Like Seeds Of Destiny, Life After Death is an unsettling work with glimmers of positivity.

Holter has always taken pop and presented her own masterful version of it. But her desire to break through the distressing clatter of the present is what makes Aviary her most captivating album yet.

The Drought is compelling because Hoffmeier is so clearly in charge.

Working Class Woman is special because it looks beyond the personal highs and lows of touring to the cracks in the foundation of a lucrative club culture that requires constant, exhausting effort to achieve some semblance of stability.

Throughout the record, there are gestures toward what has already passed and what will eventually come. With its constant shifts in energy, Ecce Homo succeeds in opening up new temporal and textural dimensions.

Though Autobiography may seem like a departure from Jlin's past work, many of its themes have been present throughout her catalogue. The LP succeeds in challenging expectations for a ballet score while expanding the possibilities for the artist's post-footwork sound.

With Born Again In The Voltage, Barbieri goes deeper into undressing familiar timbres, this time with human voice and string instruments. With them, she's able to guide us on an introspective trek through the expanse of our own brains and the cosmos alike.

Fabriclive 100 is without a doubt an inspired effort, an ambitious and highly creative attempt at capturing its selectors' musical lineage. But it's also a bit of a mess. It feels like the wild second-to-last draft of a creative project.

[Blood Rain is] the track on Bodied that best reflects the influence of soundtrack work on Myson, music that feels powerful without being obvious or obtrusive. The rest of Bodied feels like a film score made for a blockbuster that isn't there. The LP's sculpted sound, dreamy sketches and haughty melodrama rarely feels like more than the sum of its often stunning parts.

Burn Slow isn't the most original or exciting work. But it's a thoughtful and personal album that allows Liebing to move beyond his techno reputation with grace.

Like staring at a laptop screen for so long the glut of information makes you feel sick, Another Life is a complete sensory overload you can't turn away from. It's the duo's most triumphant release yet.

You might also hear the elegiac rise and fall of Stars Of The Lid, an emotional Hollywood score or William Basinski's sound of decay. However, as Konoyo unspools, you may look back and realize that this all combines to sound like no one other than Hecker.

In losing sight of the dance floor, Battle Lines does away with Bob Moses' greatest strength, and the quality that made them stand out from countless other pop and rock acts.

The slow-motion throbs of Davachi's warm, uncluttered electronic pieces achieve something intensely serene. On her new album, Gave In Rest, the music occupies the peaceful spaces she found lying between religious and secular realms.

Scattered brilliance makes Shelly's On Zenn-La a compelling listen. At its best, the LP showcases a composer with an uncompromising will to experiment, even if it yields mixed results.

On his Warp Records debut, Safe In The Hands Of Love, Yves Tumor joins the ranks of Arca and SOPHIE at the millennial generation's pop vanguard, a group whose fluid approach to music and imagery is eradicating the gap between underground and mainstream.

The endorphin-rush techno of "Forgive Me," meanwhile, is sure to ignite one of his main stage festival sets. That's the setting in which Boratto shows his energy and confidence as an artist. Too much of Pentagram, by contrast, feels tired or confused.

Overall, little of This Behavior has the mystery or subtlety of touch suggested by the gloved magician's hands on the cover. Rather, this is ADULT. showing their iron fist, and not every punch lands.

Darby has always had a good grasp on what makes this music so addictive. EPHEM:ERA just looks at it from a different perspective, highlighting the curvatures of grime's fundamentals.

F for all its lofty intentions and complex construction, it is a remarkably easy listen.

Hauschildt's minimal electronica here works its way into those ambient soundscapes and offers a singularly calm fusion of both genres. No longer caught between oppositional impulses, Hauschildt seamlessly channels freeform ambient and regimented synth tones into the same space, and produces some of his most cohesive, conceptually sound work to date.

hej! is one of PC Music's most well-rounded records yet.

It's striking how simple and affecting Devotion is as a whole. At a time when so much music is political and intellectualized, Tirzah's sincerity and candor is a breath of fresh air.

Something about its bleary-eyed shuffle, smooth jazz accents and chipmunk vocals is ineffably familiar and intimate. By drawing on memories and relationships for inspiration, Weatherall conveys emotion more convincingly than ever before.

On Filo Loves The Acid, Dozzy has held back his more radical approach, as well as his typically subtle use of the 303, to deliver an exemplary acid toolkit.

The sheer number of different tools and skills they bring to the job is staggering. That's a big reason why, nearly a decade after the scene's initial explosion, they're still propelling the sound forward.

Sometimes producers catch a wave, sometimes they wipe out. But this theory is quickly rubbished by Hauff's own back catalogue. She's released consistent albums and EPs that said a lot with a little. Qualm achieves the same, but only in moments.

On Here From Where We Are, Cayzer takes on multiple shades of ambient music and delivers each with an expert touch.

Jakobsson's DJ-Kicks is a smooth and enjoyable hour, and a reminder that, whatever name he's releasing under, he's worth taking seriously.

Synthetic birdsong, rustling keys and a contemplative melody suggest someone pondering the world outside. The album, in turn, offers a glimpse into Kate NV's rich imagination.

Schofield often sounds downright uneasy, as if he's looking to cut the legs out from under his trademark style. When an artist slips into this mode, they rarely make perfect statements. What usually emerges instead are uneven collections full of experimental escape hatches that are engrossing for their very imperfections.

Inspired by this sentiment, as well as Halo's time scoring a film for the Dutch art collective Metahaven, the more abstract aspects of Raw Silk Uncut Wood allow her to establish moods that are at once non-prescriptive and immediately visceral.

Morgan sings and raps on the LP, the first time they've used their voice on their records. That helps make Power their most accessible release. The singing is charmingly unpolished.

Her robotic sing-song is more unsettling than affecting, and the synth backing is never quite immersive. Spontaneity is often this pair's strength, but with more ambitious ideas it limits them.

On K.O their ideas are rendered in higher fidelity, and while not every track on here leaves a lasting impression, the album as a whole certainly does.

Byen could use more of Torske's signature sense of chaos. Listen to this one when it's time to unwind. Save the others for when you really want to visit space.

Essential isn't as essential as its title suggests, but don't let that stop you from seeking it out. It has more of the loveable chaos that once made Soulwax among the most important acts in electronic music. This time it's more controlled.

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

No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds, with its stylistic and thematic missteps, too often shakes us out of this trademark groove.

Some of these tracks are simply mind-melting.

Baha's production skills are clear across Free For All. Fans of instrumental grime artists like Slackk will find much to admire in the austere yet precisely constructed "Aliens," whose sense of space is uncommonly sophisticated.

As Wet Will Always Dry proves, Blawan has pushed things forward by showing that the traditional techno template can still be sculpted in surprising new forms.

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.

Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-Insides, SOPHIE's first proper album, presents her artistic vision in a purer form than anything she's done before. It is at times unapologetically poppy, beginning with the opening power ballad, "It's Okay To Cry." But it's also utterly, defiantly weird, flouting conventions of rhythm, composition and, perhaps most of all, taste.

One of the album's key qualities is how Vynehall uses these musicians to enrich a sound that feels authentically his own. There are almost no dance beats on the record, but again, this feels like Vynehall moving farther down a path he'd already explored.

Her music can feel frustratingly fragmented one second and suddenly coalesce into something brilliant the next. IRISIRI is baffling and inspired in equal measure.

serpentwithfeet is not a project that deals in restraint, but it's the mix of melodrama and newfound control that makes soil a great record.

Trying to follow these songs as they unfold is a bewildering experience. But if you take Hassell's advice, and "scan up and down the sonic spectrum," taking in the moments of beauty as they occur, the album's title makes a lot of sense.

Dream House, then, is a mixed bag. But like with everything Âme and Innervisions put their name to, from the label to the performances to the Lost In A Moment parties, the good outweighs the bad.

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.

As DNA Feelings dissolves to a close, a quiet kind of power lingers on.

An album that's alluring in passing, but might not have you doubling back for a closer inspection.

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.

As Rausch shows, Voigt is still finding inspiration in his childhood memories and those old forests, subtly changing the way we see and hear them each time.

Murmurations is as rewarding for the listener as it must've been for the artists.

A comparable transition on Singularity, between "Everything Connected" and "Feel First Life," is made to feel seamless, less like a change in circumstance than an ascent onto some higher plane. Some will feel completely immersed in that; others might simply admire it from a distance.

A series of instrumentals pivot and twist slyly, dropping hints of chord and lithe rhythm, but the bolder moments of the album's opening section aren't repeated. Instead it ends with a track called "Antiform," two minutes of hiss and vague metallic clanking. At first this is sort of a disappointment, but on repeat listens it deepens the album's appeal.

If the album doesn't always hit the same highs as the excellent Mondo Beat or Trance LPs, there's still plenty to love: the bending techno synth waves on "Modularity," the slowed-down Nitzer Ebb flashbacks on "Post Industrial," and the krautrock computer glitches on "Noise Floor."

Music For Installations doesn't offer a single listening experience: these tracks make far more sense looped, either alone or in small groups, to create a particular, sustained mood.

It probably wasn't hard for Koze to look beyond house, because it never completely won him over. Knock Knock makes a case for others to do it as well.

This music suits periods of poignant, existential anguish.

Without much more than endless stretches of sound to hang onto, The Four Worlds occasionally drifts into tedium. The record's pair of vocal cuts stand out as a result, regardless of how effective they are.

Most of his LPs show his love of prog and fusion. In other words, they've been lengthy, ambitious full-lengths with an array of singles sprinkled throughout. Cerebral Hemispheres is exactly that. Whatever its flaws, it's a solid entry in a legendary discography.

"Napoletana" got the Project Pablo ear for melody and signature sweet mood, but the sonics are pristine, every lead flourish and bassline wiggle perfectly placed. Elsewhere the mood deepens, and Project Pablo flavours his melodic groovers with rich atmosphere.

The album channels Alva Noto's trademark sounds into jittery, funky music that loses none of the complexity of his more challenging work.

These tracks are rescued by gorgeous chords and melodies, which give otherwise grey arrangements rich shades of melancholy and optimism. Avery had a knack for a hook back in the days of Drone Logic, too. His attitude to the dance floor might have changed, but the important stuff hasn't.

The music sometimes suggests inventive new directions, but the strange, tonal weirdness of the vocals doesn't always sit right, and ends up sucking out the individuality from Pharrell and Kendrick Lamar alike.

Jaar's samples might not seem obvious, but 2012-2017 can feel generic. Most tracks are just looped soul samples fastened to heavy kicks. They might be uplifting if they didn't feel so utilitarian.

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.

Still Trippin''s sound design too often lacks textural depth, and it sometimes undermines otherwise good songs. The hip-hop tracks are a mixed bag as well.

Whether you like Long Trax 2 depends in part on how much you hear this message. ... Long Trax 2 runs the risk of monotony instead. But that seems to be Long's message: we're stuck, sorrow repeating without end.

The LP's initial tranquility gives way to a perkier second half, transitioning from sugar-dusted melodies to a fusion sound that feels more live.

Where Providence showed that he can still make ambitious statements, this EP is a simpler pleasure.

All That Must Be is a smooth journey from start to finish, but it too often feels familiar. In spite of a new cast of collaborators, little about the LP improves on its predecessor. What sounded unique from FitzGerald three years ago isn't quite as satisfying this time around.

Mullinix's production chops have improved enormously in the 12 years since Two/Three—today, he sounds more like a proper hip-hop producer than a quirky crossover act. Listening to Three/Three, though, you might miss that crossover a bit.

What's remarkable about the LP is that most of its 11 artists--whether newcomers, collaborators or longtime fans--all make tracks that sound like natural extensions of the originals.

There's an intense and cautious feeling to Sakamoto and Nicolai's approach, keeping everything at a constant volume and introducing changes only gradually. Glass is good for close listening, trading narrative for pure texture and mood.

Tejada being Tejada, the machines aren't done away with entirely. Amid the orchestral strings and irregular drums you'll hear the rich melodic layers and electronic processing that have long been Tejada hallmarks. His stamp is all over this typically classy if unsurprising album.

A graceful continuation of her catalogue, Air Lows has an alluringly frosty charm.

There are few surprises here, but much of it is enjoyable.

All Melody is remarkably well-rounded. It's not a techno album, it's not a classical album and it's not an ambient album, but it at times resembles all three.

It's a rare example of him writing and singing lyrics, and it's endearingly youthful.

Because of its occasional bursts of rhythm and melody, Post Self is one of the more accessible Godflesh albums.

As esoteric as the use of language translation software might seem, Doran and Carlile work their magic on these dialects and accents.

The band's mix of disco, funk, new wave, dancehall and West African music would in most hands sound muddled or derivative. What happens instead is music filled with life and imagination of the kind described by Stuart Evans, the cofounder of the Green Door Studio, who once likened Golden Teacher to seeing "a robot dancing with a leopard."

It may not have the broad appeal of past Steffi albums, but that was never the point. It's modern-day braindance for listeners willing to find meaning from within.

At over three hours of half-lidded drone and ambient, Rainbow Mirror is one of the quietest Prurient albums, yet also one of the most demanding.

Other M.E.S.H. records--including his 2015 debut LP, Piteous Gate--were narrow beam; Hesaitix is the full spectrum.

Klein's work exists entirely on its own terms. It's a vocalist and her piano presenting a form of singer-songwriter music that doesn't need words to get its feelings across.

Afternooners is deceptively complex for soundtrack music.

The album's mix of chipmunk samples, sound shards and tender melodies sounds contemporary, but it fails to bring out the ingenuity and energy of Carnell's best music. On Value, he bares his soul, but we don't learn much.

His latest LP, Prins Thomas 5, is a less extravagant take on space disco. ... The LP's calmest moments are its standouts.

Dunn fulfills the title's promise by exploring other styles, though most fall squarely within the "old-school house" category. ... Other digressions don't fare as well. ... Still, when My House From All Angles hits, it hits hard.

The producer's peacenik ambitions are never far away, though, and the more naked they become, the more his music loses its depth and subtlety.

while it's not perfect, Les Fleurs Du Mal is a brave leap into the dark, a place so suffocating, black and unknown that it bears revisiting just to see what you might encounter on your next descent.

With enough listens, you'll even catch yourself humming its melodies, but the ideas come close to feeling generic.

By faithfully spotlighting the range and craftsmanship of Japanese computer game music, Diggin In The Carts pays effective tribute to the place from which that pride stems.

The dark liquid that once represented Björk's emptiness becomes a source of love that gushes and flows through her. Where once it felt suffocating, here it feels open and endless.