Z-Machines' output is lifted above the realm of gimmick by music producer Kenjiro Matsuo gathering a selection of artists to compose for them. [Apr 2014, p.62]

The music tends to come up short of its lofty goals, a fact made more frustrating in the moments that prove that they are capable. [Apr 2014, p.60]

There's a generous, sloppy fistful of day-glo power-pop in these songs. [Apr 2014, p.52]

As jazz-inflected triphop goes, it's not even anywhere near as inventive or risky as DJ Spooky's Optometry sounded back in 2002. [Mar 2014, p.60]

A sparkling set that traces a number of lines through Haiti's musical patrimony. [Mar 2014, p.66]

While Ekoplekz's Brit-hauntoscopy might easily have started to wear thin by now, Unfidelity's precision and diversity has plenty to offer. [Mar 2014, p.65]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Mess is more immediate than the past couple of albums, and in context, more baffling. [Mar 2014, p.63]

Occasionally the album misfires. [Mar 2014, p.59]

The music here is beautiful and involving enough to stand up just fine by itself. [Mar 2014, p.59]

The song structures have clearly absorbed a fair amount from EDM, but the formula of walloping percussion and synthesizers purloined from Depeche Mode's and New Order's darker moments, juxtaposed with lyrics that have the rung of obscure slogans, remains in place. [Mar 2014, p.58]

If Boy falters, it's toward the end, where out of three softer focused tracks, only "Danceland" charms its way into the memory. [Mar 2014, p.53]

This album certainly achieves a kind of elaborated decorative wonkiness, but one wonders, as with Creed's paintings, what there is to return to after the novelty's worn off. [Mar 2014, p.52]

Satisfying proof that pop remain pop however thoroughly digested. [Feb 2014, p.54]

It is a record suited to headphone listening, but demands too much visceral engagement to be truly ambient. [Feb 2014, p.51]

Blank Project sounds like an empowered foundation stone for her next steps. [Feb 2014, p.44]

If there's one negative to this compilation m it's that Ghetto house is best heard in a fast and furious mix where the one trick pony tracks don't wear out their welcome and the salty language loses all meaning and becomes nothing by pure sound at high speed. Here, however, the focus is on individual tracks with no mixing. [Jan 2014, p.75]

The astounding pressure of emotional ambivalence in Herndon's 2012 debut Movement--what belonged where? with whose porous body should the listener identify?--is half lost on this EP, which feels too sketchy to develop their immanent tension. [Feb 2014, p.56]

It seems an easy listen at first, but the scale is daunting. [Feb 2014, p.53]

McGuire creates a journey that will absorb and transport any listener willing to let its sincere warmth and good wishes into their hearts. [Feb 2014, p.54]

It not so much that her talent has blossomed, more that it has thawed a little, releasing music that edges tantalizingly close to greatness. [Feb 2014, p.50]

For Ulver's three-part collaboration with Sunn))), the mood is equally holy, reverential and mysterious. [Feb 2014, p.52]

Playing it, you're reminded anew of the restlessness and emotional range at the heart of Young's art. [Feb 2014, p.64]

Though there's something inevitably ghoulish about the reception afforded these piano and vocal pieces--released for the first time on vinyl in 2013--it would be perverse to deny that they serve as a curious prologue to Drake the younger's brief but brilliant career. [Feb 2014, p.61]

The P-funk derived style of Dam-Funk us about as perfect a fit for Snoop's supine cool as can be imagined. [Feb 2014, p.57]