Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar

Score: 8.6 

The Scottish trio Young Fathers returns with their third album and they feel, for the first time, completely liberated and in full control of their ethereally uncomfortable sound palette. It's as if all their musical decisions, twists and turns have finally found the perfect match to their oddly delirious ideas. Cocoa Sugar, in short, is minimalist in its own chaos, and cathartic in its own slowness. Post-hip hop at its crankiest.

Tracks I like the most: Toy, In My View, Tremolo, Wow, Border Girl, Holy Ghost, Wire

Tracks I like the least: Lord

Artist: Young Fathers

Country: United Kingdom

Album: Cocoa Sugar

Released: 09/03/2018

Genres: Hip Hop, Rap, Electronica, Experimental, Pop, Rock, Minimalism

Length: 36:45

Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of

Score: 8.4 

The latest release from the avant-garde auteur Daniel Lopatin is his weirdest completion of songs that sound more like sketches and micro-representations of lives and universes that transcend space, time and logic. Anohni, Prurient, James Blake, Astrolith, among others, collaborate in the process and make for an album that more often than not feels as spooky, shivery and menacing as inviting, warming and celestial. Age Of might be the most difficult record of the year, and it's a pleasure to unfold its many edges all throughout.

Tracks I like the most: Age Of, The Station, Black Snow, Warning, RayCats

Tracks I like the least: Babylon, Still Stuff That Doesn't Happen

Artist: Oneohtrix Point Never

Country: United States

Album: Age Of

Released: 01/06/2018

Genres: Electronica, Experimental, Avant-Garde, IDM, Baroque Pop, Noise, Drone, Ambient

Length: 42:32

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!

Score: 8.8 

The latest record from American post-punk band Parquet Courts is another demonstration of how versatile, invigorating and savage they can be at writing lyrics, changing paces, composing melodies and, this time louder than ever, screaming out the injustices of this capitalist modern world. Ian Curtis, Minutemen, The Clash and even Talking Heads are heard all about their thirteen songs, all of them signing their influence to end up blushing the band's most mature and yet most irrationally zestful album to date.

Tracks I like the most: Almost Had To Start A Fight/In And Out Of Patience, Wide Awake, Violence, Back To Earth, Exctinction

Tracks I like the least: Normalization

Artist: Parquet Courts

Country: United States

Album: Wide Awake!

Released: 18/05/2018

Genres: Post-Punk, Punk Rock, Indie Rock, Dance-Punk

Length: 38:37

Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer

Score: 8.5 

The third release from the American producer, singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe is her poppiest, most accessible and most sugary record to date and, curiously, it is also the one where she feels the freest, sexiest and rawest. The excellent blends between collaborators, between moods and between genres, as well as her picky eye for societal and intrapersonal matters all make for a hell of an artistic victory. Dirty Computer is not just the realization of what it means to be black, young, female and queer in today's America, but it also is a deep deconstruction of what it feels to be alive and in search for true love and affection in this current turbulent century.

Tracks I like the most: Pynk, Make Me Feel, Americans, I Got The Juice

Tracks I like the least: Dirty Computer

Artist: Janelle Monáe

Country: United States

Album: Dirty Computer

Released: 27/04/2018

Genres: Pop, Funk, Hip Hop, R&B, Soul, Electronic, Experimental

Length: 48:42

King Coya - Tierra De King Coya

Score: 7.4 

The latest release from the Argentinian producer continues to find pleasant spaces in the mixture of traditional Andine music, cumbia, folklore and electronica. Though the nuances are not as discernible, the production slays in energy and vigour, and the record benefits the most when it fully trusts in its own cacophony and sense of (comm)union.

Tracks I like the most: E-Chango, Algo, Pachama

Tracks I like the least: Como Saber, Pa Que Yo Te Cure

Artist: King Coya

Country: Argentina

Album: Tierra De King Coya

Released: 15/06/2018

Genres: Electronica, Cumbia, Folklore, Andine Music, Experimental, Tribal, World Music

Length: 34:09

serpentwithfeet - soil

Score: 8.4 

After a grandiose EP in 2016, Josiah Wise more than fulfils expectations with his debut full-length album, soil. There's something both terrestrial and otherworldly about his music (this time by the hands of Clams Casino, Mmph, Katie Gately, Paul Epworth, among others), but the highlight is the way in which he morphs and warps his marvelous voice to retell stories about love, vulnerability, redemption and self-centeredness. The record is more than the sum of its parts, and it's another incredible evidence of an artist whose force is as esoteric as ululatingly enthralling.

Tracks I like the most: cherubim, seedless, messy, fragrant, bless ur heart

Tracks I like the least: waft

Artist: serpentwithfeet

Country: United States

Album: soil

Released: 08/06/2018

Genres: Experimental, R&B, Soul, Electronica, Gospel

Length: 39:47

Soccer Mommy - Clean

Score: 8.1 

Sophie Allison, under the moniker Soccer Mommy, delivers a touching first album called Clean, where she depicts with a hawk-eye prose what it means to be young and confused and altered and in desperate need to be someone accepted. It's a coming-of-age circle in itself, that starts with whimsical social games and ends with a self-realization and a bittersweet vision to the future. The way the singer-songwriter challenges her ego and her search for identity is admiring, not mentioning that it's all accompanied with some glitchy, surprisingly alien production details that make the record more than just a mere folk-rock teen melodrama.

Tracks I like the most: Scorpio Rising, Cool, Last Girl, Blossom (Wasting All My Time)

Tracks I like the least: Flaw

Artist: Soccer Mommy

Country: United States

Album: Clean

Released: 02/03/2018

Genres: Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Folk Rock, Singer-Songwriter

Length: 34:43

Superorganism - Superorganism

Score: 8.9 

The debut album from the London-based indietronica band is a huge achievement for contemporary young-adult music. The ten sounds that compose it seem like surreal sculptures that build up and strenghten to monumental heights. The feeling of mutual collaboration makes this a really tender record, and the vast surprises it holds in its hands keep you awake and in constant awe for its short-but-sufficient 33 minutes. The architectural monster they have come to create and show is gorgeously enjoyable and substantial, all at once.

Tracks I like the most: It's All Good, Everybody Wants To Be Famous, Nobody Cares, Something For Your M.I.N.D.

Tracks I like the least: Reflections On The Screen

Artist: Superorganism

Country: United Kingdom

Album: Superorganism

Released: 02/03/2018

Genres: Indie Pop, Experimental Pop, Avant-Pop, Indietronica, Psychedelic Pop

Length: 33:04

The Carters - EVERYTHING IS LOVE

Score: 8.2 .

The first collaborative project between Beyoncé and Jay Z, and a seemingly closing part to a trilogy that started with the definitions of an infidelity in Lemonade and a pray for forgiveness in 44:44, finds the couple exploring the ups and downs of fame, glory, matrimony, parenthood, friendship, desire, hopes and, well, life itself and its mortality. The production is stellar, and they seem to be stimulating each other's talents at storytelling and bragging with every single statement and polemic phrase. They succeed in all the aspects that make this album a respectully triumphant one; one that honours and devotes itself to communion and combined forces.

Tracks I like the most: APESH*T, BOSS, NICE, BLACK EFFECT, LOVEHAPPY

Tracks I like the least: SUMMER

Artist: The Carters (Beyoncé / Jay Z)

Country: United States

Album: EVERYTHING IS LOVE

Released: 16/06/2018

Genres: Hip Hop, Rap, R&B, Electronica, Pop

Length: 38:17

Here Lies Man - You Will Know Nothing

Score: 7.3 

You Will Know Nothing is not even half as inspired and inspiring than its predecessor, but the American afrometal band still sounds almost like no other in combining what works best in both edges of two apparently dichotomic and contradicting genres. Still, the record is more spacious, though not more engrossing, and more diverse, though not more entertaining.

Artist: Here Lies Man

Country: United States

Album: You Will Know Nothing

Released: 15/06/2018

Genres: Afrorock, Afrometal, Art Rock, Stoner Rock

Length: 39:51