FM Sushi is straighter, painstaking in its own low-budget way and--bathed as it is in a potent fug of despairing melancholy--far more emotionally resonant.

Hendra is an always beautiful, sometimes stunning album, if one that bears no trace of its creator's knack for house music.

Hive Mind, follows in the vein of "Ital's Theme" by focusing on warm, softly throbbing textural slides over insistent 4/4 rhythms to forge a kind of day-drifted vagabond music akin to the work of acts like Blondes or The Miracles Club.

Speeed finds transcendence in loudness and distortion, making noise not so much to express frustration as to heal.

In the unhurried calm of Whatever The Weather, it's easy to envision the slow-moving shifts of the season. ... However one chooses to sit with the sounds in the album, personally, as an American, Celsius has never sounded so dreamy.

Culled and then cultivated from her live set, these tracks have the dance floor in their sights, but with a skewed focus.

Providence marks a muscular new path for Fake, but he sounds as singular as always.

Slow Focus is more often than not an Olympic-standard piece of work.

Quite possibly represents Edgar's most full-blooded work yet.

Drone lives and dies by its inviolability and rigidity, but Lopatin throws that away in favor of something madder, weirder and altogether more enticing.

World Eater is Power's most eclectic record to date. Dumb Flesh, his second album as Blanck Mass, moved away from the wall of sound of his self-titled debut.

Pop Ambient 2014 is the fluffiest, most cushioned set of zone-outs in the series' recent history.

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

Visions is marked by a number of characteristics that make up a broad swathe of forgettable, barely-there music-it sounds distant, cheaply produced, with songs that seem to flutter in and out of earshot rather than command attention-but it's executed with such personality, earnestness, and feeling that it feels so much louder and present than it really is.

Voigt's mix of art music, techno and classical, of fairy tales and field recordings, feels singular and timeless 25 years on. It's not Voigt's most beautiful or immersive record as GAS, but it remains a forest we can all get lost in.

Not everything on Isles is a win—"Rever" and "Fir" dial the neon palette up a notch too high—but overall the album nails the tricky balance artists face when following a successful debut: similar enough to charm the old fans yet fresh enough to entice the new.

Eternal Home is by no means an easy listen, especially for people who aren't used to extreme metal vocals. But it's well worth the effort—the LP features some of the most beautiful music I've heard all year.

Shade is another beautiful and often devastating entry in the Grouper catalog.

It's not long before Punk Authority ceases to feel abrasive and is instead perceived as soothing, continuous streams of sound.

Although Spirit Exit, both more expansive and more restrained, doesn't oscillate as wildly as her previous expeditions, the heart strings remain plucked in gorgeous loops and motifs that spiral out into infinity.

An album that finds Cantu-Ledesma orchestrating perhaps the most gorgeous ambience of his career so far.

Metal, techno and noise fans will all find solace here, as the band juggle sounds from all three to make something that sounds new, and almost natural.

Blizzards highlights everything Fake is good at: the way his drums tend to dance in between established genres, melodies that sound like a warped Boards Of Canada record, the constant push-and-pull of dark and light. It's more of a reset than a reinvention, a return to the earnest simplicity that made him a wunderkind all those years ago.

As with Exai, no major new ground is broken here, but when the landscape is this vast, fascinating and intractably alien, there's no need.

It is a real gem.

Blue Gardens is another milestone in a banner year for one of the UK's most consistently exciting labels.

For a techno mix, Fabriclive.73 is a surprisingly breezy affair.

His music appears to be the stuff of mid-morning TV interludes and inconsequential memories, yet it ends up plumbing great depths.

LISm is a sprawl, a circuitous meander, but one in which every second counts.

Elysia Crampton isn't always an easy listen. In fact, it's a little bit ugly at times. That intentional clash is exactly what makes her sound so compelling. She cultivates a juicy, electric tension by combining pieces that aren't made to fit evenly together.

Amidst all the flying debris and heart-stopping drama you have the most cohesive and powerful single statement from Terror Danjah yet.

Age Of is the sound of an internet addict sifting through the digital ruins, part of a culture jamming legacy for future generations, should they exist.

Glimmer has enough to rope back in jilted Treny fans, but is steady-footed enough to find acolytes in drone and ambient communities as well.

They make some mistakes, sure--the vocal spots from JODY and Yen Tech are fumbles--but they're more adept than ever at stewing their idiosyncratic set of sounds into one deliciously strange brew.

There's a weightiness to Polar's songwriting that both complements and contrasts the crystalline production touches.

Hyperdrama is more impactful than Woman, but not quite as ostentatiously in-your-face as Audio, Video, Disco. The duo sound better for it.

Reflection bangs, sounds enormous cranked up loud, but it's also dreamlike and soothing. There is plenty of pain and uncertainty in these tracks. But altogether, the album is a salve for the listener, and maybe for James herself.

For all its referential qualities, this is a record that is confident in its own distinct character.

At times, it seems like his most interestingly textured and complicated release to date.

The history of misogyny that followed Journey In Satchidananda complicates the serenity and innovation within it.

Not only is Looping State of Mind Willner's most diverse and satisfying statement to date, it's an album that establishes him as one of electronic music's more subtly lateral thinkers.

Hunt's debut isn't just a representation of her compelling Emotional Junglist sound, but a firm push against the boundaries of modern, nostalgic jungle, underlining how much even the toughest dance music can benefit from a little vulnerability.

Sound Ancestors is an ideal entry into the world of Madlib.

New Path's final moments are fleetingly hopeful, conveyed through faintly chirping birdsong. But once that warmth fades, the album's unsettling mood is what lingers. It's one of Essaie Pas' finest efforts yet.

On his latest, the palpable, sometimes uneven spontaneity that defined the first few years of DJ Seinfeld is gone. In its place is the sound of a producer who's found a confident, definitive voice.

It's a much less linear journey than we would expect from Owens, but it's also a welcome shift, an intriguing pivot from the very human themes of Inner Song. This time around, she invites the listener to wade through the fascinating depths of her imagination. It's hard not to close your eyes and surrender to the figure-eight flow.

Some of these tracks are simply mind-melting.

This celebratory nihilism defines an album that's sometimes dark and moody, sometimes manic and fun. There are familiar moments of quirky guitar pop ("Delete Forever," "You'll Miss Me When I'm Not Around"). More exciting is when Grimes goes big on reverb and club-sized beats.

Like his last album, Leaning Over Backwards, A Series of Shocks is rich and spatially ambitious.

Serious and focused but also enormously fun, it represents the late flowering of a distinctive, accomplished talent.

Gonzalez outdoes himself on Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: a double album in tribute to the hefty documents of pre-digital, pre-iTunes yesteryear.

See Birds, was a promising debut, but Wander / Wonder is the kind of record that can pull you into its emotional undertow from the minute those helium angels start singing.

Lone hasn't fully reinvented the narrative thread he started with "Pineapple Crush," but he's enriched it with a deeper exploration of his music's other referents, finding new dimensions to a sound that was beginning to feel awfully one-dimensional.

The sound of Pangaea doing his thang, then? Yep. Ahead of the game? On this evidence, most certainly.

Playing Robots Into Heaven pitches itself right in the middle, swallowing up Blake's wounded reveries in a tide of dance floor-friendly inspiration. It's the most vital he's sounded in years.

While Self's experimental productions showcase the versatility of the voice, his poppier songs luxuriate in its timbre.

For the most part, Vibert's approach to drum & bass still sounds unique, although there are some signs that this was produced in the '90s if you're looking for them.

Lyrically, this may be the work of a 49 year-old woman, with its ruminations on family, married life and paying the bills, but, in terms of its energy and sheer lust for life, it could not sound fresher.

What really marks Machinedrum's growth are the moments that subtly push Stewart's sound into small stylistic corners only hinted at before.

It's the most relaxed, comfortable album he's ever made, and it's a delight to drift along with him.

His latest LP isn't nostalgic. If anything, Voids proves Deijkers is as comfortable in the here and now as he's ever been.

It's like listening to the sea, before the strings slip in and out of tune like crashing waves. The beauty that emerges throughout the record requires patience to be appreciated in full and—to Frahm's credit—when it arrives, it's worth the wait.

The spirit of those dance floors lives on through this second volume of the Legacy series.

This new U&I long player is a welcomed return to form and Leila's most gripping work to date.

Ekstasis is brimming with them though [moments that are avant-gard yet instantly accessible] -an album so coherently constructed that it's perhaps more notable for its instants, its moments and sequences, than its full tracks.

It traces Yaeji's emotional development, coming to terms with anger and resentment she had suppressed as a child—a period that she channels into her charged and surprisingly bracing new LP.

Dependent and Happy sounds like the hungriest dance music that Ricardo Villalobos has recorded in some time.

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

As a whole, the album succeeds at doing something tricky: pandering to fans of theory, minimalism and ambient music all in equal measure.

Stern's use of repetition is powerful and carefully considered, making space for deep thought and reflection. Pockets of silence strengthen this concentrative quality.

Where many similar hybrids are too cerebral or schizophrenic, his album is impressively tactile, and laced with a genuinely passionate pulse.

Inner Song's highs are very high. Beyond the bang-on production, the LP feels like as much of a journey for the listener as it does the protagonist.

Such interventions, like the coughing fit that concludes "Brutal," are vital in the fabric of The Redeemer, which feels part art installation, part cri de coeur, but all true--further reason to believe the Hype.

Remember... feels cohesive in a way that has eluded Fernow through the rest of his work as Vatican Shadow, and signals a new frontier for the producer that's as promising as it is grim.

They! Live is a lovely, highly listenable release, flowing effortlessly in a way that most house music albums can only hope for.

Here she pushes things in a more aggressive direction: on "Tiro," her vocals become increasingly scattered and dramatic, as the percussion warps into a mash of cracking whips, laser shots and grinding metal. On its back half, KICK ii dips into abstract territory, sounding more like a tangled web of overactive synapses than anything immediately recognizable as pop.

Dis Fig transcends In Blue's origins in genre exercise into an otherworldly fever dream, an album of tectonic bass and thundering drums that somehow feels intimate and sensual. It's as much her triumph as it is his.

Anyone who's seen her DJ could tell you about the confrontational aggression she hasn't yet captured on an official album. KicK iii tries, pushing the choppy, freeform and unrelenting part of Arca to the fore and pulverizing the listener over its brief, 36-minute runtime.

Fear In A Handful Of Dust is a very approachable Amon Tobin record. It is highly unconventional, full of alien timbres and strange logic. But, as was the case with much of his music in the past couple decades, you don't need to be in a specific kind of mood to enjoy it.

Shades feels like a group effort. Khan's deadpan but catchy vocals are a huge part of the appeal, and the whole band sounds locked in, especially Calderwood and his wild soloing. ... It's the kind of quietly brilliant record that makes you fall in love with a band all over again, sharpening their approach—and songwriting—without losing the shambolic charm that made them so loveable in the first place.

Left bruised and raw from the previous entry, the soft pads and thick walls of synth noise on tracks like the Planningtorock-featuring "Queer" feel like weighted blankets. ... kick iiii plays like a surrealist diary of Ghersi's experiences as a queer person and transgender woman.

This album tells a deeper story that only grows more vibrant with every listen.

These songs are whittled down, a rare moment where the overwhelming density of Arca's music falls away, raw and stripped of any protective coating. ... There's a newfound and striking intimacy—the last gasps of the KiCK series before the explosive climax "Crown," where kiCK iiiii's softness is ripped apart by cathartic blasts of noise. It's one final, triumphant punch that leaves everything on the table.

Shygirl remains tough and unforgiving across ALIAS, and her voice as an artist has never been stronger. She's a full-blown pop star driven by her luscious fantasies.

Despite his mainstream flirtations, Cashmere Cat is more about delaying pleasure than instant gratification.

You may not always know what's going on or why, but that hardly matters when it's such a joyous whirl.

Black Jazz Records is a label worth knowing. As far as introductions go, you could do worse than a tribute mix by Theo Parrish.

Rapping with Paul White combines a series of moods and ideas and ties them together with quirky skits and a varied palate of samples, all with the charm we've grown to expect from White.

A large part of Death Peak--despite the morbid title--contains some of Clark's most accessible and melodic dance floor tracks.

If The Inheritors was the sound of the former trance artist undergoing a spiritual rebirth, The Animal Spirits is as close as he's come to transcendence.

The mix of familiar sounds and snippets of intimate conversation makes for dance music that can feel deeply affecting, even as its spastic rhythms keep the energy at a constant high.

Conatus is Zola Jesus' most gratifying offering so far.

Whatever's at the heart of these sonic fictions, it drove Crampton to reach for new audio possibilities, not for the sake of novelty but to keep pace with the futurity of her visions. It sets the album apart from other pieces of audio collage because it's not sound design for sound design's sake: it's what's required to bring the drama to life.

The mixtape moves through a few different sections, starting off slow and dreamy, taking in woozy hip-hop and twinkling dance pop and ending up in UK club territory. There's a wistful vibe throughout.

Rinse Presents: Brackles is a cohesive, singular statement that finds his sound truly rising to the occasion.

Thanks to its quieter passages, Alternate/Endings breathes in and out gradually, never lingering or sprinting for too long.

With In A Dream, Maclean and Whang have crafted some of most expertly tuneful music of their career.

It's almost too easy to become completely enamoured with the very sounds it's employing, rather than the mood it's ostensibly trying to convey.