It is this very resistance to ease and clarity that makes Clear Moon admirable: rather than attempting to find answers, Elverum just plunges more deeply into his central confusion, reveling in its infinite insolvability.
Channel Orange is going to be the standard to beat for some time. And it might very well be the best R&B album of our young decade.
Habits & Contradictions is a compellingly free album, if freedom is the assurance and the power to subject each person to one’s own whims, will, and wishes. And to just absolutely know he’ll get what he wants.
With El-P's help, Killer Mike has produced his first unquestionably great album.
The Idler Wheel ... is Apple’s best work yet, spontaneous and so utterly unique, uninhibited and self-possessed in its sonics and language, risky and jarring, full of sharp turns yet encountering beauty everywhere, it feels like the first document to fully explore the depths of her talent.
Its production value is higher, each song’s many layers are audible, and the synths sound expensive. Fortunately, the band is able to match each dollar spent on Bloom’s production with solid raw material.
El-P's always been ahead of the curve but Cancer for Cure isn't valuable for its prescience so much as its currency of the now and the way it unites rap head nostalgia for the future beats of the past with the beats of the present.
Visions, Boucher’s fourth formal release in just under two years and the best thing she’s yet put her name to by far, is very likely to be weird music’s worldwide coming out party.