It stands on its own two feet and crucially employs a refinement of ideas that proves that space is indeed deep.

As ever with compilations of almost-lost treasures such as this, it is the certain out of time quality that is its greatest attribute.

Compassion is such an easy listen. The melodies are so cheerful, so simple and memorable, they require absolutely no effort to enjoy.

In more ways than one Hound is the kind of album one sees described as an artist’s masterpiece, but with an already extensive discography covering everything from blues to beats to his name, it’s quite likely Slim’s best is yet to come.

The Get Up Sequences Part One has its moments of unrestrained incandescence, it is true. However, a tremendous melancholy comes gusting through too. ... And it confirms that, for those who wish to splice up their life, The Go! Team are still masters of cut ‘n paste heartache.

After The Disco is an exceptionally successful record filled with the type of uplifting melody we've come to expect from the pair, as well as more direct, clearer lyrics and an overall sharper edge.

Here is a group that doesn't seem to know where it fits; it can't decide whether it wants to rack itself freak-folk, or avant-noise, or post-rock, or even neo-classical. But it also understands that, actually, you don't have to choose.

Although not strikingly different from earlier work, I Am All Your Own appears more terrestrial and less transcendental. This being a refreshing new granting-of-access to his style.

It's a piece of surrealism and absolutely beautiful to listen to.

There is nothing new here, nothing especially innovative either. It’s just an album that consistently hits its target in a magnetic, mesmerizing way, and one that if you let it will swallow you whole.

There is still a lightness of touch to Who Do You Love; however dense the writing gets, no matter how ludicrous and far-reaching in scope, it has enough of a knowing sense of its own bombast to prevent it from becoming po-faced.

Sic Alps, a taut and absorbing listen, appears to have a mission to take conventional beauty and make it something more interesting by fraying its corners and smearing it with a little dirt. There is nothing Sic Alps could have done to create a better, more delicious sweet and sour record.

The constant zipping and zapping of its final five tracks almost cause the album to become bottom heavy, but thankfully the just-right 'So Cold' and the lovely 'Don't You Love Me' keep it from going completely overboard.

Together with Duke Garwood, on Black Pudding he's created something rich and delicious.

Solitude and/or headphones are the key to The Predicting Machine, another unflashily fine opus from a fellow who's almost cursed, in terms of the praise he gets, by being too reliable.

It's not that the depth isn't there, it's just that the experience is multidimensional enough to bring forth a flatness; a sense of unity which discards dimensions.

This more lithe and economical album in many ways proves that Pond have taken a further step towards genuine maturity, but it does still seem rather thrown together and the result of a scattergun approach to both composition and arrangements.

It doesn't always work, but that's what makes Grapefruit live up to its name--the epitome of an acquired taste; one that, when hooked on the intricacies and possibilities of its flavour, opens up so much potential for the future.

A mature record, in the best possible sense, Machineries of Joy reins in the whimsicality and tendency towards wackiness, while still retaining a smart sense of humour alongside the philosophical pondering and strident rock shapes.

Recorded in Berlin, the eight tracks here pay easy homage to their European forebears, but are unmistakably British in their overall sound and feel, nodding melodically to the traditional folk music of these isles, and existing at a slower pace, on a smaller scale, than the cross-continental constructions of Kraftwerk and company.

Barrow doesn't go through the motions – and >> is definitely not the sound of a band in decline.

Death Becomes Her is an album from an artist who in now beginning to realise her possibilities, not just as a producer but as a performer, and as such she wants to get everything out there, squeezing every last idea into the album. And sometimes her take on pop music might be a little too abrasive to reach the playlists of many a commercial pop station… for now.

It's not exactly pushing these MCs towards a new rap revolution, tapping the past and present but skipping predicting tomorrow, but it's consistently engaging without overpowering the stars of the show.

What we have here is prog-folk of the highest order.

f(x) is a record, sure, released on vinyl, digital and compact disc, but it's also a mantra, an inspiration, a bold and pure statement.

Ultimately, this is a rather gorgeous and engrossing collection, that borrows stealthily from a rich history of sound effect and soundtrack to build a tender poem to the night time. It’s all big plate reverbs and shuffling drums.

Chapter 3… is a record that has their trademark sense of restless grandeur and tough tunefulness.

Revelations very much sets the benchmark by which their subsequent work will be judged.