Even the most careful listener will be left wondering what it all means. Luckily, Boards Of Canada have laid out a riddle we won't tire of teasing out, embedded in a timeless sound unlike any other.

On Loom, she takes her interest in found sound to a gloomy, thought-provoking new depth.

You Are Eternity is like a long and endless tunnel: for all its twists and turns, you're always in the same sensory deprivation chamber.

At its best moments, async combines Sakamoto's history in acoustic music with his legacy in electronic music.

The songs reunited on The Singles should be celebrated by anyone fascinated by the UK's long tradition of tuneful eccentrics.

"Junkies" is the album's only weak moment. The others, while never delivering the thrills of "Six Figures" or "Solemn Days," slowly reveal a different kind of charm.

Whatever Loop The Loop's flaws, Jenkins has definitely found his C, and he's justifiably pleased about it.

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

trip9love...??? is easily one of the greatest accomplishments in the small but impressive Tirzah catalogue.

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

Serenitatem, the latest volume in RVNG Intl.'s FRKWYS series, harks back to Ojima's environmental music of the period. The delicate synthwork across the LP is uncluttered and unobtrusive.

She's a musician adept at using her voice as an instrument, and with it she can convey appealing, addicting hooks. And these strengths are complemented by her crew of reliable producers. ... Even with a roster of collaborators like this, the record occasionally hits a bump when the ambitious, sometimes challenging production doesn't fit her idiosyncratic flow, like on the Sega Bodega-produced "Little Bit." But on the best moments, her vocals mesh seamlessly with off-kilter backing tracks.

She's continuing the very tradition she's studying, ending her intimate and vulnerable album with a cover that finds new purpose by making someone else's words—and grief—all her own.

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

Dreams Are Not Enough is a remarkable return that achieves things the first three Telefon Tel Aviv albums were never quite able to.

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

The music on µ20 is equally a view into that mind and its peculiar tastes. Though he rarely gets the level of recognition and respect as his good friend and one-time collaborator Aphex Twin, Paradinas is a visionary, an incredibly talented producer and a savvy curator.

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.

Rare, Forever has all the hallmarks of a big, crossover dance music record, but no one's doing it quite like this.

This is an album about possibilities rather than parameters, and it's a highlight in both artists' recent catalogs.

It highlights the long-standing chemistry between a group of talented musicians, and, unsurprisingly given the setting and Murphy's skill in the studio, the recording and production sound exceptional.

Black Metal 2 has all the elements that made its predecessor a masterpiece, with sentimental instrumentals and yearning vocals all packaged in a crinkly lo-fi setting. But Blunt has opened up even more on Black Metal 2.

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.

Tyla's music hovers in a zone that occupies amapiano, Afrobeats, and R&B all at once. That she's able to occupy all these spaces in a way that feels familiar is a testament to her poise and ingenuity.

After so many records, a debut novel and another book on the way, it's a privilege to be invited into Hval's private mental space. Like picking up a conversation with a much wiser friend, each new album compacts her advancing thought into a kind of guidebook for those who aren't quite so mentally together, all her latest learnings folded in. ... Obviously, Hval is anything but ordinary.

Rhythmically, Ben UFO is giddy, ebullient even. Which is why, even at his most corrosive, he is not just a very smart "crate-digger," but also a phenomenal party starter.

Halo's records have always posed tricky questions, and Dust features her most complex and engrossing yet.

The real freaks can nerd out on the harmonic theory that will wash right over most ears on this divinely sequenced record. You don't need to be educated to enjoy Malone's music: it's emotive, world-building and all-encompassing. The beauty lies within that.

He might have translated his sound into electronics with Excavation, but here Krlic's music feels more wrenchingly human than it ever has been.

A strange, deeply impressive pop album, and the overall mood reminds me of the mix of ennui and boundless imagination that define childhood, images flitting across the screen, a colourful window to a world that doesn't exist.

On It Is What It Is, Bruner—unlike Pastorious—finds a way out, channeling his pain into great, uplifting art.

At 16 songs and with impressive guest features, it's a sprawling portrait of James, one with mostly dark and subdued tones.

Over its 20 minutes, the EP pushes dance music through violent twists and turns until it becomes disorienting and startling.

Quivering In Time is a kaleidoscopic sequence of house music tunes that tend to blend into one another, sounding more like a DJ mix than a typical electronic album.

Agora is both a return to form and a leap into the abyss.

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.

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.

Ecstatic Computation is marked by sudden breaks from predictability. Stylistic influences and sonic textures are varied, yet they're cohesive. The result is an album that's both provocative and blissful.

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.

This isn't exactly club music, but Yorke and Godrich write incisive beats and basslines, which they match with ever-interesting sound design.

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.

Like most Caribou albums, Our Love is a grower.

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.

This is straight-up fight music. 2017 - 2019 isn't quite this lairy elsewhere, but most of it is jagged, hard-hitting and seriously over-driven. The change has Jaar sounding artistically replenished.

It's her strongest project to date, a thrilling fusion of classical and electronic music delivered in astounding clarity.

Patience for Take Me Apart validates her audience who saw her as the future from the start. You won't soon break free of it.

As excerpts of poetry sound like heart-stricken dialogue and foggy soundscapes take the shape of a score, it often steps out of the confines of music and begins to approach theatre.

Suddenly is a frustrating listen. Snaith's talent for writing earworms, hooks and choruses has never been so apparent. But overall he sounds like he's trying too hard, taking influence from too many places.

Where 2009's By The Throat was ruthless but exacting, this one feels genuinely unhinged--and that unpredictability makes it far more thrilling than any engineered suspense could have been.

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.

It is difficult to pick any more jewels off this dance floor diadem, making the most as it does of the long player context.

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

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.

Another excellent long player to savor from Monolake.

Van Hoen may be submerged in his own past, but the melancholic apprehension of the record is thoroughly universal.

To say that Sommer is a piece of sonic architecture of which Klein himself would be proud is more than just hot air.

With By Your Side, Ed Banger and Breakbot seem more and more lost in a Tumblr-tinged display of self-referencing: very now but just not very new.

If there's one major criticism of this record it's that its excessive length--13 tracks totalling 58 minutes--means that standout tracks can be missed through sheer volume of material.

Taken as a whole, Incubation is an album that lures you into dark places in your brain rather than moving your body on the dance floor.

Homogenous and slightly predictable, Panorama Bar 05 is not Steffi at her most adventurous.

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

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

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.

By stripping down his sound, making it more like punk, he ups the energy levels without crowding the sonic field. It proves Schofield is as much a master of subtlety and balance as he is of feral chaos.

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.

Like Reed, Tarelle and Inyang are involved in gritty, street-level investigative poetics. ... This is detective work, through which they hope to discover their own place—figuratively and literally—a sense of purpose, of honest labour.

Where her past work could sound like it was written for a grandiose 18th-century opera house, Living Torch is closer to the long-lost sonic component of a modern art installation, endless in its possibilities and imagination.

Crash Recoil relishes in the same spontaneity offered by Child's live performances, composed of songs that feel more structured like cinematic scenes than traditional techno tracks.

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

Affection is everything one would want from a pop album—the way it shimmies along with catchy beats, whistle-along melodies and hooks that easily live rent-free in the long-term memory banks. The Jenkins touch here is an unmistakable charm that could very well nudge Affection into "cult album" territory.

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.

It may have taken him a long time to release a mix in this way, but the quality of DJ-Kicks makes it worth the wait. At 30 selections, the tracklist is remarkably long, but nothing feels rushed.

Because Of A Flower pieces together a similar set of songs to ~~~, but with a more open and assured mindset.

From start to finish, Nothing To Declare poses scintillating questions that have no answers, leaving genre tropes smoking on the electric chair. DJ Haram proves the perfect dance partner for Moor Mother.

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.

Angels & Devils marks an evolution of the sound that made London Zoo a classic.

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.

Despite the name, Crooked Man's greatest fault is ultimately how straight Barratt plays it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Konnichiwa isn't perfect, but it mostly accomplishes the goals Skepta set for himself, and is certainly one of the best grime has seen so far.

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

Pleasant is the word. But not simple. Quiet has just as many corners worth peeking down.

It's infectious and almost a little too odd, yet it's totally at ease. In other words, it's DJ Koze doing what he's done for well over a decade.

For all the memories Stranger Things and its soundtrack evoke, they've also given us something new worth remembering.

Moot! is an unpretentious and fun record peppered with quick gear changes, pitch shifts and soul-searching anecdotes about empty neighbourhoods and peering into dark waters at dusk. Everything is immediate and anchored by Magaletti's percussion, which is both raw and immaculate.

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

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.

The 13-track record is anti-corporate music at its finest—this was not created for mere enjoyment, but as an outlet for the global psychic mood. Each track feels like 2020. ... The entire album is captivating, but the middle section is exceptional. ... In Ayewa's hands the heady concept [Afrofuturism] gets new life.

Debate will rage indefinitely on its merits, but to my ears Rival Dealer places Burial in a new creative sweet spot.

LP might be Ren Schofield's shortest album as Container, but it's also the one that best captures the full elemental force of his music.

That Devour is such a tiring album is a testament to its cohesiveness. These tracks flow elegantly into one another, and the attention to dynamics and tension allows for seamless listening.

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.

The untreated vocals, the orchestration, the amount of space in the mix and loose-feeling drums give Significant Changes a retro flavour that echoes classic disco labels like West End Records and Salsoul.

The title might tell you they're not too concerned with dance floors, but the music itself suggests otherwise.

Like most of his records, his self-titled LP shows a talent that stretches well beyond house music, weaving together funk, soul, hip-hop, jazz and R&B into a rich and unpredictable bricolage.