De La Soul's work with J Dilla helped define their transition from the Prince Paul-produced lightheartedness of their first three albums. This new mixtape featuring unreleased Dilla beats and reworked lyrics from De La Soul's catalog provides an alternate-history look into a meaningful partnership.

The Faint released their debut album Sine Sierra nearly twenty years ago, and if that makes you feel old, imagine how they must’ve felt when they went on hiatus following 2008’s Fasciination. Their first album since reuniting, Doom Abuse, isn’t so much an argument for the Faint’s continued relevancy as it is for the potency of their real-time nostalgia.

Teebs' 2010 debut Ardour had a way of flooding your ears with lush sonic environments. On his new E S T A R A, he aims for a more concise approach.

White Hinterland's latest finds Casey Dienel experimenting with more jagged percussion and orchestral flourishes, notably horns.  But for all the sonic change-ups, her idiosyncratic voice remains the music’s signature. 

Sage the Gemini of the Bay Area’s Heartbreak Gang collective has refined a sound that draws influence from frenetic dance-informed NorCal hyphy music and L.A. jerk music, with hints of the sleek “crunk&B” of Jazze Pha and Ciara. His chart-placing instructional dance floor drills are presently his livelihood, so his debut album Remember Me arrives with a mission: keep listeners on their feet, but show some range.

The last release from Sufjan Stevens, Son Lux, and Serengeti's Sisyphus project was a scattered lark that featured an abundance of Auto-Tune; for their self-titled debut LP, they've ditched the Auto-Tune and improved on their ability to create fractured-sounding music together—even if the results prove a little frustrating.

Portland-based metal outfit the Body take doom metal as their core template and shred it to pieces until it's completely unrecognizable. On their new I Shall Die Here, the Haxan Cloak's Bobby Krlic comes on board as producer, helping drummer Lee Buford and guitarist/singer Chip King rip the guts out of their sound to achieve maximal brutality.

Millie & Andrea is the project of Andy Stott and Demdike Stare's Miles Whittaker. On their debut LP, the duo offer a mix of hollow dub techno, into-the-red noise, and breakbeats that hiss and spit with static, but the extra flourishes are what prove most surprising.

Sean Carey's new album is the first he recorded in Bon Iver bandmate Justin Vernon's April Base studio in Fall Creek, Wis. The warmth, reverb, and dusty textures here form something much larger than S. Carey has ever done before, but his real talent lies in making these songs seem tiny set against the world around him.

Portland's Nux Vomica swirl together crust, melodic death metal, black metal, metallic hardcore, doom, noise, and ambient music into a cohesive, engaging whole. On their self-titled third album, and Relapse debut, they’ve hit upon an ideal balance of beauty and brutality.

The new reissue of German-born composer Max Richter's Memoryhouse serves as a jolting reminder of just how much classical music has broken outside of its shell and into other realms during the last decade.

Inventions, a new project by Matthew Cooper—the producer behind the multifaceted ambient project Eluvium—and Explosions in the Sky guitarist Mark T. Smith, sounds much like you'd expect. But the familiarity works in this uncommonly beautiful record’s favor.

Danny Wolfers is the rare producer whose personal mythology enriches his music instead of distracting from it. His latest album as Legowelt, Crystal Cult 2080, isn't weirder than Wolfers' previous albums—it's just better at being weird.

On his own, Thomas Meluch records cloudy electro-acoustic songs as Benoît Pioulard that sound hand-cobbled, while Rafael Anton Irisarri drapes brooding ostinatos with dusky delay and reverb. Their second album as Orcas retains the debut's vast scale, glacial pace, and visual splendor, while bringing a human presence closer to the surface.

Australian indie pop collective Architecture in Helsinki’s new record finds them continuing to embrace simple, radio-friendly sounds, with one foot newly planted in the realm of contemporary synth-pop. NOW + 4EVA rings with genuine enthusiasm.

Mac DeMarco's second full-length isn’t a departure from its predecessor so much as a richer, increasingly assured refinement. At its best, it's an outstanding crystallization of his gifts, the real-talk advice of Jonathan Richman with a far more accessible poetic dreaminess.

Angel, the third album by Austin’s Pure X, is lackadaisical in its tempos and moods, coming on at an almost laughably leisurely pace. But while there’s a lot of emphasis on mood and texture, they never get in the way of the songwriting, which is consistent and generous with its hooks. 

Luke Wyatt, the Brooklyn-based Va. transplant behind Torn Hawk, releases an astonishing amount of music, some of it beat-oriented, some of it close to the VHS nostalgia feel of chillwave, much of it accompanied by collaged YouTube clips. On his newest effort, things don't lead where you expect them to on first glance.

After the simultaneous crescendo and crash of 2011’s Simple Math, Manchester Orchestra's fourth album is 11 bullshit-free rock songs about getting past the bullshit in your life. They sound like Band of Horses at their major-label crossroads, with none of that band's sweep and expanse.

Geelong, Australia's Ausmuteants aren't making politically militant or socially conscious songs—they're delinquents indulging in low-hanging fruit, writing about stepping in shit and pissing your pants. Their new record, Amusements, offers 12 tracks of ripping, captivating, fun synth-punk.

Cloud Nothings' latest album moves in one direction and at a breakneck pace. Dylan Baldi is simply unwilling or unable to stop writing hook-filled songs, rendering Here and Nowhere Else even more tense and thrillingly conflicted than its predecessor. The band continues to make powerfully utilitarian music for people who don’t seek out this type of music just to be told what to think.

Miles at the Fillmore, the latest entry in Columbia’s revelatory bootleg series collecting unreleased Miles Davis live material, finds the trumpeter departing one musical world and entering a new one. Excerpts from these four nights were released on the 1970 Miles Davis at the Fillmore 2xLP.

Small Black's laid-back vibe often masks a certain sonic perfectionism. Real People, their new five-song EP, was written and recorded quickly in an attempt to smuggle a little more of the sweaty throb of their recent live shows into the studio.

Singer/songwriter Bart Davenport's catalog is a series of nested quotations brilliantly lifted and folded into power-pop confections that he's mastered. His latest album sounds like a world of record sleeves, thumbed through masterfully.

The longtime Long Beach noise-rock trawlers Gang Wizard's newest album, Important Picnic, might be the best of their 40 or so releases. On previous efforts, their boundlessness has sometimes drifted into tedium, but there's no downtime on this pulse-quickening collection.