Never merely texture, just noise or dumb repetition, but always, instead, living and intelligent music. [Nov 2011, p.63]

Crazy Clown Time is like a sound painting of oddball modern USA done in the style of Old Weird America. {Nov 2011, p.62]

I found myself wishing [the booklet] was three times longer and the music three CDs less. [Nov 2011, p.60]

Some might find the group's repetitive grooves too smooth a match for all Smith's spewing. But his bark infects everything around it. [Nov 2011, p.58]

Far Side Virtual is a convincing evocation of the digital dreamtime. [Nov 2011, p.58]

Bonnie Prince Billy shows no sign of slowing down his slowness, despite, or perhaps because of, the misery. [Nov 2011, p.56]

The record crams a ton of sonic and thematic ideas into a small space and yet show almost no visible stitches. [Oct 2011, p.66]

There's a lot going on and while he never rises to anything as wakeful as a melody or a solid riff, there's still a satisfying level of control that keeps him two steps away from the minimalism plus heavy effects tendency of similar acts. [Oct 2011, p.65]

Dance album of this level of consistent quality are rare. Yet ultimately, no groove in this album particularly reach out and little new, different or memorable is offered for the imagination. [Oct 2011, p.65]

On XXX his own aesthetic seems fully formed. [Oct 2011, p.65]

Patten's ability to conjure such urgency with out ever slipping into anything so easy as a typical groove goes some distance. [Oct 2011, p.65]

Abstract hiphop-heads might be turned off by the slick machismo, but others will have some good dirty fun. [Oct 2011, p.65]

Extra Playful lives up to its title. [Oct 2011, p.63]

In truth most of it is middling stuff. [Oct 2011, p.62]

What could have ended up sounding like sketches, are now completed pieces,m full of suspense flashback, refrains ad other temporal tricks. [Oct 2011, p.61]

By unplugging the effects and simply playing, they sound re-energized. [Oct 2011, p.61]

Even if the music remains fairly consistent, the concepts mark off more ambitious territories. [Oct 2011, p.60]

Musically, in other words, Strange Mercy delivers plenty of interest. What's not so convincing is the songwriting, specifically the lyrics. [Oct 2011, p.60]

Given the sprawling length, naturally it's not devoid of a few stray gems and curiosities. [Oct 2011, p.60]

A certain bass jumpiness is evident throughout these six tracks, a post-grunge melodic murkiness that is at once reassuring but also puts paid to elevating the record into the realms of the ethereal. [Oct 2011, p.58]

On How The Thing Sings, Orcutt reveals a more open vision. [Oct 2011, p.58]

Get Lost is no worse (and no better) than 2010's Living With Yourself. [Oct 2011, p.56]

These performances have been rightly cherished by collectors for decades. [Oct 2011, p.54]

Not a visionary rollercoaster thundering around the heavens, but a rewarding slow and subtle grower. [Oct 2011, p.53]

While nothing on III is exactly a soundtrack to sipping caipirinhas in the sun, there's also nothing about it that suggests grimacing theatrically on a darken dancefloor. [Oct 2011, p.52]

Th art here is ensuring that too much is in fact just enough, and Rustie is a master of it. [Oct 2011, p.51]

Season Of Earth is music rooted deep in the black, black earth and whose only limit is the blue, blue sky. [Oct 2011, p.50]

There's still plenty to enjoy on Tassilli, but desert blooms fade fast when overwatered. [Sep 2011, p.65]

Though they're written to sound simple on the surface, PG Six's songs reveal an unusually high level of artistry on closer inspection. [Sep 2011, p.62]

Two nostalgia trips for the price of one. [Sep 2011, p.62]

They have a certain beauty, but it all feels sterile, airless. [Sep 2011, p.59]

This is the most introspective Wolves In The throne Room release to date. [Sep 2011, p59]

Rather than the sound of people battering against existing structures, Social Climbers exude comfort. [Sep 2011, p.58]

In lesser hands [it could have slipped into corny retro tropes], but In Dust is if anything even less indebted to past styles than last year's impressive self-titled debut. [Sep 2011, p.56]

It's actually more pleasurable to pick a track at random and leave it on loop. [Sep 2011, p.56]

Its utter ahistoricity is one of its more charming dimensions, in a "why not?" sort of way. [Sep 2011, p.52]

Bozulich's gloom is top quality gloom, as far as that goes, but nothing here lights up the heart like [2008's] Voyager's blistering "Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space." [Sep 2011, p.51]

As the Crow flies has a folkier feel than previous advisory circle releases. [Sep 2011, p.50]

Sum's bigger than the parts, though, and Double Demon delivers a whack of sound and a level of detail far in excess of anything on earlier ESO and Sound Is Delmarks. [Aug 2011, p.70]

Easily Hud-Mo's best work yet. [Aug 2011, p.67]

The outcome is mostly a coruscating shot of tough nomadic blues, but here and there it skews into a self-indulgent liaison with a time-bound, well-worn rock sound. [Jul 2011, p.61]

Everything is warm and accessible, occasionally too much so. [Jul 2011, p.48]

Ultimately there's more to gnaw on here, and for all his admiration of astral jazz, the album title is apt. Ras may be gazing up at the stars, but there is solid ground beneath his feet. [Sep 2011, p.56]

He's frozen in time, still rapping in an emaciated wheeze and overemphasizing his emotionless and cringe-inducing wordplay. [Aug 2011, p.69]

At best, the end result has an epic and ethereal sheen, though there are certainly moments where Araab succumbs to the tackier elements of his influences, like blind fist-pumping four on the floor or arpeggiated faux-bliss. [Aug 2011, p.69]

There's no point chasing diminishing returns on a four-track, and the buffed-up West is a kick worth revisiting. [Aug 2011, p.63]

The bold accessibility and nostalgic tone of Bermuda Drain is a surprise. [Jul 2011, p.60]

Where the vocals are murky, the synthesizers have a queasy over-clarity, poised somewhere between the repellent and the sublime. [Aug 2011, p.58]

Where as The Notwist traffic in mellow tempos and beautifully seamless surfaces, Dose and Jel conjure all manner of conniption ta[s and noise. [Jul 2011, p.62]

This is no simplistic exercise in cross-cultural groove making--Dyrdahl has responded more to gamelan's harmonic stasis than to its rhythmic insistence. [Jul 2011, p.60]

H-p1 is a slightly more adventurous outing than usual, due to the recruitment of synth player Shazzula, but the additional textures, pleasing as they are, fail to revolutionize what is essentially record collection rock. [Jul 2011, p.58]

Clamber aboard and settle in for a very sweet ride. [Jul 2011, p.55]

The production values can't cover for the lack of lyrical pizzazz, [Jul 2011, p.55]

It's a shame that the the young skate rat seems to be so caught up in his own hype, as beneath the bluster and amped-up angst, there is something interesting going on. [Jul 2011, p.54]

One Nation's ability to alternate and combine insolence with detachment yields moments of inspired incongruity. [Jul 2011, p.49]

It's ruling mood of detachment might appeal more to listeners who never went out in the first place and who prefer to experience physical release and emotional engagement through the filer of files, screens and headphones instead. [Jul 2011, p.50]

Attention Please is more of a shuffle than a giant leap forward, leaving the feeling that we've been here before. [Jul 2011, p.44]

It's not completely pants, but not great either. [Jul 2011, p.44]

Hot Sauce Committee finds The Beastie Boys being The Beastie Boys with nothing that isn't exactly what on would expect from The Beastie Boys. [Jul 2011, p.44]

The disc's closing one-two punch of "white Electric" and "Sundome," render Glass Drop a triumph, and a major evolutionary leap. [July 2011, p.44]

Clams is one rap's most distinctive producers, pushing his vocal collaborators to new emotional depths; but as an instrumental electronic producer, that choice is muddled by a sea of similarly charged chillwave types. [Jun 2011, p.60]

Baker's style is physical, thick, dense: woozy bass, murky keys and drums that kick hard enough to stir up dust and gleam in the dim light coming in through the basement windows. [Jun 2011, p.60]

There's a lingering sense of calculation to their weirdness, the feeling that this is someone's specific idea of what next-level hiphop is supposed to sound like and not the type of batshit creativity bursts that can lead to truly transcendent experimental hiphop.

He rationalizes the darkness of Trauma with the breeze and bounce of 1998's Rhythmalism, and the results are often downright hilarious. [Jun 2011, p.60]

The sound is certainly has the depth and sheen you'd expect from Laswell. But what's missing is some of the edginess, invention and unpredictability that was Scratch's trademark. [Jun 2011, p.59]

The group's love and knowledge of folk and psychedelia is really to the fore on this collection, as they unravel both and knit them back together in bolder, even wiggier patterns. [Jun 2011, p.57]

Laced never stays still long enough to be pinned down. [Jun 2011, p.57]

It's clear that, for Shipp, The Tradition clearly goes way beyond jazz. [Jun 2011, p.54]

Far from being derivative, Demolished Thoughts remains uniquely Moore's own. [Jun 2011, p.51]

The original running order is slightly shuffled, but starting with "Raw Power" wasn't such a good idea, as it mostly serves to highlight the way the album sags in its second half. But ending with a roaring "I Got A Right" salvages the set. [Jun 2011, p.48]

Kudos to both director and music supervisor for thinking outside the source music box. [Jun 2011, p.47]

As a pop album, Channel Pressure falls short, primarily because the songs simply aren't as good as their impeccable references demand. [Jun 20111, p.46]

Andrew WK's lucid, luminous production delivers a sequence of music that seems to hover between states. This is a musical achievement. [Jun 2011, p.46]

An unusual and unexpected triumph. [Jun 2011, p.44]

Shaolin is a pleasingly unpredictable record. [May 2011, p.64]

Given the unequaled brilliance of their SST era, it;s tempting to compare and contrast, but those who do so risk missing out on the often excellent music the Kirkwood brothes are making now. [May 2011, p.60]

With the addition of these elegant bent strings, it is as though perfumed air has been allowed to seep into what was formerly a hermetically sealed canister. This (now non-) trio's music is that much better for the enhancement. [May 2011, p.58]

If it was possible to see the debut Carbeth as a local gem of modest proportions, it's hard to receive The Constant Pageant as anything other than a finished masterpiece, with four or five songs that have longevity written in and the rest of them as musically sharp as they're lyrically alert. [May 2011, p.56]

That persistent footwork pulse holds the album together, preventing it from dispersing into a grey stew of genres. [May 2011, p.53]

It has that out-of-time, sketchbook privacy of so much current home-recorded memoradelia, but it also has a grit or grain to it--cheap Xerox rather than woozy VHS wobble--which is strangely refreshing. [May 2011, p.53]

It's a concise, tidy sounding album, with little of the noise leakage of old. [May 2011, p.51]

Here Before picks up as though they'd never left. [May 2011, p.50]

If their forthcoming albums match the confidence and uniqueness of Bible eyes, Night Slugs may enjoy another year in the spotlight. [May 2011, p.49]

Almost overpowering in its anthemic positivity, Constant Future is unfashionably fearless, and all the better for it. [Apr 2011, p.58]

Guillermo Scott Heren's eight record as Prefuse 73 is oddly colourless (or should I just say boring) suite of compositional drifts. [Apr 2011, p.70]

Celebrity guests or not, this is what Beans is--a densely indigestible acquired taste. [Apr 2011, p.70]

Mind Bokeh feels driven by the way recording music allows its maker to home in and hear clearly hazy, unformed ideas as material for the next piece. This at least would account for its restless churn of styles. [Apr 2011, p.69]

In Love With Oblivion is best when it's tough, primitive and direct. [Apr 2011, p.67]

Even without Gobert's cinematographic backdrop Simon Werner A Disparu stands as a solid instrumental album in its own right. [Apr 2011, p.63]

"Feral," "Codex" and "Giving Up The Ghost" finally win me over. [Apr 2011, p.62]

This intensity and force, despite the stillness, brings a new dimension to Low's sound and makes C'Mon an interesting addition to an already impressive body of work. [Apr 2011, p.60]

It's impressive on the first few listens, it grows irritating with repeat play. [Apr 2011, p.57]

Throughout this solo effort--his fourth, for what it's worth--Callahan mumbles ever onward like a charmless, tranquillised version of Giant Sand's Howe Gelb. [Apr 2011, p.55]

Black Sun has a broader palette, even if it's not really any lighter. [Apr 2011, p.53]

Hayward sounds bored, Coxon throws out Clapton-ish licks, and Taylor's milk-and-water vocals make him sound like the younger brother of The Beautiful South's Paul Heaton. Only Thomas seems willing to inject any imagination into the songs. [Apr 2011, p.52]

The album works best when the trio downshift to embrace Kaur's vocals and rhythmical sitar twangs. [Mar 2011, p.61]

The One is both sonically and conceptually strong enough to transcend that small internet buzz circle. [Mar 2011, p.62]

Sic Alp's latest might make for acceptable audio wallpaper--nice tunes and all, just ragged enough to contrive an illusion of edginess--but it crumbles under closer scrutiny. [Mar 2011, p.58]