Since the last Burial full-length, 2007's Untrue, William Bevan has worked with artists like Four Tet, Thom Yorke, and Massive Attack, releasing short-lived vinyl singles. On his own, however, he's put out three extended-play mini-albums through Hyperdub, where he's stretched out his pieces and delved deeper into a dark and richly cinematic world of beats and bass. His latest collection of songs, Rival Dealer, follows in that style while possessing moments that are so focused, poignant, and unexpected that you don't know exactly what you're hearing or what the message is; however, you still feel the message and the music deeply. A trademark element of Burial is Bevan's use of vocal samples, as he often utilizes film dialogue, rappers, soul singers, cell phone messages, and other found sounds as source material, yet here all those elements speak to a central theme and directly to the listener in a powerful and (com)passionate way. Since the tracks began streaming online, Burial has felt the need to state his purpose, saying, "I wanted the tunes to be anti-bullying tunes that could maybe help someone to believe in themselves, to not be afraid, and to not give up, and to know that someone out there cares and is looking out for them." Honestly, that says it all, and the songs display that in a beautiful way. I feel like Rival Dealer is so good and filled with so many nice surprises that a detailed review would ruin the listening experience. He's been one of my favorites for a while and keeps getting better. I'm glad to see an electronic producer making music with a broad agenda that is not pandering to a mass market, yet is speaking directly to the masses. The most amazing listen of the year, hands down, and way up! [DG]

Yowza! While Roland Young is better known for his outstanding free-jazz work on the now-classic Isophonic Boogie Woogie, here we find him experimenting with pop forms on this excellent archival reissue. Collecting both a rare EP and LP from the mid '80s, Hearsay I-land is an invaluable document of his story. Utilizing a unique palette of synthesizers and beat-makin' machines, Young delivers some truly personal, mesmerizing melancholic synth workouts. Basic, junky NYC production is met with solid songwriting and backing vocals from his wife Risa, who lends an amateurish soulful vibe to the whole thing. It's really nice and you could describe this as sort of an 'outsider' yacht rock session in the vein of Gary Wilson, Cleaners from Venus, Saada Bonaire or even Calling Out of Context-era Arthur Russell. In fact, Russell's influence is clearly there, especially on tracks like "Ballo-Balla," where Risa trades lines with a funky Mantronix style rhythm and Sleeping Bag Records-aesthetic. Another winner for fans of slick, Balearic electro pop, fully licensed and legit with a download card, direct from source -- the first is pressing almost gone! [RN]

Piers Faccini has been releasing albums of gorgeous, haunting songs that blend shadowed folk forms with a sharp, deft rhythmic push for a number of years now, and in my opinion he's just been getting better with each successive record. This English songwriter's most recent Between Dogs and Wolves is easily one of his most beautiful yet, combining intricate finger-picked guitar lines with somber piano chords and hushed, impassioned vocals; his arrangements are then peppered with the subtle colors of cello, African kora and balafon, a bit of autoharp and dulcimer tones, and gently stuttered loop textures. His work often echoes and continues the tradition of the pastoral folk noir pioneered by Nick Drake and Roy Harper, yet Faccini infuses it all with a dose of modernity that is vital but never intrusive; these songs are stunning and would easily hold their own in more stripped-down arrangements, but each delicate ingredient adds up to one of the year's most beautiful albums, filled with an intimacy and sensuality often imitated yet seldom delivered so successfully and effortlessly. It's absolutely perfect for these winter days, as the sun sets sooner and quiet contemplation creeps in. If you've ever enjoyed and obsessed with the likes of Drake, Harper, and more contemporary artists like Grizzly Bear, Jose Gonzalez and Bon Iver, you owe it to yourselves to investigate Faccini's rewarding discography. Start here and simply work your way backward though his catalogue; you'll soon find yourself hypnotized and enraptured. [IQ]

Out of the cavalcade of New Zealand archival releases that have poured forth in 2013, this wasn't one I had expected. Peter Guttridge is probably now best known for his work in Snapper (thanks to Captured Tracks' dutiful reissue of that band's EP earlier this year) and was also one of the chief songwriters in the Great Unwashed, the post-Clean paean to psychedelic bedroom fumblings. Pure was originally issued as a cassette in 1989 on the legendary Xpressway label, with a second volume promised but never delivered. Envision the Snapper album Shotgun Blossom writ small, recorded mostly solo with rhythm boxes and keyboards to keep the guitars company, its mechanisms still intact and churning, albeit at clockwork levels so as to keep the downstairs tenants from banging on the ceiling. Drones become pop, pop becomes drone, and melodies spring forth with internal energy and sunlight rarely evident in Xpressway acts. Then, right in the midst of it all, you find a perfect pop song like "Planet Phrom," worthy of the best Great Unwashed material. Apart from its rough edges, this is a most accessible and joyous work, worthy of further intention and adoration. [DM]

Cate Le Bon won me over in a big way with her last album, the excellent CYRK, but her newest platter may just be her best yet. Mug Museum continues and refines her charming and hypnotic psychedelic pop craft with ten new songs that are heavy on catchy hooks, propulsive rhythms, and THAT VOICE. Le Bon has arguably the most lovely and mesmerizing voice in contemporary psych-pop since Trish Keenan first sang us spectral lullabies with Broadcast; much like Keenan, Le Bon has an unshakable mastery of blending a modest, inviting familiarity with a subtly nuanced and tightly controlled range. Musically, she's mixing English folk melancholy with more offbeat shades of droning organ, angular guitar chordings, and flutters of synthesizer that float across the songs' atmospheres in a manner that, much like her voice, blends a reassuring familiarity with an uneasy layer of creeping menace. It's a standout release that really ups Le Bon's game from a charming curiosity into a more heavyweight talent with which to be reckoned, and if you dig the strains of contempo psych-pop delivered by Broadcast, MGMT, and Tame Impala, check this out post-haste. Mug Museum has quickly become one of my favorite records of its kind in recent memory, and is not to be missed! [IQ]

The latest release from the always-interesting, London-based Keysound label is one of their best, as the debut album from James Parker's Logos project is a fine study in space, refinement, abstraction, and bass. Cold Mission combines cold wave synth washes with overall quite sparse and spacious beats, and atmospheric soundscapes. Feeling like a slight cross between Young Echo and maybe Actress, Parker frames his portraits of grime and house in an open galaxy where edges are minimal, sounds are rich and deep, and time crawls. Tracks like "Stasis Jam" blend chirping birds with low-slung synth stabs, isolated backspins, sparse cymbals, and clunky beats that rarely drop, like an updated, dubby abstract take on 808 State's classic Pacific. Though the majority of the album lives in the open solar system of implied rhythms and fractured memories of rave's dense and furious beats, there are moments where Parker touches down to Earth with a few dance-floor fillers; cuts like "Seawolf," with its steady thump and the uncomfortable stuttering click of guns loading, or "Wut It Do," with its start/stop tumbling jungle rhythm, could be mistaken for M.I.A. instrumentals. It's a slightly uneven sequence with many of the heavy rhythms coming pretty late in the album, yet all the tracks combined make for an intriguing listen. For fans of labels like Night Slugs/Fade to Mind, Mad Decent, or Tectonic, this is a sign of where electronic music is headed in a post-dubstep world; reduce and reuse. [DG]

John Carpenter's renowned soundtrack for his dystopian cop film, Assault on Precinct 13, is an undisputed masterpiece of out-of-necessity minimal composing, which not only famously inspired much of the electro, hip-hop, and techno that came after it but continues to excite contemporary electronic mavericks of all sorts. Recorded in 1976 in one day, its haunting and pulsating synth tones are the result of wrongly tuned tube amps, an error, which adds a sense of unease and enchanting eeriness to the score. Over the course of its perfectly sequenced 26 minutes, we hear Carpenter reinventing the rules of classic film scoring, heavily deconstructing the groundbreaking work of Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, and Lalo Schifrin, while using simplified and unfaltering minimal electronic synth strokes. Newly remastered by Death Waltz, this edition sounds massive -- when we hear the first bars of its "Main Title" theme, the synths go so incredibly deep that one is entirely enveloped by the genius of its simple yet brilliant melody, a hallmark of any effective soundtrack. Death Waltz gets bonus points for the ingenious packaging in which the CD literally rises out of its sleeve to surprise effect. An essential piece of film/music history! [NVT]

Superior Viaduct do the American people a solid via their much-needed and long-overdue reissues of two early records by eccentric French chanteuse and poet, Brigitte Fontaine. Her body of work on the Saravah label has long been inspirational fodder for countless acts across the globe, yet her albums have, until now never seen release outside of France and Japan. Beginning as a theatre actress and singer who took the mirror of cabaret and deftly shattered it into a fractured, grotesque mutation of itself, her second LP and Saravah debut, 1968's Brigitte Fontaine Est... Folle (translation: Brigitte Fontaine Is Crazy) was a small revolution of lush art-song; featuring arrangements by a young Jean-Claude Vannier, the album acts as a bridge between Fontaine's roots and the revolutionary, more abstract work she would write soon after. She wanders through sonic landscapes as vivid and beautifully grotesque as the record's cover art; Vannier's trademark blend of orchestrated exotica, microtonal cabaret scales, and percussive violence is a perfect match for Fontaine's dark, surrealist lyrics. Nothing is as it seems in this album's aural wonderland, and with it, Fontaine established herself as one of France's most promising avant-garde talents, fusing art and pop together decades before women like Bjork or even Lady Gaga would attempt to claim such successful feats... but her best work was yet to come.

That soon came with 1969's unshakable masterpiece, Comme A La Radio, recorded with the man who would become her primary collaborator over the course of the next fifteen to twenty years: percussionist, vocalist, and songwriter Areski Belkacem. The album also features incredible performances by members of revolutionary American jazz group the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, who at the time were beginning a long period of activity recording and performing in France for the BYG/Actuel label as well as making their landmark Les Stances A Sophie album. The importance of their collective presence cannot be overstated; the Art Ensemble's horns dance, weave, and intertwine with the unshackled verses of Fontaine's half-sung, half-spoken verses, while bassist Malachi Favors and Areski provide malleable yet unshakable rhythmic anchors holding everything together. The record simultaneously embraces and upends any and all pretensions of stereotypical jazz/poetry fusions, creating a symbiotic work that has over the decades become a highly canonized album amidst underground aficionados in both the jazz and pop worlds. Seldom does a record take the tools of a genre so firmly and readily recognized, and completely free them of their stereotypes the way this one does; it is deep, it is passionate, and it is, in my opinion, flawless. Both of these albums are massively important and vital documents, and their power has diminished none over the passing years. I cannot give either a more passionate recommendation. [IQ]

There is something decidedly contradictory about listening to Phill Niblock on record. Deeply invested in accurately presenting his signature earsplitting drone pieces, the celebrated quintessential New York minimal composer has devoted his career to a meticulously precise arrangement of speakers and adjustment of sound in a wide range of performance spaces, creating thunderous sonic environments all across the globe. Although the experience of listening to his music at home can hardly replicate these effects, the best part of his output is equally enjoyable in less controlled sonic surroundings. "PLEASE PLAY THIS RECORD LOUD," reads Niblock's suggestion in the liner notes, and, indeed, when played at the adequate level (which is not just loud, but EXTREMELY LOUD), the detailed layering of repeated sounds on top of one another at slightly different pitches produces rich overtones and harmonics in the listener, an experience which is enhanced when moving around in the space in which it is played.

To celebrate the composer's 80th birthday, Superior Viaduct reissues Nothin to Look at Just a Record, Niblock's first recorded output from 1982. The album is pivotal minimalism in both title and graphic design, not to mention the music contained within it, which is vintage Niblock at his purest. Each side of the record contains a trombone piece, about 22 minutes long, with thick architecturally structured sound that is as abstract as it is sensual, with no musical progression whatsoever. According to Niblock, there are two variations of minimal music -- the first one is about repetition, the second one about continuous sound. Phill Niblock, having fully embraced the latter, has devoted a career to getting rid of things -- rhythm, traditional harmonic developments, and the cult of the performer -- and on this first landmark statement, which he recorded after years of relentless performing, you can hear him achieve all of this magnificently. If you're only going to own one record by this great American composer, you know what you're supposed to do. Get it while you can. [NVT]

The sophomore album from Canadian producer David Psutka, a/k/a Egyptrixx, is an amazing slice of distilled rhythms, icy synths, and big-room elegance. At first listen this feels like a natural progression for the Night Slugs imprint; following Jam City's high-definition ballroom photo shoot that was his Classical Curves album, the label has been releasing singles that continue to refine and reduce the elements that make dance music grand. It's like a study in triggers, sharp-focused on the key elements that interact to make a dance track. They've come up with a formula that predominately only uses the frame, scaling back on all excess baggage, thus giving what remains most important: focus and weight. Psutka builds the album in an organic way, moving from more open pieces that lead into fuller tracks, weaving a milky web of software and hardware, with a vivid imagination of what bass, house, and techno can feel and sound like. He often reminds me of DJ Sprinkles, in that he also lives in a world where 'dancefloors stand still' is the M.O. He creates tracks that move yet their purpose is to make you feel. His sonic world is complete and dynamic, rich with emotive moments and stark confrontations. A/B Til Infinity (great title btw) is one of the late entries into my overflowing year end list. If you liked the Night Slugs All Stars compilation from this past summer, you should fully investigate the sonic wonders of Egyptrixx. Accomplished, engaging, satisfying and refreshingly different. [DG]

The Numero Group celebrates their 50th release with this simply excellent box set documenting the early-1970s roots of the Minneapolis funk and soul scene that birthed Prince's Paisley Park empire. Spread across two CDs or four LPs, Purple Snow features tracks by a bevy of groups whose rosters included the likes of famed producers and musicians Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Andre Cymone, Alexander O'Neal and one Prince Rogers Nelson, amongst many others who sadly (and sometimes unfairly) never found the heights of fame that the stars of the so-called "Minneapolis Sound" reached. The songs herein range from subtly tweaked yet totally RAW reinterpretations of the sounds of Gamble & Huff or George Clinton's respective soul/funk empires to a handful of deep, sensual proto-disco funk jams, but peppered throughout with a number of interesting and wholly satisfying weirdo fusions: Mind & Matter come off like the O'Jays or Temptations fronting Steely Dan; Michael A. Dixon & J.O.Y.'s DIY quiet-stormer "You're All I Need"; a lo-fi banger by a group actually called Quiet Storm who fully deliver on the promise of such a prophetically heavyweight name. Other highlights include the slow-burning, psychedelic sensuality of Haze's "I Do Love My Lady" and Girls' "I've Got My Eyes on You," which pretty much foreshadows Prince's protege empire and plays like the best song he never wrote for Vanity 6. A stunning document of intensive research and a true labor of love years in the making, the set also includes a wonderful hardbound book filled with over 30,000 words and numerous photos which collectively help dispel some of the myth and mystery surrounding this heretofore un-compiled yet vitally important funk scene. This is arguably Numero's finest release to date amongst a highly impressive catalogue, and stands as one of 2013's most vital soul reissues, shining a brighter light on many of the lesser-known talents of a scene that had serious legs above and beyond the Purple One's long-running reign. Before springtime purple rain falls, there must be winter's Purple Snow... open this beast up and let the blizzard begin! [IQ]

Childish Gambino's sophomore LP, much like his repertoire as a whole, is impressive but disjointed. A comedian, actor, rapper, and writer, Donald Glover's success is very much a product of the social media revolution (even the name Childish Gambino came from a Wu-Tang Clan name creator website), and this album makes those origins clear. That's not to say that it's completely vapid or useless, it's not -- it's just very much random. The sub-minute skit intermissions and the overload of roman numerals will throw you off before you even listen to it. Together, the tracks are an amalgamation of Gambino's goofiness, and his stricter attempt at significance. Yet separately, they actually have more power, and really they're not half bad. Because the Internet features an array of guests who arose because of the internet alone (Chance the Rapper, Azealia Banks, Mystikal), and Gambino is often witty and fresh on his own modern production. It's when Glover starts calling Earth "the oldest computer" that we realize this is all too corny to be something truly powerful. The irony here is that the technological generation that Glover tries to capture in this "concept album" is so complex that it is the reason it fails to be cohesive. It's impossible to distill our present down to 19 tracks without coming off as confusing and misshapen. A worthy attempt with some actually respectable songs, Because the Internet succeeds on the strength of its oddity, and Glover's off-beat rap style, but stumbles when it tries to be something more. [MM]

Thee Oh Sees release a lot of songs, and thus, Singles Collection 3, a ten-track CD compilation of vinyl gems and hidden tunes. Having gone through multiple changes in line-up, style shifts and band names, The Oh Sees are an anomaly. John Dwyer and his group find ground with psychedelic garage-rock sounds and rhythms while never staying shackled by genre or categories of any kind. This is a strong and varied assortment of tracks from the past few years that have been floating around, culled from 7" singles, compilations, and live recordings -- most previously released, but all rare and hard to find, until now.

Hard-rock trio Fuzz is another child of the forever-restless Ty Segall, made up of guitarist Charlie Moothart, bassist Roland Cosio, with Segall on drums and vocals. Fuzz incorporates amped-up energy and riff-heavy, classic-rock vibes while maintaining the scuzzy rock/psychedelic sensibility of all Segall affairs. Live in San Francisco is the second of a series of live recordings in the Bay Area, where the members of Fuzz call home.

Iconic front man of indie rock band Guided by Voices, musical raconteur Robert Pollard completes his second full-length of 2013. Yes, Pollard is still releasing a minimum of two albums each year, and one of the most prolific artists of his time now adds the 20th record to his repertoire of solo LPs. Blazing Gentlemen is straightforward and candid in its sound, drawing focus to Pollard's abstract lyrical musings, as he offers a collective rock album filled with snaking lyrics and moody tales. Pollard is probably not always essential listening at this point, but he is without a doubt always interesting.

THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS

[DG] Daniel Givens
[IQ] Mikey IQ Jones
[MM] Matthew Malone
[DM] Doug Mosurock
[RN] Ryan Naideau
[NVT] Niels Van Tomme

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