It's a really damn good and really damn inventive record. It's just a little too "one gear" for me to not feel a bit fatigued by the end. Some variety of pace would have made this undoubtedly interesting listen even better.

Clarinet extraordinaire Joanna Nicholson graces us with her debut, an atmospheric trek through her mind's eye called Gyre in which she leads us with tape recordings of her voice serving as narrations for the music itself, which exists in this liminal space between modern classical and avant-garde jazz. It's nothing short of stupefying. Nothing else exists while this music plays.

... Yep. It's post-metal, all right.

Flow is nice. Bars are pretty good. The beats are kind of bland. It's a very good record. Those are my thoughts.

Jazzy Jeff rocks on this. But Will Smith is, and has always been, a mediocre rapper, and that drags the listening experience down significantly.

Fatiguing.

I guess I'm goofy for liking this... But I like this.

Exciting new music from Ghana! Part traditional African music, part jazz, part spoken word, part field recording, part avant-garde, I dare you to find a more daring release from this region this year.

Tuareg music is among the most beautiful musical traditions I have ever laid ears on. And this, the sophomore album from Algerian virtuosos Imarhan, brings forth some of the tastiest, most memorable contemporary Tuareg works thus recorded.

The music found here is a seamless blending of traditional ethnic composition from the region, ethereal Celtic-inspired atmosphere, and blues scale improvisation as traditional instruments play alongside their modern counterparts and create a sound that is ... read more

Proof that when it's done in earnest and with genuine passion, old fashioned rock 'n' roll still has some vibrant life left in it.

Pleasant.

Slow burn, contemplative, trance-like sound sojourns that get under your skin and linger there.

It isn't exactly the most exciting or innovative experimental electronic record, but there's clearly talent behind it.

This is pure artistry meeting raw creativity in an effort to break through the barriers of musical theory itself. An anti-colonization project of art for art's own sake. A work of post-music. A work of genius.

It's a very strange album precisely because of how average it is. I can't find anything terribly negative to say about it, yet I clearly don't love it. But the album has no pretense - - - it simply wants to be a collection of inoffensive, fluffy songs, and at that aim it succeeds.

Yes, the music sounds exactly like you think it sounds based on the cover art. Yes, it's just as samey and boring as you would expect.

This is my first experience with Sasami. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from the album cover alone, though I suspected music with a rough edge was likely. What I didn't count on was the enormous heart that would also be present in the music found on "Squeeze." The tracks bounce back-and-forth between distorted industrial rock and soft, melodic balladry, with some semblance of a combination of the two sometimes breaks up the trend. It ultimately didn't wow me like it seems to ... read more

Christ alive, you would think someone would have pulled this 40-something, grown-ass woman aside between the inception and execution of this album and let her know that a title like "Love Sux" is going to look like an insincere nostalgia grab to literally everyone alive except her, and that the subsequent music from such a creatively bankrupt idea would be found equally wanting and that she might want to seriously reconsider even attempting to make another record with such passionless ... read more

A worthy addition to this classic band's catalogue, which has managed to remain fresh and continue evolving with every entry.

Really awesome, skin-crawly noise and atmospheric rock that definitely qualifies as "good shit" in my book. Might it find its way onto my shelf someday? It very well may. Is it quite year-end list material? It might just be. We'll see how the rest of the year plays out.