enthralling work that gives us real ritual. Ceremonies taken seriously that generate real power.

There are nods throughout to progressive soul superstars like Isaac Hayes, and the slide guitar outro on ‘Never Know’ suggests George is in fact Sam’s favourite Beatle – though the album always strikes the right balance between vintage and cutting edge, never unduly nostalgic or pastiche-y, with sax breaks, searing synth solos and simulated Stax horns that never feel indulgent or showy.

Aromanticism is an exquisitely well-crafted piece of work, which retains a delicate complexity despite its minimalism.

Another great Pere Ubu record, one imbued with a more upbeat emotional sensibility than its predecessor, with some memorable songs and some wild sonic experiments. It’s a snapshot of where the band are right now, as well las a hint of where they might still go in future.

In The Same Room gives us more intimately friendly insight into the beguiling world of Julia Holter, seen here as thoughtfully poised and careful not to intimidate the listener, making this breezy recording a good entry point for novices in Holter's catalogue.

The menace and late-night melancholy is subbed for outright tragedy and romance here, and this is certainly their best realised set released in the decade since Black Earth's high watermark, bringing together all that makes this music both beautiful and ugly, while tentatively exploring new sonic territory.

What Tunng have shown with Presents…Dead Club is that addressing grief and death doesn’t have to be devastating. It can be thought-provoking. It can also be simply pleasurable.

Yeule sits in a coterie of future thinkers making eclectic pop music, and since the scene has become a cultural firecracker in the last few years, many artists are seeing praise for work that rests on its recent success. Glitch Princess moves the goalposts once again.

Lifetime of Love is a strange album, where songs with differing emotional foundations, sonic palettes, aural pace and textural aesthetics mesh into a cohesive whole. As Moon Diagrams, Archuleta has created a world where introspection, catharsis and redemption can envelop you and become something porous, to be inhaled and lived in.

Godfather 3 is more like a mixtape than an album. Many of the tracks are shorter than three minutes and the number of features gives it a collaborative, crew-project feel. But this is what Wiley does best.

It’s a relief to state that their new album Polymer is very much Plaid’s best album this decade, and at least their best since 2008’s Heaven’s Door.

There is a shadowy enigma within Esker that verges on the blissful, thanks to its peculiar melodic turns and idiosyncratic use of sonic effects.

While Memorial Waterslides (the title itself a perfect juxtaposition of the bleak and the playful) is shot through with a sense of longing and an awareness of the passing of time, it’s also a joyful celebration of creativity, and of a band who appear to have ideas in abundance.

Sarah Davachi is delving deep into the intervals between these states, to the place where emotion dwells, and is holding us down there until we can feel it roaring through our lungs. Just don’t forget to breathe.

Its confident shape-shifting compositional power and instrumental thunder make for one of 2014's most immediate and satisfying releases.