A striking collection of shadowy electronic soul. [Nov 2023, p.62]

With Return To Archive, the balance is just right – this gets nearer to sound art. [Nov 2023, p.52]

On The Comeback Kid Marnie Stern has returned bolder, brighter and stranger than ever, an artist in complete command of her idiom. [Nov 2023, p.51]

A band aware of where they’ve been but also reconnected and plotting a future. [Nov 2023, p.46]

In terms of idiosyncratic yet thoroughly danceable electronic music, Cunningham remains nearly peerless. [Nov 2023, p.46]

The Pyramids may not be breaking new ground here, but Afro Futuristic Dreams is arguably the best thing the reunited group have created. [Nov 2023, p.46]

The grooves, textures, feel and playing here are immaculately realised but the unique way this band put together what they can do makes it, as ever, way more than just retro-psyche. Perhaps their best, most fully realised record yet. [Oct 2023, p.56]

This album will be warmly welcomed by On-U Sound and reggae fans everywhere. [Oct 2023, p.57]

The Patience is a little less introverted [than 2021's Elephant In The Room], looking beyond the shutters of lockdown, and feels like Jenkins is maturing into an artist who is aware of how his frustrations need to breathe, wait (hence the title) and take time to coalesce. It’s his best music since his early mixtapes, and certainly his best official album since 2018’s remarkable Pieces Of A Man. [Sep 2023, p.57]

Everything here is balanced in a way known to collectivist jazz but unknown to egotist pop, and it makes for something refreshingly human, engagingly communal and ultimately convivial. [Oct 2023, p.56]

There are arrangements within this album that compel due to the precision and control exerted over the sound design. Lopatin creates earworm upon earworm that seem to spiral into each other. As always, however, it seems as though he is holding back – I wish he would give in more to the stupidity teased at the beginning of “Plastic Antique”, where he uses a delayed, plodding synth to introduce the track. This reticence permeates the release, adding a layer of alienation. [Oct 2023, p.50]

It’s a joyful noise, for sure. [Oct 2023, p.50]

While Haram was a bit heavy on the neo-noir vibes, Test Strips bustles with dynamic turns, and guests inspired to step out of character. [Oct 2023, p.51]

The album cuts across a plethora of genres, refusing to be static. “La Vacanza” and “Sublime” completely submerge you into this dream state, slowing down, giving a reprieve from the increasing intensity. [Sep 2023, p.56]

An account of stifling domesticity plays out over a propulsive 4/4 rock beat and swirling woodwinds, which serve to evoke how, in spite of everything, she felt “electric, alive, spirited, fire and free”. .... Testament to the subterranean efforts to prevent this woman’s story from being forgotten. [Oct 2023, p.52]

On four extended tracks, Fennelly’s various keyboards (synthesizer, harmonium, piano) function as kind of bedrock that deftly accommodates a variety of tacks and textures from his partners. [Oct 2023, p.53]

Protect Your Light, recorded at the late Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey, is the group’s warmest work yet. [Sep 2023, p.57]

Its 16 tracks are vignettes of memory and emotion, which see her thoughtful production informed by IDM, glitch and electronic emo. True to the album’s concept, there's a charming bedroom maximalism. .... Lovely, affecting record. [Oct 2023, p.48]

Bird Machine is not a revelation, but it can be a joy. [Oct 2023, p.54]

It’s great to hear “Starfield Road” and other tracks from Sonic Youth’s neglected post-Dirty albums. But it’s the deep cuts – like the stunning “I Love Her All The Time” and the closing “Inhuman” – that really drag you back. [Oct 2023, p.66]

She’s not one to let ideology or commercial realities kill her sense of uninhibited playfulness. So the scorching “Balloons” with her withering take on white fans buying Black trauma is followed by the flirtatious “Boomboom”, buoyed by the same hunger, the whole even more than the sum of its individually magnificent parts.

Tasteful pedal steel from Lanois gives a gentle country inflection to cuts like “Arajghiyine” – there’s a neat dovetailing here between two desert musics – but Tinariwen’s refined nocturnal heaviness reigns unchallenged. [Oct 2023, p.60]

The 27th OSEES album is their most synthheavy yet, but those Blurt-like grooves are still in place and the songwriting is still tight as a gnat’s chuff on a record that in typical Osees style ranges all over the shop from new wave to skronk to punk to disco. [Oct 2023, p.56]

She’s done it again but, as ever, differently. [Oct 2023, p.56]

A perfectly pleasant pop record that at its best recalls the likes of Glassjaw (“FKA World”) and Hurl. [Oct 2023, p.56]

The most triumphant volume in the series, an at times nearly orchestral realisation of Branch’s unique compositional vision. It’s a shame there won’t be further volumes, but this caps off one of the great catalogues in 21st century jazz. [Oct 2023, p.46]

A set of songs syruped in late 1960s and early 70s pop and rock nostalgia, yet still manage to sound unique. [Sep 2023, p.64]

Combining live ensemble performances by an 11-piece instrumental group, string quartet and four vocalists, with brief AutoTuned solo interludes, this is above all, a collective music. [Sep 2023, p.60]