ChangesNowBowie shows a confident artist having a little fun in a relaxed mood.

Yes, it's a pretty good record, and the songs will linger with you after you've stopped spinning the record – it's just that Wilkinson is capable of so much more.

Shall We Go on Sinning So That Grace May Increase? comes a bit out of nowhere and is surely the most impactful release he's ever made, Matmos included.

On their assured, plaintively lovely and frequently agitated opening salvo, Drab City have concocted a minor masterpiece of electronic phantasms and rumbling desert soul from grim tidings, alienation, 21st-century hauntological aesthetics, and dissonant harmonics. It's impressive work that emanates both a seamless sprawl and a mounting dread.

Taken as a whole, Please, Pleasure, and Patience represent Lerche's finest work as a musician.

RTJ4 is exactly what you'd expect from two guys who have been down this road three times before without ever missing the mark. They see no need to step out of their comfort zone but have the ear and openness to adjust to their surroundings.

Ever so slowly, sounds build upon sounds, but it never seems overbearing. It's swaddling, enveloping. Nomad is music to get lost within.

To Love Is to Live is an emotional essay in which Jehnny Beth has created one of the most compelling and sincere albums of the year so far.

There is much calm and introspective about Arrow; sounds appear to ripple and echo outward while sustained tones change pitch in the background.

It's incredible how thematically cohesive a statement this record is, especially because it was recorded over a year. The music

Harmony Avenue exudes the free-spirited exuberance of a side project. It's the sort of album that's a blast to listen to in part because it leads you to imagine how much of a blast it must have been to make.

Just as Carpenter does on her best material, Jarosz imbues this music with assured confidence, the kind of confidence that's easy for an artist to summon when she is in command of her voice. World on the Ground is a portrait of one such artist.

Infusing Self Made Man with gospel and blues, Larkin Poe reinvent musical tradition to trumpet their standpoints.

It all adds up to a fun meander to help you waste away a summer afternoon.

Heartbreaker Please raises one's spirits by accepting the end as a new beginning. He sings about feeling "Brand New", and while his enthusiasm is suspect, there is a sense of relief present. Thompson's not wallowing; he's re-joining the world and out looking for love.

It's ultimately a deep, unsettlingly immersive experience, yet it sanctions an almost unbearable intensity to be buoyed by a hard-won acceptance.

The Prettiest Curse is infectious without being syrupy, fresh instead of juvenile. This is messy pop music that captures the vibrancy of youth without being childish.

Unlike many similar instrumental projects, Continuous Portrait is suffused with hope and empathy, but also a keenly executed sense of adventure.

Much as Williamson charts her psychic growth, Sorceress also musically waxes.

Basically, Wyatt touches base with many different iterations of country, both recent and antique, and she does so with finesse and reverence.

Weighed down by lesser songs like "Alice", "Enigma", and the blissfully short BLACKPINK collaboration "Sour Candy", Chromatica isn't quite a full-bore masterwork. Still, given the thundering club-filling fun and layered meanings revealed upon relistens, it is assuredly the most lively and consistent record she's made since Born This Way.

Okkyung Lee and her quartet strike a splendid balance between free-floating and uncomfortably tense, and the suspense is worth savoring. Audience members looking for solid resolution should keep looking.

His ability to purge himself on every track is contagious. You don't have to go there with him to enjoy this album, but don't be surprised if you do.

Marshall's lyricism remains beautifully inscrutable and passionate in equal measure. His go-to metaphors of sinking, floating, and dreaming are dispersed throughout tales of failed romance and urban malaise. After the album's first stretch of immediate standalone tracks, Man Alive! settles into a cinematic groove where the song arrangements are as nebulous as the lyrics and Marshall's toasty cigarette-burn vocals.

It's a great, modern pop-rock album. I don't think he'll need Jack White's phone number for quite a while.

The excellent Strange to Explain, acts as a course correction. Where Love Is Love was filled with mantras and positive affirmations, Earl is now quick to admit that wishing away darkness doesn't guarantee its departure.

In many ways, it's a lot to take in at once, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because it shows a level of unquenchable ambition, creativity, and outspoken curiosity that's rarely felt in popular music today.

There's as much personal hardship here as there is outgoing celebration, so it winds up an all-inclusive showpiece for what makes Badly Drawn Boy so good.

The Universe Inside is not some Metal Machine Music style, highbrow exercise in sarcasm and disrespect, it's a powerful piece of contemporary music which still manages to sit logically in the band's oeuvre.

Ghosts of West Virginia astutely captures and empathically chronicles the lives of people that have suffered through an unspeakable tragedy in an attempt to make a living, day by day, year by year, generation by generation.

There's a generous informality to the 11 tracks that reveal the affection and impact of her fans, who helped her generate what shows up here.

The Quickening draws attention to itself because it refuses to concede to formula. The two musicians got together because of a shared appreciation of improvisation. The results suggest the pair shared the same aims as the sound of them both together overwhelms their separate performances. Fans of both artists will find value in their union.

Overall, Reunions doesn't quite achieve the heights of Southeastern or The Nashville Sound, but that's only because Isbell has set the bar so damn high for himself. This is an excellent album in its own right.

PITH, for all the attention it pays in getting the dressings and staging right, is best when it's replacing one genre's organs with another's, concocting an interesting if beautifully flawed, kind of Frankenstein's Monster.

It's another wildly thought-provoking, fun, and wholly distinctive venture.

Ambitious and profound while remaining compelling unpredictable, it's a constantly shape-shifting, all-encompassing musical experience. Outland is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

Album Three is a brief and assured bulletin from a musician with a clear aesthetic and a knowledge that the point of any work is to make the statement, enjoy it, then declare, "what's next?" That kind of rapacious and roving appetite for creation makes Lake a man to watch.

What's New, Tomboy? isn't special because it is sparse. The album is special for how profoundly Jurado acknowledges what might be learned from the emptiness in this life, as well as from being still and waiting to be filled.

English seems to be working through some thorny relationship issues with a collection of breezy, dreamy indie rock tunes with touches of a little bit of everything from country and contemporary pop to psychedelia and Motown.

Whitney Rose's We Still Go to Rodeos stands out as among the best of these contemporary albums. Rose wrote the dozen stellar tracks (there's not a bad one in the bunch) that range from traditional country ballads to rocking rave-ups.

The quality of the material on this album shows she's got a lot on her mind -- maybe more than she realizes.

Whereas Dulce Compañia took the listener track by track, Mas Amable is basically just one big track. It's a track that shapeshifts constantly. But does it so subtly, so imperceptibly, that every little detail feels natural, free-flowing, unobtrusive—like it never changed at all.

The record offers glimpses of living life on the edge, finding redemption, and then weathering life's problems. The narrator has changed, or maybe more accurately been scarred, by his experiences.

With Tamotaït, Tamikrest builds outward, taking the solid foundation they and fellow groups have laid over the last two decades and making even more felicitous connections between their extant sounds and those around the world.

A body of work constructed, thoughtfully, gracefully, intelligently, serious without ever becoming cynical, dealing deftly and lightly with subject matter that might become leaden in less capable hands.

In effect, with Making a Door Less Open, Car Seat Headrest once again achieves that rare feat of musical engineering: the creation of rich environments that foster feeling, not dictate it.

There's the occasional nod to the new millennium ("Ghosting" motors along like an over-caffeinated Arcade Fire), but generally, we're talking 1967 via 1981. In 2020, that's quite remarkable. And much appreciated.

Rejoice is a posthumous reminder of what Hugh Masekela at his best could deliver and of the now 80-year-old Allen's amazing vitality.

Better Souls Good Angels was written and recorded well before the pandemic. But the album, with its darkness tinged with glimmers of hope, its rage touched with tenderness, is very much one for our terrible time.

Although WOMB never stops sounding good, the bops came easier in 2012. The best thing you can say about WOMB is that it's an effortful return to form, an album where most tracks slowly but surely prove their worth.

It's bold, it's demanding, and it might very well go down as the finest full-length Fiona Apple has ever made.

The album is quiet. The 21 tracks are short, slow and soothing.

High Risk Behavior is so full of hooks, personality, and humour that you might find yourself, wanting to play that 28-minute record again. It's a rare thing to want to hear a record on repeat, but rarer still is a record that you feel like you know having just heard it just once, and this is particularly true of the singles, which sound closer to 'classic' Chats than a lot of the album.

The songs on If You're Dreaming, the second album from Anna Burch, don't so much play as they do float by.

Oneiric Formulary, in turn, might not be his best record or feature his best work – but it's more engaging and sonically adventurous than most of what those who consider themselves the lauded experimental jet-set can muster.

There are moments where it drags, and others where Ward sounds less like an expert songwriter than an expert curator, re-purposing Glenn Miller's "Along the Santa Fe Trail" or reenacting Beach House's plodding, synth-drenched balladry on "Real Silence".

On Heaven to a Tortured Mind, Yves Tumor clearly relishes his shift to microphone caressing rock star. Whereas on previous albums, he would obscure himself behind the music, here he steps out of his sonic chrysalis, dons some shiny black wings and soars.

Their new self-titled album serves as a welcome sonic elixir from the distressing realities of 2020.

La Vita Nuova pulls together some pretty disparate genres of music and combines them in a very pleasing way. Chamber strings augment folk melodies. Torch songs are re-imagined as child ballads. Fortunately, McKee's voice manages to knit all these strands together, and the record stops well short of being a hot, sprawling mess.

The songs on Holiday are full of wonderfully executed musical concepts that work exquisitely well with Barry's thoughtful, multifaceted lyrics.

With one of the best songs of 2020 starting things up, Monophonics stretch an eight-song record to its wildest abyss. Combining spacey build-ups with shuttering vocal effects is just part of the buttery slickness, reminiscent of early Impressions mixed with latter-day Curtis Mayfield too, and a touch of Isaac Hayes, after the acid, of course.

Clockdust is the sort of record whose myriad soothing charms and subtle depths will continue to resonate far beyond the click-bait.

Are You in Love? is full of inventive song structures and surprising production flourishes.

It's an impressive show of skill, the increasingly rare sound of an artist coming into her own-- the kind of sound we'll one day be nostalgic for.

She continues that upward streak on Walking Proof, where each of the 11 tracks shines with imaginative playing, spirited vocals, and sensitive, literate lyrics. It's truly a kick-ass record.

After Hours is not exactly a new iteration but a cinematic retrospective of the entirety of the Weeknd. Its vignettes offer the purest amalgams of the earliest, bleakest alternative R&B mixtapes, like 2011's House of Balloons, to the more recent run of massive pop projects, like 2016's Starboy. Hopefully, such a retrospective lens may also cue a coming balance of his conflicting set of feelings and how he frames them.

Gigaton sounds like Pearl Jam convincingly doing their very best to not sound like Pearl Jam. Liberated from their past and their expectations, the band have freed themselves to take some long overdue risks. At this point, they are a very long way from the gas station indeed.

Saint Cloud, like Car Wheels, finds an artist operating at the top of her game, embracing, as Crutchfield put it, "the contradictions and the unknown" to produce a thrilling and inspirational work.

We all need to feel something to be inspired, to create, and to continue putting one foot in front of the other. With his fourth studio album, Adam Lambert is finally taking a step in the right direction.

Four Tet marries the naivety of a childhood sensibility, the sublime immanence of nature, and the infinite possibilities of the imagination ingeniously and thoughtfully, and further imbuing them with a borrowed but genuine mysticism that is, as always with Four Tet, ultimately very satisfying.

3.15.20 captures the tumultuous contemporary moment. As society contends with sickness, anger, and fear, Glover remedies the malignancy while fueling the anguish. 3.15.20 signals an important shift for Childish Gambino and secures the album's spot as one of the best of the year.

If you believe a true artist is offering you an invitation to enter their world and follow them somewhere unexpected, then you'll find a lot to enjoy in Folkesange.

Companion Rises can be the guiding light along your travel, a soundtrack-as-siren that keeps the pace as we move from point to point along the interstellar highways.

This kaleidoscope of colors, minimalistic sounds, and levitating textures result in a kind of imaginative synaesthesia constituting a deep feeling of oneness. The oceanic quality in this otherworldly music is always present. In this regard, Brian and Roger Eno's Deutsche Grammophon debut represents a refreshing antithesis of today's harsh and accelerated times.

While the songs on Truth or Consequences generally fall into your basic catchy pop-rock template, there are a few stylistic curveballs.

Utilizing a refreshingly organic approach and a unique sense of inspiration and bravado, Crocker's latest release under the JOYFULTALK name is full of passion, intensity, and unbridled joy.

The Soul Motivators take their name seriously, using their platform to encourage listeners to follow James Brown's evergreen advice on getting up, getting into it, and getting involved. And, of course, doing the damn thing.

Obel's angelic mixture of bliss and anguish conjures a self-contained mood of wonderment, sorrowful and subdued.

The music Foon has created on Waxing Moon is a fitting soundtrack to the work she's doing with the Pathway to Paris. It's full of hope, beauty, and perseverance.

You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere is a sonic and lyrical breakthrough for the Districts, a record that's years beyond anything else in their catalog.

Generally, the tunes on this compilation are uptempo, memorable, indie-disco classics.

Bonny Light Horseman marks its supergroup status in reserved performances that prioritize song and group, and it makes old songs into visions worth new consideration.

While it's sometimes flawed and almost always derivative, Container is compelling enough to make one believe their next proclamation will be worth hearing.

On The Common Task, Horse Lords packs a great deal of variety and a seemingly endless amount of possibilities into 41 minutes. It's the sound of a group that is infinitely curious. This isn't your uncle's moody, downbeat krautrock – it's a breathless celebration of the power of band dynamics.

Colin Stetson has created a loud, unique, often terrifying collection of music for a film that can best be described the same way.

A thoughtful collection of songs that feels anything but rushed.

It's a bold project that benefits from the creator's focused vision as he invites the listener to piece together imagined conversations between trees.

Despite it representing the staggering breadth of an artist's multi-faceted career, the music assembled here is best enjoyed as one fluid, cohesive unity: Portrait is playful, idiosyncratic and expressive.

Sure, he loves his horns, we all do, but his country roots are showing on this record, and it's glorious.

Silver Landings is an intimate portrait of adulthood and a look at life on the other side of achieving fame at a young age. For audiences who grew up listening to artists like Moore, it's an absolute privilege to get to experience this glimpse into who she is now and how she got there.

Ultimately, the band move beyond their lo-fi surfer pop origins and deliver an empowering statement about personal growth that hits differently with each listening.

The new album is just one of the many pleasures we get to enjoy while we are here.