Its complex web of emotion and sound make for one of the most confounding yet gripping albums made in 2014; while it isn’t without its flaws, it captures the zeitgeist in a way that few other albums have managed this year, and has both revelers and detractors speaking passionately.

Combined with Köner's solo work, Biokinetics is a pivotal moment in electronic music and a decisive moment in one of the most important and brilliant oeuvres in contemporary music.

A largely beatific album, it propagates love over high living, but also shipped is the urban locale, the one-dimensional serenading and the cartoonish sexuality that informs a significant percentage of mainstream r'n'b, substituted for the same precocious wisdom, emotional intelligence, writerly nuance and reasoned portrayal of lust displayed on the Tumblr post.

Good Kid, m.A.A.d City impresses with its diversity and scope, but it's not just a record to admire: put simply, there's an embarrassment of killer material here.

That’s the achievement of Spaces: not simply to replicate the music of Frahm’s concerts, divine though it is, but to evoke the events’ communal intimacy.

It’s the sheer energy on display that pushes Run The Jewels 2 through. The production is popping throughout, funky as hell, and often dotted with unexpected twists and turns.

The Idler Wheel... is her most adult work yet, a record that's underpinned by the fundamental grown-up characteristic of embracing one's own ridiculous, stubborn dysfunction because, Hell, what other option is there?

You could even argue that To Be Kind is Gira’s first rock ‘n’ roll album, and though Swans’ records are invariably seedy, To Be Kind is downright sexy, tender like a snake and surprisingly intimate.

Holter may write stunning pop-tinged songs, but she’s an experimental artist through and through.

Burial's appointment as cemetery caretaker, presiding over the skeletons of rave, was always going have limited traction--after all, there's only so many ways you can express a bereavement--but perhaps in this EP he's found new purpose amongst the ruins.

You’re Dead! finds ways to keep things pumping.

It's not without faults, but overall it's a undoubtedly a very welcome gift.

It’s as if they’ve recaptured innocence. It’s the only way to describe what you feel had to have happened in order for the band to preserve the very essence of what was the music of their youth, in such a way that goes beyond replication.

Too Bright creates a captive audience in its effusive refusal to let you look away.

The Seer is clearly brilliant, and may even be Swans' finest album yet, three decades in.

Björk’s most fully realised, accessible record in years.

The result, unexpectedly, is his most ambitious record yet.

As long as you’re prepared to accept that it’s a Hollywood production inspired more by Steely Dan and California highways than Cajmere and French basements, then Random Access Memories is a treat.

Voices From The Lake is serene and sinister, hides more than it reveals and is so entirely absorbing that you could lose yourself in it indefinitely.

Reform Club's prime influences may be rooted in techno's past but what it lacks in formal innovation it more than makes up for with a rich and profound personal expression that will keep you company long after the rest of the world has shut down for the night.

Bécs is seldom unapproachable; it’s also his style to leave just enough beauty poking through the seams.

Run the Jewels is savage and witty, rich in gritty truths and genuinely affecting wisdom. It may not be the best thing either artist has done, but fans of both will still find plenty to love.

In its finished form, Miguel's Kaleidoscope Dream is a testament to his evolved songwriting, reverence to the past, and refusal to be pigeonholed.

It is certainly a gorgeous production, and tracks will possibly come across differently in a mix, even if it is not quite what many will have been expecting.

As with any major pop album, LP1 is a crew effort, there’s no doubt as to whose hand is on the rudder.

It's not going to make techno fans fall in love with noise, or noise fans fall in love with techno, but for those who, er, bat for both sides, it's a dream come true.

The album’s electronic feel sharpens the idea of sterility and a frictionless modern life, while providing, as British electronica has done since the days of John Foxx, a lexicon for existential nothingness.

As a portrait of a city, and a person, Acid Rap is about as good--and as honest--as they come.