Contrasting epic, experimental freakouts with concise chamber music, 5 is a diverse album, full of gems bleeding with icy brilliance. [#235, p.69]

A record that awakens mysteries and meaning from sparse elements; a masterful ritual. [Jan 2019, p.67]

Anjou’s transition from post-rock to power ambient now complete, Epithymía sees these musicians extrapolate into new directions masterfully, squeezing out a mesmeric minor masterpiece in the process. [Mar 2017, p.45]

Frankly, the guy defies you not to be impressed by what he's got. [#234, p.53]

The 20 minute centrepiece “Water Meditation” is a startlingly realised suite of wonder that flows from fragmentary shards of sax, voice and synths to stealthy dubby menace through to a collage of impacted noise and shattered beats that’s one of the most emotionally affecting delineations and reimaginings of resistant Black art you’re likely to hear in 2021. Essential listening, and the same can be said for Open The Gates as a whole. [Nov 2021, p.53]

A complex and challenging listen. [#257, p.61]

Wendy Eisenberg is a remarkable record for many reasons, but the sublime interplay between Eisenberg's songwriting and Rubio's string arrangements is miraculous, hitting that sweet spot of skill and effortlessness. [May 2026, p.49]

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

This is a spellbinding album by a singular guitarist who combines the dexterity of Paco De Lucia with the hypnotic death-drawl of Bukka White. [Oct 2013, p.51]

Every track is a killer. [Mar 2017, p.54]

Building a strong, solid foundation for his skyscraper of words, the rapper channels everyone from Malcolm X to James Brown into a mountainous manifesto of beautiful blackness that is reflective of the struggle for dignity and equality, while also working towards the banishment of stereotypes. [Jan 2017, p.61]

It's simultaneously the group's most successful integration of the various strands they've chased over the years and their most ambitious and expansive work to date. [#241, p.50]

Sonic Youth have made a joyful return to their No Wave hardcore rock roots with a vibrating set of muscular songs which glide effortlessly from Gooey power pop to full on guitarmageddon meltdown, skulled out psychedelia and beyond. [#220, p.53]

Shygirl represents the very best of avant leaning contemporary UK pop on this generous seven track EP without a single dull moment. [Jan 2021, p.85]

In emotional terms Titanic Rising is immense – names like Annette Peacock, Linda Perhacs and Judee Sill come to mind, but only because it feels like so long since you’ve heard pop this epic yet unmannered. ... With tracks like the stunning “Something To Believe” lodging themselves into your heart with the sure knowledge that your relationship with this music will only deepen as the year unfolds. [Jul 2019, p.52]

This constellation of miniature masterpieces is arguably the finest introduction to the Ra universe there is. [Jan 2017, p.84]

Absolutely gorgeous. ... It’s as clear, translucent and dazzling as the medium it both plays with and describes. [Mar 2018, p.52]

Exquisite acoustic compositions meet Crampton’s taste for dissonance and distortion. [Aug 2020, p.54]

A splendid piece of work; compelling even when shorn of its conceptual and procedural backdrop, and infinitely more invigorating when considered as one with its making. [#205, p.58]

Rough And Rowdy Ways is undoubtedly the work of an artist with one eye on his legacy, yet it’s so full of wit, mischief and life that it positively sings. [Sep 2020, p.52]

Even when the songs aren't motivated by anger or frustration, they have a drive and a momentum that's breathtaking. [#256, p.52]

Most of these songs will startle you at some point. [#268, p.50]

It joins Titanic and Big Thief’s UFOF (members of Big Thief are present) as one of 2019’s leftfield pop gems, a record created with no detectable consciousness of a wider scene but with a bedroom-wide sense of possibility. [Jul 2019, p.52]

There probably isn’t a better sequenced album on your shelves. ... The remastering is immaculate, tightening up the jangle and twang, cleaning up Russ Kunkel’s drums and improving the separation of instruments throughout. Some of the alternative versions are a little slower than others; take three of “Some Misunderstanding” might just possibly be superior to the issued take, in the usual sense that sometimes musicality was sacrificed to technical perfection. [Jan 2020, p.78]

Sirens is unlike anything produced under his other aliases The Bug, Techno Animal or Ice. It exists as a piece of sound art rather than a club record. ... Sirens is testament to the ability of sound and its manipulation to transcend language. [Jun 2019, p.60]

Granted, Flow's torrent of words is Thirlwell's familiar angsty blurt of near operatic proportions, but closer attention reveals his skill as an arranger, producer and rhythm sampler is now verging on the monumental. [#208, p.57]

Buck's refusal to recognise musical boundaries and his instinctive ability to pick out elements that work together--sometimes surprisingly so--have given us a genre-bending album of high artistic vision, spit and grit. [#258, p.52]

Played front to back it works as a dazzling kaleidoscope; on shuffle, every combination worked in a different way, with no weak links because the quality of each track is insanely high. Underground, resistant US rap par excellence. [Jun 2023, p.60]