While he operates in similar sonic territory to Ariel Pink, Mondanile is as disarmingly gentle as Pink is strutting and cocky. [Nov 2017, p.67]

An album both generous and balanced in its patient give and take, upbeat and open, full of enthusiasm and joy. [Nov 2017, p.67]

The mood of the album is always upbeat, ending with the forward looking “Vorfreude 2”--the German word meaning an anticipation for future pleasures--and doesn’t venture into any of the weirder, harder, filthier, squelchier corners of electronic music.[Nov 2017, p.66]

The voice of singer Rolynne provides a fluency and depth missing elsewhere; her emotional precision and expression cut right through the ornament of this otherwise rather forgettable album. [Nov 2017, p.66]

Ununiform demonstrates that Tricky has retained his sense of adventure; even at its most opaque and cryptic lyrically, his music remains hypnotic. [Nov 2017, p.64]

Clark’s fifth album isn’t a retreat to an earlier style--if anything it’s even brighter, bolder and broader than St Vincent, even more given to IMAX worthy gestures-- but Clark does appear to have reconciled the streamlined automation of her new aesthetic with the orch pop crafting of her first three records, Marry Me (2007), Actor (2009) and Strange Mercy (2011). [Nov 2017, p.64]

It’s all extraordinarily listenable thanks to Woolford’s clear vision in tracing various threads of connection between these forms of electronic funk. However, sometimes the direct, hyperspecific references, which can have such impact in club contexts, distract from the flow in the context of an album, and the moments where he navigates the spaces between those specifics become the most enduringly impressive. [Nov 2017, p.62]

O’Dwyer’s explorations of forgotten spaces, ways of listening and acoustic phenomena are as rich as ever, this haunted collection of subterranean sounds revealing even greater depths to her sprawling, strange work. [Nov 2017, p.61]

Yoshimi’s mesh of voices is sometimes overpowering, although, as with Björk, that feeling of overpowerment is part of the deal, constructed to bring the listener to a place that feels like the edge of something--the singer’s endurance; the listener’s understanding--only to push them over into somewhere else entirely. [Nov 2017, p.61]

Maus’s genius is to splice nostalgic sonic expectations for the future with new structural realities. [Nov 2017, p.60]

Lindstrøm is better able to keep everything the right side of good taste, for better or worse. This continuous set of eight tracks gets into its spooky stride towards the end. ... A darker second hour might have been even better. [Nov 2017, p.59]

The mainstreaming of yoga, mindfulness and other pursuits of spiritual enrichment in our digitally distracted, permanently anxious modern reality might have tipped the balance, as Laraaji pulls in listeners who aren’t necessarily collectors of forgotten, strange or otherwise outsider music. [Nov 2017, p.58]

On some of the songs Langford’s slightly rough and ready approach is the grit that helps produce the pearl; on others it’s made to sound out of place by the very musicians who play his songs so well.

Mechanics Of Domination is careful, elegant and cerebral but it is also quietly stirring. [Nov 2017, p.56]

A fitting tribute to one of the greatest collectives in music history and essential for anyone who has ever had their lives changed by Parliament/ Funkadelic. [Nov 2017, p.54]

Modern production simply won’t allow for the kind of warm frictive depth in the low end or biteable chunkiness of beats those albums revelled in--but as a dazzling showcase for Bootsy’s still-ill skills it’s great, always problematising what could be politesse with the sheer deranged drive behind Bootsy’s shades, always plumbing for excess as a watchword. [Nov 2017, p.54]

Fohr’s music achieves ever greater levels of emotional richness while keeping a careful distance from the confessional. [Nov 2017, p.54]

Translated lyrics illuminate and mystify in equal measure. [Oct 2017, p.67]

It may look wildly out of control but closer inspection reveals the symmetry and order that supported the garden’s historical design. [Nov 2017, p.53]

You might not think you need new versions of these. But you’d be wrong. [Nov 2017, p.52]

It’s no radical departure, but Gamble nonetheless conjures a new and unsettling sense of richness from differently focused materials. [Oct 2017, p.52]

Washington can flirt with bombast and kitsch, but his commitment is undeniable and the tunes are great. [Oct 2017, p.68]

Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is a sublimely reflective slice of nostalgia with none of the comfort or security that term implies--it’s a both hysterically funny and sharply political skewering of the games nostalgic reverie can play on people, and a people’s consciousness. [Oct 2017, p.67]

Wolves In The Throne Room return at full throttle. [Oct 2017, p.64]

On TFCF (short for Theme From Crying Fountain) Andrews comes into his own. The tracks might be loosely structured, ideas, samples, field recordings and styles scattered by the dozen across the album’s 33 minutes, but it’s a sense of a distinctive songwriter exploring fracturedness across a broad spectrum from the dancefloor to the introspective. [Oct 2017, p.64]

The result is an intuitive and spacious sound. Controlled but organic and broken down into contained but naturally arcing pieces, The Gradual Progression becomes a set of sequences using long drum rolls, cloudlike synths and eventually gentle vocal noises and ascents.

Revel in the poppy darkness of Beaches--sunset drenched “ba-ba-ba” vocals, upfront drums and twangy guitars--but also marvel as the Australian psych rockers draw out their swirling sounds into extended hypnotic workouts on this double album. [Oct 2017, p.64]

The result is an album which will satisfy fans of all the band’s distinct phases without necessarily ingratiating itself to anyone. [Oct 2017, p.61]