An expansive record that thoughtfully integrates electronic elements. It almost feels transmitted from a parallel past – a form of retrofuturism where science fiction meets folk. [Feb 2022, p.48]

While 2016’s Painting With was a jumble of interesting ideas lacking direction, Time Skiffs is the opposite: a paint by numbers indie pop affair completed using a quirky palette. While paring down to a more focused format is welcome, the music is suffocated by anachronisms, both within AC’s own and wider pop contexts. [Feb 2022, p.46]

Where NO was extreme in its attack, W opts to let the group dream, as a more acoustic angle is explored – with Wata’s ephemeral vocal being an ever present guiding spirit force that trails like incense smoke through the songs. Things eventually kick off, however, with “The Fallen”, a time-tested metal guitar dirge with an electronic sting in its tail that effortlessly reverts back to Boris at their amplifier worshipping best. [Feb 2022, p.58]

With Dodging Dues they’ve thrown up another seven tracks – it’s not a long album – that will sustain many a night on the road. It all feels pleasingly old-fashioned and familiar. [Jan 2022, p.64]

Ping-ponging between krautrock, deep funk, free jazz and pre-techno synth workouts, they could have easily released it as three short, more coherent LPs; some credit, at least, ought to go to Soul Jazz for indulging them in these spartan times. [Jan 2022, p.72]

Book is likewise packed with songs that take a few listens to click. Flansburgh remains an acute observer of humanity’s pettiest manipulations as well as a shit hot guitarist; Linnell still has one of the most weirdly soulful voices in rock and a feel for poignant absurdity. [Jan 2022, p.72]

She’s doing something unique and off-kilter on her debut album. She plays analogue synth and pedal harp, both essentially dreamy instruments, and her compositions are like gentle blends of spiritual jazz and ambient music, not that far from Alice Coltrane’s devotionals, if remixed by The Orb and minus the chanting. [Jan 2022, p.71]

Ultimately, [“418 (Stairs In Storms)”] cannot avoid ending with a muscular crescendo, but those preceding moments of tranquillity provide the pinnacle of another excellent Mollestad record.

Beautiful. [Jan 2022, p.64]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]

They have edited a tightly bound collection of six monstrously loud tracks with titles like “Cuts On Your Hands”, “Starres” and “Dark Inclusions” that read like they have been torn from some eldritch book of spellcraft but are in fact informed by the cosmos and attempts to make contact with alien intelligence. Unfortunately any insight regarding this is hidden behind the pleasingly crushing avalanche of guitar shrapnel, thundering bass and percussion that muzzle Baker’s already clouded vocal. [Jun 2021, p.54]

A feeling of survival against the odds often permeates his music. Personally I would have enjoyed a few more drum-backed beats, but even those without are crafted to a point of excellence. [Dec 2021, p.63]

At times this soundtrack feels like a library music album with umpteen variations of the same cue, at different speeds and edit times – but the piano-led “Strodes At The Hospital”, the guitar solos and growling synth bass of “Hallway Madness” and the many moods of “It Needs To Die” are moments of fresh interest. [Dec 2021, p.61]

A slice of otherworldly frolics that does both of its inspirations credit. [Dec 2021, p.61]

This release is less spooky than its predecessors, and more earthy. ... Phantom Orchid” pulses with the austerity of the botany lab, but in places, Entangled Routes is possibly the first Ghost Box release that sounds almost…sexual? [Dec 2021, p.61]

A terrifically engaging collage of incompletion and one of the most blazing returns of 2021. [Dec 2021, p.59]

A total blast from start to finish. [Dec 2021, p.59]

Glover’s voice is intimate and unguarded, as if every song were being run down for friends, but it’s hard to imagine them sung in any other way, without losing the burr of nostalgia suffusing them. [Dec 2021, p.58]

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]

Springtime’s music feels free, but never carefree, full of spontaneity, acidity and momentum, sputtering in a thousand different, noisy directions at once. [Dec 2021, p.56]

Although Lee Perry’s name will probably sell more copies of Guide To The Universe, New Age Doom are what makes this album worthwhile. ... With everyone involved recording their parts remotely, the result is impressively coherent and live-feeling. [Dec 2021, p.54]

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

The depths of the production reflect the depth of concept, as Morgan makes vertical connections between personal relationships and queer and Black histories. ... Water is a palpable step forward from a versatile, ambitious artist. [Dec 2021, p.52]

Hurley was simply ready to make a new record, which includes a cover of The Louvin Brothers’ gem “Alabama” and a remake of his gorgeous “Lush Green Trees”, and that’s what he did. It’s a gesture that shouldn’t be taken for granted. [Dec 2021, p.50]

Fortunately, aside from this piece “Let Me Sleep”], the banal Clark-adjacent string spiccatos of “The Horror” and certain sections that drag on and on, this is compelling, bodymoving and occasionally inspired music. [Dec 2021, p.