Though hardly Björk's most pronounced statement, Medúlla is definitely a highlight of her already illustrious career.

A memorable, impermanent joy, it restores, rather than disturbs, the equilibrium--a feat of engineering in the service of artistry.

To call Emotional Mugger a celebration of excess, as sweet as it is, would miss the mark. (Although it’s no veiled warning, either--it enjoys itself too much.) No, this is a bender with an undercurrent of anxiety.

This album is ridiculously rhythmic.

It’s in her artwork’s texture that Hval’s voice fascinates.

All works of art, like all minds, have the potential to overcome mere sentiment. And that potential is glimpsed here in 10 restless hatchlings that make up Carla Bozulich’s new and perhaps most essential record.

On Komba, their beats are deeper, darker, and more powerful than before, pointing the way towards a new direction for the band and, consequently, their audience.

Bestial Burden, in its immediacy, in its primal, abrasive engagement with the senses, reaches across the division of bodies to speak directly to you.

What’s revealed by this new project--call it an album, EP, compilation, mixtape, outtake, sketch--is a fiercely independent artist escaping the trappings of hip-hop conventions, both mainstream and otherwise; he seeks ascetic salvation through intense introspection and, in the process, created a great release, no matter where it’s filed.

Simple Songs works as an antidote for clutching at straws by adding a layer of depth to an otherwise indiscernible character; it offers insight into the workings of a prodigious mind, and it comes off sounding triumphant.

Abyss neatly encompasses the totality of her career, synthesizing the artist’s prolific catalog into her strongest and most ambitious album yet, a cavernous chasm filled with beauty, brutality, and endless possibility.

Mike Eagle manages to balance the sense that he is speaking for many with the certainty that no one else could do it quite the same way.

It hits very close to musical documentary with very few of the abstraction perils that usually haunt artists in converting ideas to their medium.

Despite the gratuitous, overripe details of these songs--potent, lurid confessions; broken plates and bloody lips--Heartbreaking Bravery is a peaceful, centered work.

It’s the subversion of the tyranny of the pop song and the aural manifestation of desire’s drift, or trudge, wherever it goes. In the background, throughout, her voice annotates, in stunning polyphony, like Horn’s watery associations, the unknowable trajectory that each song always already takes.

Although there is no absence of noise on this record, what is quieter about it gives space to hear what was always there: a fully embodied voice that, through pain as through love, ceaselessly gives only herself, an angel whose message becomes indistinguishable in grace from the messenger.

Matmos have successfully transformed their washing machine into an instrument of righteousness as well as introspection, and while I am not surprised at their continued high level of craft, this one feels especially deep.

Before Today is the best collection of pure pop songs released this year, and the experimental odds and bits only add to its considerable charm.

Andorra is a psychedelic and polyrhythmic trip to a place even less known than the actual country and a momentous addition to Caribou’s enviable discography.

An exquisitely polished, well-refined album that takes the best of what Liars have achieved in the past and fastens it in a crisp electronic casing.

This album sounds in many ways like an amalgamation of her previous work.

It is still more accessible than previous Low records, as The Great Destroyer was, but doesn’t ever compromise the pure sincerity that the trio have conveyed throughout their career.

Sacrificing none of their self-effacement in their pursuit of a more emotionally direct style, WHY? have stumbled upon something uniquely personal yet utterly commercial.

Huerco S. claimed he wanted to make something timeless. Both genuinely and emblematically, he’s done just that.

Honest is transporting in ways that few records are, and no matter how strong the beat selection might be or how perfectly the guest list is curated, credit is due overwhelmingly to Future for being able to sustain and justify such a broad range of moods for the duration of the record.

Feels is a psychedelic wonderland filled with life-affirming warmth.

Lekman perfectly funnels his signature sound of gentle string and horn melodies, audaciously appropriate sampling, and often corny balladry into a well-oiled, 12-song machine.

Rap is an extrovert’s game, but the dynamism that Megan possesses is nearly unmatched. Her verses are absolutely electrifying, packing the heat she sponged up from her favorites like UGK, Project Pat, and Trina. Sprinkle a little Memphis here, some Miami bass there, and a bit of Houston swagger, and it’s a chemistry experiment gone horribly right.