Editors' Choice for September 2013
Instant / Instant Records
After taking a long break, the synthesizer-playing trio return with their most sophisticated and moving record to date.
Matador
Kim Gordon's first album with guitarist Bill Nace is among the most challenging and compelling music of her career.
ECM
On her first recording with another producer, the pianist/composer/arranger radically revisits five works from her catalog.
Drag City
On her third (and best) record, the songwriter/harpist is accompanied only by the sounds of the ocean surf and sea lions.
Sargent House
Wolfe's fourth album delivers some of her most ambitious, eclectic, and satisfying music yet.
Glassnote Entertainment Group
The Glasgow trio's debut delivers emotional, widescreen synth pop that became one of the definitive sounds of the 2010s.
Sacred Bones
On their third album, they band expand their sound to include acoustic guitar and strings but still conjure up a wonderfully dark psych pop sound.
Partisan
Dark without being depressive, this lively Americana-rooted album hides its tormented core in a multifaceted musical approach.
Matador / True Panther Sounds
After a three-year break, the Spanish electro-poppers return with an album as dreamily danceable as their last.
Linn / Linn Records
John Butt and the Dunedin Consort deliver Bach's Brandenburg Concertos in period style on original instruments and modern copies.
![Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs [Deluxe]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0003995337/front/220/N8LcAm20vb_Oj5RdNFqF6lWnbEN5fCjifro6xhIBuB4=.jpg)
Blue Note
Dense, self-referential collaboration between the old punk and the hip-hop traditionalists.
Elīna Garanča / Jonas Kaufmann / René Pape / Daniel Barenboim / Anja Harteros / La Scala Theater Orchestra
Decca
The soloists range from excellent to spectacular, with the phrasing of tenor Kaufmann and the tone of mezzo soprano Garanca as special standouts.
Rough Trade
The Icelandic singer/songwriter's fourth outing is built on a foundation of emotional balance and vintage synths.
DFA
The band takes its droning post-industrial grooves in a sleeker, more danceable direction on its first full-length.
Fat Possum Records
The dreamy singer/songwriter's third album is a thrilling synthesis of noise pop and synth pop.
Mute
Lavish, heartbroken, and eerie, Goldfrapp's sixth album is among their most consistently satisfying music.
![Veneta, Oregon 8/27/72 [180 Gram]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0004001339/front/220/99gWDodN-k6MH_CWhNwbij6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=.jpg)
Grateful Dead / Rhino
Long traded by fans in inferior versions, this properly mixed document captures the Dead in one of their finest hours.
Blue Note
On his Blue Note debut, the Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter makes an inspired artistic leap.
Atlantic / Big Beat Records
The Swedish duo deliver more fizzy, electro-pop party anthems like their hit "I Love It."
Warp
Jackson Fourgeaud's first outing in eight years shows off his wide range of electronic styles.
Hyperdub
Made beside Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, the Canadian vocalist/producer's Hyperdub debut offers a pleasurable synth pop/post-disco hybrid.
Slumberland
The Welsh noise pop quintet's debut album is brilliantly influenced by Riot Grrrl, C-86, shoegaze, Veronica Falls, and punk.
G.O.O.D. Music
The piano man's first proper solo studio album since 2008 is a sprawling set of intense love songs.
Big Legal Mess Records / Fat Possum Records / Turnstile
Another fine outing from a power pop songwriter who deserves a wider audience.
Woodsist
Solo project from half of Foxygen explores many different rock and pop styles in delightfully lo-fi fashion.
Merge
Six years after their last offering, this psych-soul unit returns with renewed energy and a newfound political subtext to their garage stompers.
K Records
With their fourth and finest record for K, this Olympia collective's evolution toward indie pop perfection continues.
Fire Records
Argentinean trio's fourth album scales back on the riot grrrl energy in favor of a reggae-influenced sound that would make the Slits proud.
Hallé
Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra present live performances of Sibelius' Pohjola's Daughter, The Oceanides, and the Second Symphony.
Topic
The singer, songwriter, and guitarist cut this exquisite set intimately; he was accompanied only by his guitars and banjo.
Thirsty Ear
On his first solo date in three years, the pianist and composer delivers a tour de force in relatively brief original works and covers.
Decca
Uchida continues to impress and the Waldszenen are full of fresh, even daring interpretations on this essential Schumann release.
Anti-
The barefooted, sword-wielding New Pornographer's sixth studio outing may be her very best.
HALO
Trent Reznor sounds like a restless, inventive artist at peace with himself on this NIN comeback.
Songs of the South Records
World boogie is coming? These guys boogie like the world has no choice but to surrender to the fact.
Sub Pop
With their third album, this quartet made up of Hot Snakes and Edsel alumni turn in a stylistically varied but always potent set of tunes.
ATO
Frontman Will Sheff goes Back to the Future on this 11-track ode to his hometown of Meridian, New Hampshire.
Heinz / Heinz Records
Featuring collaborations with Rufus Wainwright and Phyllis Diller, Pink Martini's fifth album is more bittersweet than its title suggests.
Mass Appeal
DeVaughn follows his Grammy-nominated third studio album with a strong, independent set dominated of bedroom material.
Mariinsky
Valery Gergiev's second installment in Wagner's Ring cycle is the introductory opera, Das Rheingold, performed in concert.
Rise Against deliver a collection of surprisingly strong B-sides and revealing covers with Long Forgotten Songs.
Hidden Pony
The Vancouver-based indie rockers' most well-crafted, and deliberately misspelled, collection of songs to date.
Downtown Records
A powerful and epic statement of conceptual chamber pop finds a balance between huge hooks and obtuse, sometimes difficult orchestration.
Sugar Hill
On her fine third album, the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter displays an expansive musical view and a keen sense of discernment.
Thrill Jockey
On his third Thrill Jockey offering the Malian songwriter jarringly addresses the social and political upheaval in his homeland.
Masterworks
This program includes a general mix that typifies the group's genre- and border-crossing ways, with highlights including a suite by Iyer.
Fire Records
The group's second album is still noisy and hypnotic, but adds tighter arrangements and a few very poppy tunes to the mix.
Fat Cat / FatCat Records
One of the hardest working groups in West African guitar music present their clearest, most widely available album to date.
Capitol
A deluxe, exhaustive revamping of the classic 1972 live album Rock of Ages.
In the Red Records
The ever-changing Detroit garage rockers take a crack at making a bubblegum record and knock it out of the park.
Foreign Exchange Music
Nicolay and Phonte's joyous and audacious fourth album brims with note-perfect incorporation of folk-soul, house, drum'n'bass, and broken beat.
Trouble in Mind
Collection of the underrated Arizona groups's incredibly hooky songs presented chronologically shows they are one of the best unknown power pop bands of all time.
Omnivore
The Akron-based new wave band's total output -- two albums and one EP -- is collected on this great set.
BFM Jazz
Exchanging the standards of Great American Songbook for the songs of Joni Mitchell, the stylish vocalist delivers one of her finest recordings.
In My Room
There's less dance music than early fans might like, but the Danish producer's third effort is a rangy, rich success.
Verve
The magnificent third Verve album by this New Orleans sensation, produced by Raphael Saadiq, stays much closer to the R&B and funk.
Distraction / Distraction Records / Forced Exposure
Interchange transcends its roots as a locally commissioned art project, becoming a playful, optimistic examination of nostalgia and futurism.
HXC / XL
A remarkable leap in production values from his lo-fi debut can't mask the unhinged character of this modern-day troubador.
Deutsche Grammophon
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia pays tribute to Leopold Stokowski with his Bach transcriptions and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.