The pursuit of risky and rigorous music-making continues to feel wiser and nobler for his prodigious, elevating presence. [Oct 2018, p.52]

As a collection, Psychedelic Pill is spotty and, at times, sleep-inducing.

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]

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

His sermons are always memorably provocative, but in playing to the crowd sometimes subtleties get lost. [Dec 2014, p.60]

Excitement, sure, but little surprise. [Oct 2015, p.67]

Only occasionally, as on the Daft Punk-ish disco of “Real Time” does it feel generic, and when it gets really sophisticated--as on “True” where How To Dress Well sheds his recent 1980s pop affectations to operate in pure (and not in any sense alt) R&B mode--its ambition is clear. [Apr 2017, p.56]

This is fierce, unpredictable music; her sounds ripple and explode, dropping in from above, rarely settling into a groove. It’s rare to encounter an electronic album that feels quite so specific and personal, despite the ego-dissolving intentions of its meditating creator. [Jun 2018, p.54]

Although The Canon is a late arrival its mood is consistent with that of its predecessors. The recording is sharper and more delineated, but Leon steers clear of modern sonics that might date it. ... Apart from the titles, there is no narrative as such to this collection, but it works as absolute music, in which Leon creates the impression of mysterious and open spaces. [May 2019, p.58]

Producer Gary Odlum builds an atmospheric, sunset glow version of the Tuareg sound that rolls and chugs with every conventional element in place, but has a widescreen stadium swagger few other groups have mastered. [Apr 2020]

It’s a much rougher around the edges effort than 2019’s GREY Area, but it works because Simz is an alum of the pirate radio days; this is her forte. Sonically it’s a dream. [Jul 2020, p.59]

The way Shadow Of Fear seems to drift between the influence of Kirk’s old dystopia and new surfaces weakens the impact of its first half particularly, where the early 80s industrial model reigns. It takes multiple listens to focus through to the subtler pleasures of the oddly lopsided grooves and how he manipulates the layers of texture that swallow them. [Dec 2020, p.47]

It’s powerful music for open roads and endless dreaming; once it’s turned on, time is suspended by the limitless layers of unbridled, electric sound. [Feb 2021, p.54]

The final few songs swap flash-saturated self-portrait for figure in landscape, brooding and blurred. Their hermetic sound is breached – their future more uncertain than ever – and all the better for it. [Feb 2022, p.47]

Marc’s production skills are impressive; he layers beautifully recorded organic instruments with synths and sampled vinyl crackle, adding just enough reverb and bass boom to bring it all to vivid life. [May 2022, p.50]

While the overt campiness on display in Laibach’s The Sound Of Music has been toned down here, the choice to pepper the set with familiar German showtunes (“Flieger, Grüß Mir Die Sonne” and “Das Lied Vom Einsamen Mädchen”) feels ominous when paired with the stomach-turning paintings by Gottfried Helnwein on the cover. [May 2022, p.48]

The acoustic guitar led instrumental “Underwater City” being an exemplary diversion into acid folk. Elsewhere “Re-generate” and “The Black Sea” are a couple of highly enjoyable (albeit slight) space jams, and exit track “Stargazers” regrettably bails out just when it starts to take off. [May 2024, p.60]

Sharp inhalations between melodic figures are given a multidimensional presence by the reverb, grounding the sound in an embodied ethereality. As track titles like “The Cosmic Spheres Of Being Human” and “Everything Is Hidden In You” make clear, the circular rhythms of this embodied presence are identical with those of the universe. [Sep 2024, p.49]

Map Of A Blue City is the closest Ribot has gotten to a singer-songwriter album. It suits him. [Jun 2025, p.53]

Drake has certainly mastered the art of making Drake records. [Nov 2013, p.66]

Nite Jewel sounds like a latter-day Prince protégé, with a beatific calm to her tone. [Jul 2017, p.56]

Davachi’s early love of Bach pervades the initial section of “Perfumes I-III”. [Aug 2019, p.54]

Refusing facsimile, Galás’s music attains its weight and power not from its oddity but from its humanity. [Apr 2017, p.53]

Their newest struts and froths like the wild-eyed offspring of Deerhoof and Thundercat, raised in the swamps on little but No New York and toadstools. At turns, it’s impossibly upbeat--something like a Martian single parent’s go-to motivational album--and spasmodically funky, in the best tradition of Bernie Worrell-era Talking Heads, flipped on 45. [Nov 2018, p.54]

Drift Code may not be as bold an artistic statement as Spirit Of Eden, nor as interesting a sideline as .O.Rang, nor in all likelihood be as celebrated 17 years hence as Out Of Season. But Webb proves himself just as skilled as his former collaborator Gibbons in his ability to build worlds whose orbits brush against the heart while always staying at arm’s length. [Feb 2019, p.49]

A definite return to form, Shook is the sound of a serious group equipped with the gravitas and shades of expression to carry their many ideas. [Feb 2023, p.44]

It has an ethereal, cosmic beauty that in less accomplished hands could be mawkish, but here feels almost miraculous. The whole album feels like an invitation to think alongside it about the end of life – and in these moments typically characterised by fear and isolation, to feel accompanied by anything at all is an unusual and precious thing. [May 2025, p.62]

White noise is the most versatile tool in Brighton producer Alan Myson’s kit: he deploys it as a gloss on everything, to either mind-quieting effect on tracks like “Angel In Ruin” and “Oblivion Theme”, or as an anxiety accelerant as on the fuzzed out battle-pitch “Bladed Terrain” where static hisses behind stomping, crunching thwacks and arpeggios. [Jun 2020, p.60]