Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but Fatima Al Qadiri, Nguzunguzu and J. Cush have delivered a surprisingly solid record with a global outlook and more than a few surprises surprises up its sleeve.

It's all meticulously crafted with a keen ear for mood and emotion, and yet Creatures has trouble moving beyond a pastiche of Castex's record collection.

If The Mainframe is a film, then it's a Michael Bay blockbuster: slick and engaging but totally adolescent in worldview, its plot tortuous, its characters flimsily drawn, all of it an excuse for a string of eye-popping action set-pieces.

Body Pill is thoroughly understated throughout. It's an odd little album that only shows us part of the Anthony Naples puzzle, which is probably appropriate for an artist whose work seems to come in small and unusual bursts of inspiration.

A beautiful collection of tunes as striking as they are subtle.

James spends most of the EP in that exploratory mode, and though there's a certain pleasure in listening to an artist figure things out, a full 28 minutes feels like overkill. Regardless, it's comforting to know James isn't settling into a routine.

Some tracks, like "Mouth Mantra," simply feel overcrowded. The Haxan Cloak, who mixed the album, struggles to find clarity in busier moments. But the story, visceral and tragic, transcends these imperfections in the telling.

Ghost Culture is a good record from an artist who is probably capable of a great one.

It's a testament to Lennox's dexterity that these brief detours into soft introspection only enhance the wondrous breadth and vision of Panda Bear Versus The Grim Reaper.

Islands might not have the far-reaching social insights of Routes, but it shows that Idehen's personal world is almost as gripping.

The result is a set of tracks that, compared to the prickly, experimental music of Shaking The Habitual, are purposeful, propulsive and emotionally direct.

Visa finds Ripatti attuned to a very specific, focused energy, and the result is some of his best work.

For something as weighty as a debut album from a hotly-tipped artist, Parallel Memories feels a little too light for its own good.

Power Of Anonymity merely repeats the ideas first laid out on Yours & Mine, sometimes improved yet other times untouched.

It's another entry of his sublime wanderer's music as Torn Hawk, and includes some of his most arresting and sonically numbing creations to date.

Magazine 13 doesn't feel like a coherent album so much as a more open-ended platform for the same thing we get on his 12-inches.

Clearly, Stewart's future does not lie in crossover R&B--he should drill down into his musical imagination to open up ever weirder, deeper seams.

Where their first album felt like a definitive statement, Natural Selection sounds, as so many second albums do, like a diffuse bunch of half-realised ideas.

Even when Clark is firing sounds at bewildering speeds, it's never a chore--in other words, it's a lot more fun than Clark's reputation might suggest.

For an artist who has traditionally experimented with recording methods, Quixotism is another landmark, thanks largely to how natural it sounds in spite of its ambitious approach.

By injecting a self-serious genre with a sense of theatre, Bestial Burden makes Chardiet's music more engaging without dulling its edge.

Music this haunting is more universal than local.

From its rumbling lows to its ethereal, resonant highs, Tomorrow Was The Golden Age is one of the simplest and most beguiling albums of its kind since Stars Of The Lid's landmark run on Kranky in the '00s.

The most fully formed and wholly unique record in his discography.

The combination of these two forces is both inspired and insane.

Xen remains as singular--and often as brilliant--as the rest of the Arca catalogue.

Sure, the LP has its eccentric moments, and it takes a long time to really get to know. But, as The Redeemer hinted and Black Metal proves, beneath all the YouTube sampling, bizarre press and one-off Russian blog releases, Blunt is a talented singer-songwriter with a keen ear for odd sounds.

It's bold, maybe even avant-garde, but from beginning to end it's raucous, barnstorming, chair-dancing fun.