Take Off Mode doesn’t forge any new paths so much as it retreads old ones. ... That said, Take Off Mode’s most retro moment is also its best.

His LNT is a soothing, calming mix for music lovers and night owls, with a human touch that’s impossible to replicate.

hat’s most striking is that the album really does tell a story. Its glorious conclusion arrives a little too soon, but it’s good enough to have you hitting rewind. Listen in a dark room, on headphones, and you’re likely to experience a few hairs-on-end moments. It’s ugly, yes, and sometimes contrived. But it’s beautiful too.

There are some songs which start off tepid, become lukewarm, and emit flickers of Blake’s usual brilliance. ... hile it's easy to criticise Blake’s chart-pandering forays into trap and pop, it is actually Assume Form’s most unashamed pop songs that rescue it from insufferable drabness.

Yorke’s job here is to maximise the impact of the film through sound, something he does masterfully whenever employed. ... The film itself may have done some harm to Guadagnino’s reputation as a defining director of this era. The soundtrack, however, will do no damage to Yorke’s credentials as a composer.

Everything from the album’s sharp, shimmering opulence (its cover could be a still from Annihilation) to its thematic interactions between machine and being align it with Garland’s apocalyptic work. Objekt--whether artist, producer or mad professor--is on top of his game, and his latest creation is as beautiful as it is powerful.

The album might not have quite enough Flying Lotus for some, and a little too much Aloe Blacc for others, but it has just enough Georgia Anne Muldrow to be another worthy entry into the catalog of a truly gifted musician.

The speedy segue between Jungle Buddha’s raucous DnB cut “Drug Me” and Black Acid’s eponymous 303 track is the pick of the early exchanges, but it feels rushed and airless--deeply contrasting with Burial’s trademark spacey sound-chasms. ... [OKZharp & Manthe Ribane’s “Treasure Erasure”] arrives during a decent section that also includes the more gentle timbres of Ben Frost (remixed by Jlin) and Proc Fiskal (also on Hyperdub); these are nice, but are separated by the squeaky rudeboy MCing of Dean Blunt’s Babyfather alter-ego, another bizarrely jarring selection. ... FabricLive 100 feels hurried, uncomfortable, and impossible to feel truly at peace in.

With the lyrical talent she shows in places here, the more Noname challenges herself--the deeper she delves into her own mind--the more fascinating, stimulating, and thought-provoking her music will become.

Although beatless, it is not altogether one of those ambient albums you could play in the background and ignore, nor necessarily fall asleep listening to. At times unsettling and industrial-sounding, this is far from forgettable music; it is engaging, futuristic, and trippy as hell.

Upon first listen, this album will disappoint those searching for the clever and inventive dancefloor tracks for which Vynehall has become most loved. There isn’t actually anything here which could be recognized as house music. ... Once you do get over it--and it may take several listens--Nothing Is Still is an intriguing engagement with an ambitious artist clearly still in development.

A record notable not only for its considerable length (16 tracks) but its sense of cohesion and staggering brilliance.

DNA Feelings has moments of brilliance, but its dark mood and single-minded vision become oppressive over the course of its runtime. Those fleeting rave touches combine so well with her extraordinary voice, you can only wish there were more of them.

At times the record is hypnotic and yet mesmerizing with its abstract sound quirks. Heartfelt and authentic, each listen brings something new.

Although it's possible to pick out this individual highlight, it’s when you take in the record in one sitting--with its subtle shifts of mood, highs, and lows--that you arrive on the other side mentally revived.

These songs, as subtle and delicate as they are, are vivid and transporting. It’s a fully-formed album, whatever its intent, and full of quiet passion.

Not only does this stand out as one of Paradinas' best albums to date, but also as one of IDM's.

He showcases the breadth of footwork and pushes the sound forward by building links with trap, R&B, and Jersey. In doing so, he reinvigorates footwork and brings it up to date with 2018 dance culture.

That Le Kov is so loaded with meaning and significance adds to its appeal, but ultimately it’s the emotion and sound of the songs that make it such a wonderful and unusual record.

On reflection, Glass exemplifies what a beautifully mysterious form ambient improvisation can be.

Nothing feels forced or amplified for impact. It’s a humble and understated sound and one that endears me to her as a human. The tracks and the overall narrative are succinct, though I wished the trip was longer. When the album finished I was compelled to play it through again.

As a record, Con Todo El Mundo won’t change the world, but it will make your day brighter. Once you’ve maxed out playing records by The Budos Band and Bonobo, then Khruangbin should be next in your selection.

With All Melody, Nils Frahm has retained his unique approach and emotional sensitivity. He’s also expanded his sound, and shown more of his soul than ever before. It’s a record to be treasured.

For Paris has an avant-gardist taste, and the homemade artwork and written statements ring sincere.

Weighing of the Heart is, to me, an unripe album. The recording is slick and the mix is by the guy who mixed the last Gorillaz album, but I just don’t feel any outstanding music-making talent or skill. I see a marketable product.

Arpo feels like a real album, with a distinct narrative and recurring themes. Most of all, it’s a captivating and original listen, from an artist who sounds like no one else.

Desecration of Desire is still built on everything that Dave Clarke has created to date, but the hardness is gone; and if you look close enough, you might be able to find the soft exterior he’s trying to show.

There’s a widescreen vibe to these tracks; with their patient, sometimes nearly imperceptible cycles of accretion and subsidence, they feel as much like landscapes as they do music. But they’re vistas that have been internalized and made personal, and that process--along with the calm majesty of the songs--is the source of Phantom Brickworks emotional sweep.

Backwater, is a further refinement of their sound, fleshing it out and blanketing it with a gauzy patina that’s almost intrinsically appealing.

Midland has created an imagined experience within the confines of a night at the club, the full evening from expectant queuing to frazzled come down condensed into 74 minutes. And as a master of that realm, he manages it with aplomb.

New Energy finally feels like an album that is truly unique, and characteristic of Hebden’s style. An artist comfortable with his tools.

On Love What Survives, Mount Kimbie have emerged from their chrysalis to become something new altogether. Some might be disappointed that, for now, they’ve moved further away from dance music. But in the process, they’ve made a bewitching kind of music that’s uniquely their own.

Fabriclive 93 might not be flawless--but it sure is fun.

It's a safe bet that Steffi had some form of master plan in mind when giving guidance to the mix’s artists, who are largely plucked from her deep pool of electronic-music pals. Still, it’s an impressive achievement.

Track after track of nostalgia-inducing pastiche that, though a bit self-referential—they're almost dance tracks about dance tracks--somehow sound fresh. They’re effective both as exercises in the power of memory and as compelling club cuts in their own right.

II’s songs can glide by like a benevolent mirage, not quite registering but still leaving an afterglow. That afterglow is exquisite, however.

This might not be an album that breaks much new ground, then, but what it does do, it does so expertly that you cannot help but be absorbed.

Green’s always aimed for music that’s magical, for a sound that’s transcendent--with Migration, he’s come closer than ever.

It’s the DJ’s own efforts that are the most striking, yet this mix isn’t about big tracks per se; it's more about building a lost-in-the-moment mood. In that, it succeeds tremendously, and offers an intriguing glimpse at a new chapter in Daniel Avery’s story.

That Atrocity Exhibition sounds like neither backpack rap, hipster drivel nor dull trap, but something fresh that stands on its own is itself to be applauded. But that it’s so damn good too puts it among the best hip-hop albums in years.

An ambitious and eclectic album that packs tons of ideas into its runtime and manages to pull them all off with a great deal of style.

All in all, the full 30 minutes of Kuiper seems logical as a comfortable extension of, and compromise between, Shepherd's recent discography: as he continues to unravel the additional possibilities of live instrumentalism, we can be sure to expect plenty more of the same.

There’s youthful playfulness at hand on Oddments. There’s also a kind of majesty, one borne out by an affinity for subtly grand melodies, which works in juxtaposition to the album’s brief, jewel-like cuts--most of these tracks clock in at well under four minutes, and the entire LP barely reaches 40 minutes.

Revill's thoughtful selections and undeniable ability to fuse a number of moving parts into a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience make for a wonderfully ambitious venture worth every minute.

Props to Britton for trying out new templates--but she’s on firmer ground when she’s in her 4/4 comfort zone, and Donna’s at its best when it plays to her emo-house strengths.

Tooth is best devoured as a whole and without distractions; its singular sound and delivery is one that Raime has tirelessly honed into a steadfast concoction of brooding dystopia.

Though it’s easy to compare his music to the ambient and electronica progenitors, Elasticity is very much the product of now--from the depth of production to the modern palette deployed.

These are their beloved records, guzzled up, internalized, and regurgitated in new unrecognizable forms; music of the past as perceived by modern minds; an even balance between tight live instrumentation and charming studio nous. Give this record a few spins, and you’ll succumb to their peculiar, but beguiling world too.

On its own, Yoyogi Park is a highly engrossing record of dream-like dancefloor sounds, but when sat next to Until Then, Goodbye and A Day In The Life, it’s an intelligent melding of its predecessors and exemplary final chapter.

Under The Sun is Mark Pritchard’s most consistent piece of work in some time, one that is beautifully conceived and produced with restraint and an overall vision that, most of the time, only an artist of considerable experience can muster.

99% is a brilliant, well-realized combination of styles, with more than its fair share of memorable and addictive songs.

Too Many Voices provides as many moments of disquiet, albeit a particularly exquisite form of disquiet, as it does of comfort.

There's a cohesiveness here hard to miss, an emotionally-charged aura and elegantly precise feel that runs from Hollowed's surging opening notes to its final, poignant fade.

Some of the best moments on I AKA I are when the producer plays it relatively straight.

It’s a delicate, naked offering that flits between mournful vocals, processed backward synths and serrated edges of what sounds like guitar distortion.

Through it all, in the music and in Weatherall’s characterful vocals, Public Image Limited is a clear influence. The album is at its best, though, at its most cosmic.

It would be wrong to describe Moodymann's DJ-Kicks set as a feel-good mix--it's much more than that, brimming with the highs and lows that real life can offer--but it is a joy to listen to, and that in itself is plenty.

The unifying factor? It's Para's evocative beauty, a underlying glimmer that flows from the album's sumptuous opening chords to its final spectral fade.

Third Law seems to work in a defiant way that looks to inspire a new crop of producers more interested in the space of the club than the memory of it.

You can definitely hear her thinking her way through each track, treating each as packets of sound, to be observed and experienced in a loop.

While it's engaging, tantalizing and consistently interesting, it tests the listener by wading through a foliage of field recordings and mouth harps to get to its core, requiring an effort which can potentially get wearying at times.

µ20 is a summary, a quick history lesson, and a celebration building upon itself. It might bypass some of Planet Mu’s finest moments—instead, the compilation aims to highlight the history of artists most likely to be around for Planet Mu’s future.

One of the best editions of Total to come along in a while.

In lesser hands, Abyss may have collapsed under the weight of its self-seriousness. Instead, Wolfe steps into the cavernous space of her ambition and fills it with an assured collection of songs that are unsettling in their commitment to sorrow.

What makes Magnifique work best as album experience, rather than a collection of individual songs; any shapeless moments are grafted onto the studier elements in the listener’s memory, leading to a rewarding overall experience in spite of the lulls in the action.

It's not an album about any particular time; instead, it's an album about the passage of time And time always marches on.

The knotty lyricism and psychedelic rumble of 12 Reasons to Die II should be more than enough to keep Ghostface fans satisfied.

The decision to reject seamless beatmatching has only enhanced the mix, and lets us look into the Actress's process in a different context.

Dance to it if you must, but enjoy Fading Love for what it is--a lovely, heartfelt set of tunes from a still-evolving composer and producer.

Digital Solutions is worthy of its place in the Model 500 discography. The fact that the LP even exists--and that people are excited to hear it--reinforces the music's enduring power, even if the record largely sets aside aspirations to be innovative.

Ghetto Madness is an expertly constructed effort showcasing one of the most energetic and recognizable outputs in dance music.

The album is relentlessly cinematic, almost oppressively so, which makes listening to Lost Themes from start to finish a bizarrely visual experience; whereas a great deal of electronic music is remarkably open to interpretation.

This brand of techno may be high browed, but in this case, it certainly isn't pretentious. Power of Anonymity is one for the dancers.

Magazine 13's emotional register may be rife with contradictions, but sinking into the album is never anything less than a joy.

It remains as disquieting and spectral as anything Stott has done, but its newfound guile is such that it no longer needs to bludgeon listeners into submission to strike a killer blow.

It takes a few notable risks in composition and rhythmic style, but as is evident from the title, this isn't the new Machinedrum album.

There's no question that Torn Hawk is carving his own, art-damaged lane, but unfortunately, Let's Cry is not the defining statement of his aesthetic.

What he's given listeners may be imperfect, but it's also freakishly musical, completely synthetic, and utterly human.

The LP's white-hot bursts of energy are all the more thrilling for their scarcity, and as such, these moments linger in the memory as a sort of post-euphoric haze.

On the whole, Blurred is an uneven release. Huxley's ambition is laudable, but it's only his decision to hedge his bets a little that saves the album from being a completely subpar outing.

Cooly G is still present here, but maybe she's a bit too present to fully elicit the kind of seduction she's singing about.

With Our Love, Snaith largely succeeds in bridging the two worlds, crafting radio-friendly cuts that can't be mistaken for the work anyone but Caribou.

For an LP about the infinite unknown, it isn't that meditative or self-aware. Where Cosmogramma and Los Angeles made plot secondary, You're Dead! forces its cast to bend to an unwieldy storyline that ultimately only makes complete sense inside Ellison's head.

Taken as a whole, Abaporu isn't a bad LP, and for fans of classic Kompakt records by the Modernist, SCSI-9, or even The Field, the album might be exactly what they're looking for. More adventurous listeners, however, are advised to look elsewhere.

Admittedly, Syro will probably not win over a new generation of fans like the Richard D. James album once did, but as a continuation of everything that has made Aphex Twin compelling, it's a triumph.

An album whose tastefulness and craft never compromise its intrigue.

On Punish, Honey, Gainsborough has stepped up his sound design, but he's done so with a newly brutal approach. One hopes that he hasn't entirely abandoned his earlier, more atmospheric sound, but as career turning points and transformations go, this album is an accomplished one.

From its massively hedonistic club tunes to its handful of cavernous dancefloor abstractions, Drop the Vowels is an unsurprisingly quality affair.

Adventurous but not selfish, intelligent but not difficult, a victory lap of sorts but hardly congratulatory, Terje's first album is astoundingly balanced and astonishingly broad, a wider serving of the man's artistic vision that ultimately proves just as satisfying as his single servings have in the past.

Tycho's new album only has eight songs on it, but each one is like its own laid-back journey through time, with probably the coolest dude ever as your spirit guide. That's like super classic album status right there.

The results are both easily enjoyable and unexpectedly refreshing.

While there very well could be a single or two from this record that eventually does break through to join the current wave of club crossover hits, Glow, as an album, does not live up to its promise, regardless of whether it's evaluated in "mainstream" or "underground" terms.

Listening to Wave 1, there appears to have been no grand overhaul during the time Haley has spent on semi-lockdown, but neither has there been total creative stasis.

Ultimately, only time will tell, but as things stand now, his Death After Life LP is unquestionably a strong and inventive first full-length.

Illum Sphere's debut LP may be an elegantly produced collection of noir beat vignettes, but his next one could be a whole lot more.

Chorus is not quite clinical, but it's getting there.

While this is a challenging, compelling record from a singular producer, it is a less exploratory effort than we've come to expect from her.

As a series, Pop Ambient may gradually be losing its vitality, but its musical perspective does not have to. Moving forward, an adjustment to the delivery platform would do much to make Pop Ambient's sound more relevant.