With his propensity for collaboration across disciplines, Coates blends classical training with an ear for invention. [Nov 2020, p.55]

Raymond has learned the most important lesson of American primitive guitar: whatever your influences, they need to project a bit of your emotional life. This, as much as her robust tone and nimble picking, is what makes Raymond sound like a guitarist with staying power. [Dec 2020, p.56]

The ten tracks here sprint, pound, flex and grunt, the guitar equivalent of a vigorous workout. Cerebral turns and Derek Baileyesque abstractions burble throughout, but Stateless hits more like a punk rock record than a study in extended technique. [Oct 2020, p.51]

Nightcap further distinguishes them as more than a clever amalgam of Dead tropes. The shifting time signatures and dramatic dynamics of “Wasted Time” suggest a fondness for Gabriel-era Genesis while the courtly melody and stentorian storytelling of “Altered Place” conjure thoughts of The Moody Blues at their late 1960s zenith. [Jan 2021, p.72]

Sixth album Long In The Tooth burnishes the group’s analogue groove science with familiar movements of heroic, brassy swagger. [Jan 2021, p.72]

Universal Beings E & F Sides is explicitly more of the same for fans of the original double LP. [Oct 2020, p.57]

All of the music is a kind of West African funk, a loping groove that’s an ideal platform for long, discursive but rhythmically grounded solos. ... “Leta’s Dance” has the feel of a mellow track from an early 70s Pharoah Sanders album, sweeping along like a river of electric piano and gentle guitar chords but ending with Bartz alone, keening on the bank, the new song leading seamlessly into the old ones. [Jun 2020, p.46]

Uniquely for Martin’s music, In Blue isn’t dominated by its low end – it’s the precise absence of warmth, the way Chen’s heavily echoed vocals swim in among the grainy textures and hypnotically simple melodies (so much of this recalls the dankest 1990s hiphop in vibe and directness), that makes the set so compelling, a perfect soundtrack to derailment and decay. [Jan 2021, p.70]

Return To Solaris is a fearsome ride, sublime in the most complete sense of the word. [Jul 2021, p.60]

Achieving a powerful balancing act between beauty and terror throughout. [Dec 2021, p.52]

His bringing the audience in to the creative process only intensifies its authenticity and demonstrates his desire to emulate the endeavours of his family, his own version of working in a team that shares the labour of shifting piles of dirt and stone, or raising the foundations of a new building. [Dec 2021, p.58]

These pieces exude a jazz inflected cool that's immediately intriguing. ... Dramatic and cinematic in its conclusion. [Jun 2022, p.44]

The songs are politically sharp and socially conscious, and Vieux sends out darkly nutating tendrils of blue over rolling, ravelling backing. [Jun 2022, p.61]

It serves as both a reconsideration of what’s come before and a confident step forward. [Jul 2022, p.52]

An album of sombre yet uplifting electronic music. ... If that [a requiem for a close friend and respected artist] wasn’t the original intent, one can hardly imagine a finer tribute. [Sep 2022, p.43]

Endure is smoother and glossier than the last album, but it’s still music that moves body and mind, inviting dirty dancing between flaming police cars. [Nov 2022, p.67]

Hutchings is eloquent on flute, Mthunzi Mvubu plays searing alto, while Muhammad Dawjee (tenor saxophone) and Malcolm Jiyane (trombone) have inexhaustible drive. [Jan 2023, p.62]

While ultimately not as inventive as some of Child’s earlier outings, Crash Recoil is nevertheless an urgent, kinetic techno record. [Apr 2023, p.60]

Lightning Dreamers may be over the top and all over the place, but that’s what it takes to project a complete picture of Mazurek’s vision. [Apr 2023, p.57]

It’s the definition of method to madness. The sense of barely controlled chaos, occasionally lashing out in random directions, only adds to the wonder that it holds together and maintains momentum. [May 2023, p.61]

A lifetime’s pain and a decade juggling mixtape fame with his trap life erupting in one magnificently choreographed molten flow of poetry. Not that it’s all full blast, Potter comes with the widescreen vision of Scarface or Ghetts, stepping back as necessary, philosophically patient. [Jul 2023, p.65]

Harps and synthesized beats all have a home here; and it feels futuristic in a way that reminds me of Ursula LeGuin and Todd Barton’s Music And Poetry Of The Kesh: synthesizer based folk music as the imagined legacy of a future indigenous culture. [Sep 2023, p.67]

Aesop’s penchant for storytelling – particularly on “100 Feet Tall” and “Aggressive Steven” – is still incredibly engaging, delivering a fraught narrative that touches on mental health, exploitation of the vulnerable and human responses to corporate stimuli. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.77]

It’s Shellac as usual, so lean, mean experimental rock music which sounds like you are right there in the room with the band. There’s a hint of mature craftsmanship in the classic descending chord sequence of “WSOD” and the waltz time of “Girl From Outside”. [Jul 2024, p.60]

There’s less noise here than on Not A Dream. Nueen’s production layers thick, soft synth pads with fluttering percussive elements, smudging swung tempos back into breathing soundscapes of vocal samples and sticky rolling saturation. [Jul 2024, p.54]

On Return – as on all of their albums – Fu Manchu evidently strive to maximise the impact of each riff, hook and rhythm, resulting in some decidedly funkadelic noise. [Aug 2024, p.62]

One of the most intriguing aspects of the artist’s work with drones is their anticipatory quality, which makes it feel like time is standing still. Even in its noisiest, most overwhelming moments, Natur renders the world in slow motion. [Aug 2024, p.52]

Tuttle has not so much completed the pieces as translated them. .... What makes this release, however, is the inclusion of Another Fish. .... It allows the listener to hear the before to Tuttle’s after, adding depth to the process of Another Tide. And to hear Chapman’s response to Fish, in which rather than return to its thorny Fahey-esque blues chromaticism, he explores a strangely plastic but warm mode.