Brown cathects his trauma into his songs, redirecting his pain to a productive, pedagogic end.

Although the limitations of Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 will make parts of the collection appear inessential for casual listeners, this music will certainly be welcomed by Tindersticks fans and soundtrack buffs.

Overall, Smother seems to be missing purpose. I hear those careful ruminations on relationships, and I hear the pain that evidently went into this, but it leaves me cold.

Were brevity the chiefmost virtue of popular music, "Baby Birch" would be a turgid waste of time, rather than the deft and skillful creature it is. The same sentiment goes for the rest of the album; there is a depth to the material here that rewards--nay, demands--repeated scrutiny.

The result is a piece of art that had too much pressure ascribed to it, that found its creators trying too hard to make a masterpiece when they could have followed a more natural progression.

While still retaining that exacting focus that has made Dirty Projectors the unplaceable enterprise that it is, Bitte Orca is merely the sound of an extremely talented group of musicians tweaking and, to an extent, reinventing their approach, stepping a little further away from left field.

The Soft Bulletin provides an exquisite soundtrack to have blasting in the car at night.

Good luck finding a better straight-up indie-pop/indie-rock record this year (save TV On The Radio) that's as uninhibited, unique, and flawlessly all-over-the-place as I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

Blackheart is ongoing and nearly seamless, unselfconscious in its refashioning of 80s guitar licks, steel drums, 256-bit EDM, flutes, and trap snares.

This is music at its most carnal.

Despite it being a massive departure from their previous efforts, there is almost nothing to dislike about Crimes.

For all its flaws, Old Ideas remains Cohen's strongest work for some time.

The band's strongest offering to date.

Huerco S. claimed he wanted to make something timeless. Both genuinely and emblematically, he’s done just that.

No album will ever move you quite like it, and if it weren't for a slight misstep, it would be perfect in almost every way.

On Elemental, Demdike Stare give us glimmers of melody - looped chimes or listless piano figures - shivering out from the cloud of reverb, but for the most part what we get are dub shadows of songs, low on contrast and grainy with dust particles, uncanny echoes and malevolent drones.

Ed Askew will continue to write, observe, reflect, and create visions and words. This result is timeless enough to remain there if one wants it.

This is music for that, a form of attention, a voice answering a voice.

Where the dog-eared, snapshot ambient wooze of Twoism and Geogaddi once harbored a feverish throb, Tomorrow’s Harvest now prickles with hollow spaces: a fragmentary, pixelated symbolism has been lost in the construction of an outline of a broader system.

As advertised, Strange Mercy lets us off more easily than it should, but without the promised strangeness.

By embracing immediacy and toning down the navel-gazing, The National have finally created an album deserving of all their earlier acclaim.

This exact formula probably will function well with the new listeners, although it's hard to imagine someone appreciating Buck65 for all he's worth without being familiar with his earlier work.

Like all works of elusive beauty, Lookaftering is something that is so immediate and accessible it will take time to realize just how enriched with subtle evocation it is.

The music maintains its drive as it moves, risking the occasional drag in the more languid sections, but never succumbing to a total loss of momentum.

Before Today is the best collection of pure pop songs released this year, and the experimental odds and bits only add to its considerable charm.

Art of the Improviser is a testament not only to the improviser's art, but also to solo and group composition, both in the immediate and overarching sense.

As invigorating as the first half of Wind’s Poem is, its second half is where a filmic sensibility arises and the music becomes at one with the listener, the sounds yielding way to both chaotic and calming images as waves crash and subside.

Elverum has never sounded more comfortable as a producer of volume and viscosity.