For Emma, Forever Ago is such a hermetically sealed, complete and satisfying album, the prospect of a follow-up--of a life for Vernon beyond the wilderness, even - seems merely extraneous.

In every respect, the performance captured here is as raw and un-redacted as the original record. ... What times. [Jun 2018, p.42]

Though recorded during the same extended sessions, this archival LP is the polar opposite of its fraternal twin: big, bold, vibrantly coloured and laced with sweeping chorus hooks and towering middle eights. In a word, spectacular.

Time is squeezed and stretched in new ways, exotic timbres are distilled on the spot, and this freeform funk still scorches the air. [Aug 2015, p.91]

More of the same, only more so. [Apr 2002, p.94]

This album really is just too good to be true. [Apr 2005, p.114]

This is still music with a lot of virtuosity, and a great many notes, but it and its players are living its adaptability, as the evidence reveals all we have previously believed this composition to be, a confluence of free improvisation and what later became “spiritual jazz”. [Dec 2021, p.43]

A truly exhilarating 50 minutes of music. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Ty's most unrestrained albums stands among his best. ... Like sitting by a loaded jukebox that turns out gems all night. [Mar 2018, p.16]

The Window Is The Dream is sonically richer than Horn's often sparse 2022 debut, Optimism, but each choice - the temporary Band-esque folk-rock swagger of "The Dream", the way "Old Friend" hovers at the edge of an extended jam that never quite breaks - is in service of, rather than overpowering, the song. [May 2023, p.30]

Ibibio Sound Machine barely need drums to weave their polyrhythmic magic. [Apr 2017, p.32]

Cousin is deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album. [Oct 2023, p.24]

Collins' first album since 2013 sees the singer in pleasingly superb form. [Apr 2019, p.26]

The sound of a major talent gone major league. [Apr 2003, p.105]

Transfigures smoothly from one hallucinatory half-style to another. ... The playing is both adventurous and textural, and the surprising, soothing result would have made a fine release on Eno's '70s Obscure label. [May 2021, p.31]

Takes his lush, orchestrated pop to staggering new heights. [Nov 2003, p.124]

The breadth, scope and sheer suppleness of black SUMMERS'night makes one wish Maxwell worked a whole lot faster. [Sep 2016, p.76]

Tribe carry their burdens as lightly as they did on rap landmarks such as People's Instinctive Travels and The Low-End Theory. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Soul Mining is arguably Johnson's defining work: ambitious, strange, exciting. And, 30-odd years on, remarkably fresh. [Aug 2014, p.86]

Ants From Up There is often beautiful, but its not an album you can listen to casually. Its relentless emotional pummelling is quite an experience, a rollercoaster ride for the soul that is likely to leave you feeling distinctly and permanently rearranged. [Mar 2022, p.18]

An album that is leaps and bounds above anything else Shah has done before – a record that’s layered and detailed, coated with beautifully rich production, yet also spacious and considered. [Feb 2024, p.23]

This is a melancholic album, but a determined, thoughtful one. [Mar 2015, p.80]

It's pure, distilled Quasi. ... Sam Coomes's songs are all killer. ... Janet Weiss, meanwhile, once again proves herself to be a fine vocal foil, and perhaps the greatest rock drummer alive. [Mar 2023, p.35]

I kept wishing I'd been there that night, 45 years ago. [Mar 2020, p.42]

A genuine 2015 classic. [Jun 2015, p.77]

Throughout Jamie, Howard also continues to challenge the impressive instrument of her voice in unpredictable ways. ... Her quest for personal fulfillment doubles as a creative bloom as well, revealing new dimensions of her talent. [Oct 2019, p.18]

Brilliant though many of these musicians have been in numerous other contexts, this might be some of their finest work: a thrilling 90-minute voyage into the outer regionso f electric jazz. [Apr 2023, p.33]

Their breakneck energy highlights the thrilling strangeness of their structures and textures. [Mar 2017, p.40]