Fela’s youngest son inherited Egypt 80 from his father in 1997 when he was 14 years old and keeps alive its joyously angry spirit. “Last Revolutionary” is a passionate tribute to the wider inheritance of anti-colonial effort and courage that comes down through Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Jomo Kenyatta, as well as the Nigerian founders. It gives way immediately to the signature title track, which owes much of its airplay to a typically intense but refreshingly unmannered Carlos Santana feature as well as some of Seun’s most intense tenor saxophone. [Apr 2018, p.51]

Rundle explores shadowy dreams and gothic fantasies through a series of precariously balanced electrified compositions that hover around her--light as a feather one minute, heavy as lead the next. On Dark Horses rides headlong into the singer’s psyche as she pulls us into the darkest corners of her imagination and breathes out fevered secrets. [Oct 2018, p.64]

It’s a beautiful album, easy to play and dance to, but no less than Seun’s, tinged with enough bitterness, anger and sorrow to provoke deep thought about West Africa’s richest and most problematic musical legacy. [Apr 2018, p.51]

His new LP is a sonic assault; holding tight to punk ruthlessness and discipline, drenched in Dirty South origins. [Oct 2018, p.68]

No 4 is the culmination of a pull towards music that’s more space horror soundtrack than contemplative melancholia, and Vantzou’s darkest release yet. [Jun 2018, p.64]

A quietly masterful concoction. [#236, p.62]

Estrella Sanchez and Amor Amezcua (daughter of Mexican rave icon Bostich) avoided the trap of a rushed debut album, and Pasar De Las Luces justifies the simmering approach, albeit too long at 64 minutes. [Mar 2018, p.58]

Right at the top of “Change Of Tone” there’s a fragment of studio chuckle that underlines just how remarkably spontaneous and unfussed this genre-messing project really is. There are long, slow passages of astral funk, MC’d by Terrace Martin’s vocoder and guest vocal murmurings, but also moments of much darker jazz futurism, elements of freedom (like the bizarre guess-the-nextnote piano fill under the PM Dawn-like “Awake To You”) and further elements of verité and concrete. [Jul 2018, p.57]

Impressively raucous. [#240, p.68]

Harps and synthesized beats all have a home here; and it feels futuristic in a way that reminds me of Ursula LeGuin and Todd Barton’s Music And Poetry Of The Kesh: synthesizer based folk music as the imagined legacy of a future indigenous culture. [Sep 2023, p.67]

This is Smith’s most essential non-Fall work since his collaboration with Inch back in 1999. [Apr 2020, p.60]

It not so much that her talent has blossomed, more that it has thawed a little, releasing music that edges tantalizingly close to greatness. [Feb 2014, p.50]

The sound is persistently visceral even as the succession of surfaces and interventions belies a planned set of juxtapositions. [Dec 2010, p.52]

To these ears at least, Rundgren’s finest since 2008’s Arena. [Jan 2023, p.75]

McGuire creates a journey that will absorb and transport any listener willing to let its sincere warmth and good wishes into their hearts. [Feb 2014, p.54]

Real world concerns – motherhood, self-growth, the responsibilities of adult life – are transformed into brightly synthesised fantasias. ... For a small scale project, Bamboo’s vision of pop feels pristine, a little utopia realised. [Jul 2019, p.57]

The results are sketches, in the best sense: unplanned, absorbing accidents as new pathways, concerned with mood rather than architectural precision. [Oct 2012, p.60]

Their debut album King Night defies genre tagging and, for once, lives up to the drooling media accolades already smeared on it. [Dec 2010, p.54]

A smorgasbord of bittersweetness, with yearning pads providing a translucent bed for snatches of fragmentary counterpoint. [Sep 2023, p.50]

The clunkier, funkier patterns mapped out here have something proufound to say about the relationship between us and our technological world, about where our dancing and moving bodies fit in among the conurbations and databanks of our lives. [Apr 2015, p.57]

There's a generous, sloppy fistful of day-glo power-pop in these songs. [Apr 2014, p.52]

House And Land’s eternal music drone tendencies are more sparingly employed than their debut, but folkie staple “Blacksmith” is a glorious outlier to this end, Morgan’s shruti box a keening back and forth foil to a two centuries old tale of metalworker induced heartbreak. [Aug 2019, p.64]

Nikki Nack is a terrific album with charm and invention to spare. [Jun 2014, p.58]

Charged with relatable warmth and an emotive, human energy that’s close to 2003’s For Octavio Paz or a less melancholy version of 2005’s School Of The Flower. [Dec 2021, p.47]

The album feels both of the original vintage in its occasional psychedelic trappings and, masterfully, altogether new. But, perhaps most importantly, it richly rewards repeat listens. It’s a dense record, but not an overly busy one, and different instruments bubble to the top with each run through. [Apr 2023, p.59]

The Omnichord Real Book isn’t for Me’shell Ndegeocello new jacks or the musically light hearted, but for listeners who aren’t afraid of taking a musical journey with no straight path. [Jul 2023, p.58]

Ultimately the digressions charm and gel thanks to the generosity of Freedia’s performances, marshalling us through dance manoeuvres in service to the communal heart of bounce. [Sep 2023, p.52]

It’s the input of guest musicians and co-producer Dave Harrington that draws the best out of the material. [Sep 2022, p.46]