Wand are a special band, and the new emotional range suits them.

An absorbing, immersive listening experience, Long.Live.A$AP outshines the recent full-lengths of technically more proficient rappers as well as those of strikingly safer hip-hop hitmakers.

The Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist returns with Childqueen, which retains stylistic elements of The Visitor but packs a groovier, struttier punch.

For You & I is consistent in its spirit with the label’s catalogue: often in its sound, too, although in a decade and a half Hyperdub has covered enough ground for this to be nebulous. That spirit, though, manifests itself in a defiant queerness; a grab-bag approach borne of big city multiculturalism; and a clear fascination with, and love of, sound in general.

For all the proggy flights of fancy here, Absolute Elsewhere still resolutely retains what made the band’s unique take on death metal so fascinating in the first place. Once the novelty of hearing them bust out Rick Wakeman-esque synth flourishes amidst churning blastbeats has worn off, repeated listens reveal the band’s songwriting skills feeling more finely honed than ever, with a consistent (if entirely surreal) logic underpinning the structure of both these side-long movements.

Gallarais is a quiet album, but a deeply unsettling one.

The Budos Band are the real deal, and Burnt Offering is quite a ride. For connoisseurs of heavy sounds, I can't recommend this highly enough.

Constant Noise redirects attention to the urgent task of repairing the fractured connections within our society. At times, the message may feel on the nose, but to articulate an appropriate emotional response, such directness may be warranted in an era where division reigns.

Where 2012's Pansophical Cataract was a bit of a meditative blur, Ryonen is more like an adrenaline hit, pumped with rushing rhythms that get the heart hammering against the ribcage.

Overmono have produced an album with a euphoric and kaleidoscopic appeal.

Polygondwanaland is one of their strongest excursions yet, not just of this year but of any.

Just as it’s often repeated that serious science fiction is written about the present rather than the future; this cinematic soundtrack seems reflective of contemporary reality much more than an invented narrative.

From the rock & roll of 'Freaks and Geeks' to the ska-indebted 'I'll Reach Out My Hand', this is unadulterated glee.

The earlier EP was impressive but they’ve noticeably pushed themselves further here, achieving something sharper, more their own.

Everything here is distorted. Everything as resonant as it can possibly be. Sharpened, infinitely intensified and yet simultaneously blunted and blurred. There is just the right amount of detail.

An intriguing listen. Just when you think you have it worked out, Souleyman changes the script, and tempo, and you’re back to square one.

‘Time Ring Rattles’ was added last year. Shorter and more frantic than the rest it bursts in the middle of the album, a spray of staccato dots and vivid daubs achieving a swarming mania. Calming down again ‘Sparkles, Crystals, Miracles’ is a warm and dreamy beauty, its mood gently ascending into a widescreen outro.

What this amounts to is a collection that’s a good way in to the work of a songwriter whose output is three decades strong and a welcome addition to Tweedy’s discography in its own right.

Dense snapshot lyrics put us in their head state, somewhere between reflection and rumination. As always with grief, there aren’t easy answers. But that act of picking at the cadaver leads to Iceboy Violet’s most focused and affecting set of songs, one that honours the humanity of its subject through bare writing.

Elegance and delicacy seem to be the intended effect, as well as intelligence, both innate and hard-won with time.

Odds Against Tomorrow is contemplative and, at times, undeniably beautiful. If earlier albums like A New Way to Pay Old Debts desublimated blues and roots music, Odds Against Tomorrow resublimates it. On this set of tracks, Orcutt mourns the loss of expressivity in music and conjures the fantastical spirit of the blues.

Musically speaking, radical reinvention isn't Oozing Wound's raison d'etre, so don't expect a new version of the wheel. Instead, there’s willful progression, incremental growth, and renewed focus. After the sprawling Whatever Forever, High Anxiety's comparatively concise seven-track, thirty-four-minute runtime feels super concentrated and highly potent, calling to mind the band's previous high-water mark, Earth Suck. But High Anxiety is no rehash.

Half Divorced is packed full of pep. They’ve stomped on the gas and it burns along like a raging forest fire.

The sonic backdrop is richer, more luscious and colourful, whilst rhythms that once would twitch are now more confident and loose.

The album manages to be wholly fulfilling. Each track takes on its own character, sometimes wispy and laid black, channelling the unbounded soulfulness of Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah albums like on She’s My Brand New Crush. At other times they’re pointed and deliberate, such as ‘Cut To The Chase’, which does away with sung lyrics entirely for statements spoken over tribalistic percussion and futuristic electronic harmonies.

The results are simply amazing, Ghil effectively standing as the premier noise album of 2013.

The centre is hard to hold and purposefully so. This is an album that exists in dream states, oneiric in its exploration of textures. And as soon as there’s something approaching a collage approach, like on ‘Crushing Realities’ or opener ‘Elemental Dream’, it is swept away in favour of something more liquid.

‘Future Times’ is a comforting record, delivered by a highly-skilled musician taking on the epically harsh world of the 2020s, and facing off against the dark forces with the pure power of mind-melting music. That kind of optimism is in short supply and we need more of what Plankton Wat has to offer us: mind expansion, inner calm, and irresistible fuzz.