Producer Nigel Godrich has made of this a modern masterclass--and one that sets the bar for collaborations extremely high.

Order Of Noise creates an atmosphere akin to a vast thunder-cloud thick with heavy, window-rattling vibrations and sharp, sudden jolts of electricity.

Lone tunes are nothing if not growers--but there’s no question that this is one of our best artists on the form of his life.

Once you delve in you’re taken on a guided tour through the duo’s illustrious back catalogue in a quite majestic way.

As cute and quirky as the band themselves, this is instantly up there with LNT mixes from Air and Lindstrøm.

'All I Need’ and ‘Simulrec’ are highlights in what is a confident and mesmerising debut from Avery, one that deserves to go down as one of the best of 2013.

It’s another master stroke from Cosmin. Faultless.

A vastly resourceful and well-structured opus by a true master of horizontal stylings.

Xen is decidedly playful, its alien sound palette used to conjure surreal songs that are melodramatic and nursery rhyme-like.

The most exciting thing about Comfort is the sense that this is an artist who has only scratched the surface of her talent.

Bold, brilliant and beautiful.

A thrilling creative renaissance on so many levels.

An album that perfectly epitomises the new wave of house music--and may even be its peak.

It has none of the deliberate pratfalls or raspberries he’s prone to. Rather, it’s entirely welcoming.

Put simply, a genius at work.

It’s the surge of creativity from the US that’s making for delicious new music indeed.

There’s footwork based on deep, soulful sensuousness and hip hop wooze as well as face-melters, making this the finest, most engaging example of footwork we’ve heard yet.

It’s easy to pick out highlights, but every single one delivers something different and equally fantastic.

It’s full of church organs, hazy reverb, rippling synths and poetry about mortality and eternity, as well as Sakamoto’s distinctive piano, sonar bleeps and unforgettable melodies. It’s arguably the most beautiful record you’ll hear this year.

Nostalchic’= is the record you want to be listening to during the afterglow of good sex or a perfect ecstasy trip.

He’s not lost any of his individuality, with the same rich layering, eerie but enticing voices and general sense of five-dimensional spiritual uplift that ‘Outmind’ had.

It’s an altogether different beast: a gigantic, wondrous thing to get lost in.

On Electric Lines, the fine moments are bountiful.

There’s a new-age wash to some tracks that’s a bit too Enya-like for comfort, but this is an emotionally resonant LP that speaks of artistic, as well as personal, development.

The emotional impact is concentrated in each and every tune, and the whole album manages to achieve a genuinely epic scope in under 40 minutes. [Apr 2018, p.92]

He's arguably produced his near-masterpiece LP. [May 2018, p.114]

It’s a gorgeous record, from start to finish.

Hopkins uses his dancefloor nous, classical background and meditative training to beguile us. It's a beautiful bastard of a record. [May 2018, p.117]

It veers between intimate and expansive: the chugging rhythms replicate the hum of America’s love affair with the automobile, while majestic, sweeping strings evoke its grand, widescreen vistas. [Jun 2018, p.112]

An extraordinary talent at the top of her game. [Jun 2018, p.113]

There are only nine tracks in all, with pieces such as the mesmerising ‘Boids’ and the blissful ‘Glider’ less focused on the floor. It ensures you never feel like the same tricks are being repeated, and the power of those mellifluous voices never wanes. [Jun 2018, p.114]

From where we’re standing, this is the debut album of the year.

Textures plough and pound throughout the album, revealing yet another new, unclassifiable side of OPN's musical brain as he brings more disparate sounds to the fore. [Jun 2018, p.115]

Fiskal takes bold, divisive ideas and makes us wonder why we’d ever question them in the first place--and that’s the highest compliment we can pay him. [Jun 2018, p.120]

Each track is forged and precision-engineered to bolt onto the next: there are times when Snaith takes you to dark places but then he clasps your hand tenderly, guiding you back to sunnier climes. Fabriclive 93 is an astonishing accomplishment.

Lanza, the antithesis of the ululating, overwrought antics of the X Factor school, has an arsenal of talents that puts her in a league of her own. She’s very much for real.

What it lacks in surprises it makes up for in quality music. The Toronto boys have done a great job of mixing relatively obvious tracks like ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’ and ‘Don’t Talk…’ by The Beach Boys with more obscure cuts that’ll send you down the rabbit hole on a Spotify listening session.

Some of his best yet.

A bloody good album, showcasing a decidedly more soulful side to his output than we might have seen before.

Every track here reveals new depths on repeat plays. The year’s first essential comp? You guessed correctly.

It’s surprisingly dreamy and thoughtful at times (see lead single ‘Aura’, which radiates pure white light) and full of the yearning and bittersweetness of the best post-rave sunrise moments. Most of all, it’s laser-focused in the pursuit of pleasure, and makes absolute sense as a complete album.

Snoop Dogg, André 3000, Mos Def and Skepta are all fans, with this assured debut proving why she's rated so highly. Better prepare that throne, then.

It’s an album you’ll want to return to again and again.

This is what pop should be in 2017: diverse, interesting and surprising.

Each track takes you to some very unexpected places. In the process, each delivers feelings much more potent than a lot of the supposedly “emotional” dancefloor music currently flooding the market at the moment.

Gently fizzing electronica meets grand structures and intimate explorations of instruments, and the results are both strange and deeply, instantly enjoyable. With the bar already set very high, he may just have produced his best record yet.

It’s obvious he’s at the fore of UK rap. Lyrically, this LP hits the same themes as on his breakout 2015 mixtape.

Growing up watching this, it’s no wonder we all ended up in dark rooms marching to repetitive beats.

[An] immersive, frequently moving, absorbing experience.

Nobody else sounds like them right now.

It’s reminiscent of that doyenne of experimental electronica, Laurie Anderson--and that’s a heck of a compliment.

It’s a twilight dream of a record that’s uncompromisingly odd but absolutely direct, and addictive from first listen. The Invisible have made the album of the summer.

Belief System is not only Special Request’s most definitive piece of work, but it will also, probably, prove to be Paul Woolford’s magnum opus.

Bursts with textured atmospheres and danceable beats, all led by the unwavering might of Kelela’s lungs.

The way it evolves is engrossing; from the get-go you’re submerged in thunderous kicks, alarming bleeps and juddering basslines, and what makes it even more impressive is that much of it was created on the fly.

A thematic sequel to 2011 breakout mixtape ‘XXX’, Danny Brown remains rap’s most unique force.

Make no mistake, it’s Jaar in microcosm: a groundbreaking artist using all the weapons at his disposal in an attempt to move you. And trust us, you will be

For the most part, it’s a sweaty journey of ribcage-rattling techno from the genre’s biggest players.

Witty, conceptual, original and above all both musically exciting and enjoyable, it’s an understatement to say that DVA’s second album NOTU_URONLINEU is mature.

This album, on Ninja Tune offshoot Technicolour, presents an idiosyncratic take on electronic music that’s imbued with deep emotional content, yet danceable. All the while his engineering capabilities shine through, giving the album a polished touch.

Names like Underground Resistance, Moodymann, Ectomorph and Claude Young should be all you need to hear to assure you you’re in safe hands, and the results are stunning, as they twist the disco, funk and psychedelia into fresh and crisp patterns.

Other tracks have a steady kick and soulful samples, but these are made glitchy and trippy in the style of classic Akufen (see ‘Come Close to Me’ and ‘New Love’), or have wonky synth tones that blurt out of the mix (‘Je T’Aime’, ‘L.U.V.’). And the downtempo tunes that surround them also swerve off their expected tracks and into psychedelic and deliciously weird territory. This is precisely the sort of confounding of expectations we love to hear, and bodes well for a long, interesting career.

The xx have undergone a gentle makeover, but what lies at their heart remains the same. Songs for lovers. Songs for the rejected. Songs for all of us.

It does nothing new--its tone barely changes over the single 54-minute piece--yet it makes you feel really, really good. Always perverse, Eno achieves the most when he does the least.

It’s a record of subtle strength, with all-encompassing warmth and chilled introspection.

Charming, incredibly soulful and emotionally charged, this record introduces us to a whole new, golden side of Donald Glover--and should elevate him to a new level of stardom.

It’s what one might call a ‘proper’ LP, with its theme providing the foundation for some fantastic techno.

Bleckmann rope-a-dopes like a voice boxer between the wobbly punches of ambient jazz and chilly chamber tones. [No. 139, p.53]

Album number three is her finest, and most topical, yet.

Nothing finds beauty in exploring dreams of a human-free world. Kode9's strength has always been to show that serious scholarship and avant-garde instinct don't need to separate from dancefloor culture and here, he's made one of his clearest statements of that yet.

It’s a labour of love, with edits laid over each other in places like sheets of fine filo pastry. There are officially 19 tracks, but it takes 42 records for Scuba to build them from.

Strings also form the structure of ‘Fuel The Fire’, one of the album’s standouts. And then there’s the ominous ‘Paradise’, which places light and darkness side by side in a tremendous exercise of juxtaposition. That same balance is present through the album and, combined with Illum’s knack for making everything sound so exquisite, makes it a superb little record.

Even if you’re not spiritually inclined, the music is still proper techno: chuggy in some places and mystical in others, but always total class.

Steffi provides a delectable mix that’s a testament to her curating skills.

Distractions is modern club music that acknowledges its history while still moving it forward, courtesy of one of the best in the game.

[The first track, "Celebrate" is] a stunning start--and thankfully, the songs that follow are just as strong.

With everything lathered in exquisite, 90s-sounding euphoria, the duo prove to be irresistible, once again.

If ‘Safe’ was Visionist’s “personal portrait of anxiety”, then ‘Value’ is his awakening.

The spirits of Vangelis, Wendy Carlos and John Carpenter permeate throughout, and it feels like no exaggeration to suggest that Lopatin could soon join them in the pantheon of great electronic soundtrack composers.

Lonely Planet is an exquisitely lush and naturalistic affair with humid jungle atmospheres, bird calls, yawning chords and fluttering melodies all encouraging you to lay back in the sun and let go.

This is the record Zomby’s always promised to make, and it’s everything we could have hoped for.

Process is a moving, musical autobiography of futuristic, soulful electronica and brittle r’n’b.

It all adds up to their most rounded, consistently engaging record yet.

The music is more emotive, the confidence sharper, the production bolder. ... All That Must Be is going to be lodged into key craniums for the rest of 2018.

As expected, the new offering from Oizo is a revelation--no-one quite does it like him. Now, with the help of his friends, he’s created another nigh-on masterpiece.

AlunaGeorge could well be challenging old touring partners Disclosure for pop crossover supremacy this summer.

As a producer, Barratt is the equal of anyone working today, but what’s most amazing is that even after 30-plus years, he still seems to be as connected with the magic of dancefloor moments as he ever was.

Having always been a master at transcending genres, he makes sure his new album includes something for every musical taste.

They sound as assured as ever on Home Counties.

It’s frequently funky and witty, the production and melodies burn themselves onto your memory, and while occasionally it’s more impressive than lovable, you can’t argue with its clarity of vision.

The whole thing feels vast, a lunar soundscape ripe for exploration.

Nite Jewel’s fourth album is her most personal and lyric-driven yet.

It’s essential for anyone looking for new, truly underground music--but not quite perfect.

An album full of gorgeous electronic folk and psych-pop, with Trogdon’s observations of the minutiae of life, love and nature (“the kindness of rain”; “everything on its way to being something else”) sitting perfectly in the mix. And it’s great.

It may sound dark, cold, gothic and rough around the edges compared to software-produced music, but these sounds have proved over the decades that they will set your synapses alight with delight.

Like his pioneering UK heroes, this hour-long LP works best lost in the moment with your ears nestled between a pair of good speakers and your head in the clouds.

This is Matmos doing what they do best: taking a strange idea for a wild digital ride until it turns into something completely magical.

On occasion the constantly shifting patterns can get a bit itchy and unsettling, but for the most part it’s a joyful creation.