Hiperasia offers a vivid, feverish soundworld of Auto-Tuned vocals, idyllic electronics and machine beats solid enough to stand alongside the best US R&B currently has to offer. [Apr 2016, p.60]

Fire is frequently scorching. [Sep 2021, p.50]

Paste is Moin at their strongest, at once familiar and strangely new. [Dec 2022, p.57]

Tasteful pedal steel from Lanois gives a gentle country inflection to cuts like “Arajghiyine” – there’s a neat dovetailing here between two desert musics – but Tinariwen’s refined nocturnal heaviness reigns unchallenged. [Oct 2023, p.60]

For Schofield, the word scrambler symbolises both a sort of opiate and a happy place from childhood, so the music highlights this dichotomy by fusing danger and warmth into an irresistible oxymoron. A sensation of the world ending while we carry on dancing. [Apr 2020, p.51]

It's inscrutable and inspired, and this time mystique has nothing to do with it. [Apr 2013, p.51]

Autechre Guitaris elegant and crystalline, a set of fascinating miniatures composed of unexpected links and gaps. It's as confounding and crafted as an Escher staircase. [Mar 2025, p.47]

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

The music resonates with a clarity Treanor had not yet achieved in the past, where the glassy shards of “ATAXIA A2” meet the staggered modulations and condensed hi-hats of “ATAXIA D1”, and ultimately reveal a unique and unexpected humanity. [Apr 2019, p.64]

On Malibu, melody unifies and smooths over divisions: rap and R&B, black history and black modernity, spiritual uplift with the rough material of the everyman's everyday, all made cohesive by Paak's considerable songwriting talent. [Apr 2016, p.64]

Quite aside from the technical brilliance of its execution, Doubled Exposure is a weird boogie album of immense humanity and warmth, driven to a great extent by Shuford's irrepressible charisma. [Mar 2014, p.63]

Gojira once again let loose their own brand of fury on the world. Fortitude is a tightly executed example of the way their songs are propelled as anthems – emblazoned metallic sound banners flapping loudly in the gale they have summoned up. [Sep 2021, p.62]

Basic Volume departs from the impressionistic mixtape approach to a more solid set of songs without Gaika losing his cinematic scope. [Aug 2018, p.56]

An immediately addictive listen. [Oct 2020, p.59]

Gelb’s discordant phrasing and deft wordplay weave gently throughout. At heart, it’s a romantic album about lost moments. [Apr 2019, p.65]

The fact that Thug's voice can express plaintive, mournful sorrow is perhaps the most surprising aspect of this tape, even among all the astonishing vocal pirouettes and cries. [Apr 2016, p.64]

This new collaboration with Christian Beaulieu isn't quite as flamboyant as previous projects, but its an energising jolt all the same. [Mar 2014, p.63]

Tokumaru seems to have poured his entire being, subconscious and all, into these compositions, which burst with vivacity and detail. [Apr 2013, p.57]

We get the sense that everything has changed; life goes on despite this. Her lyrics carry the same sort of dull, resigned honesty, recognised all too well by those who have experienced profound loss. [Oct 2024, p.48]

It’s great to hear “Starfield Road” and other tracks from Sonic Youth’s neglected post-Dirty albums. But it’s the deep cuts – like the stunning “I Love Her All The Time” and the closing “Inhuman” – that really drag you back. [Oct 2023, p.66]

Pink Dolphins kicks off with four relatively short tracks (between three and eight minutes – I did say relatively) that demonstrate the evolution of an Anteloper sound. [Jul 2022, p.42]

This EP essays six bitter flavours of magic and loss, with sentiments which might be unbearable were it not for their unalloyed beauty. [Mar 2014, p.63]

With no lyrics to anchor their meaning, many songs here are infused with pathos and awe. [Apr 2013, p.57]

Arca’s operatic tone adds another layer to the expression of emotion and open sexuality in his work--“Piel” and “Coraje” being particularly striking. Ghersi’s voice emerges quietly, piercing through foreboding sonics with sombre gentleness. [May 2017, p.54]

Low's original stark minimalism has gradually given way to a broader sonic range, without sacrificing their strangely accessible otherness. [#204, p.68]

In mindbending, psych-wormhole cruising mode. Nobody should be able to write a song like “Flesh Fondue”, about alien invaders out for human snacks, as a stomping rock-out, but Hawkwind pull it off. [Nov 2019, p.55]

The result is a record that feels in touch with the qualities that have powered Oneida in the past – the dogged repetition, the scorching climaxes – but this time trades the crankier avant tendencies for a sweet dose of bubblegum. [Sep 2022, p.48]

Hunn achieves an impressive balance between stylistic coherency and jazzy beat maximalism--it's never really as light or as heavy as it first seems--that other producers of his ilk struggle to pull off. [Mar 2014, p.65]