Elijah’s Top 5:

Assikel, Tamikrest (Glitterbeat). The Touareg ensemble remains consistent purveyors of blues-tinged folk music that bring the musicians’ nomadic, desert-based life to the listener’s heart and keeps it there.

Depressants, Defect Designer (Transcending Obscurity). Nasty, strange, and entirely danceable, a summertime death metal album for anyone that enjoys wearing black and picking flowers at the same time!

The Golden Citadel of the Astral Sphere, Junon (I, Voidhanger). An instantly classic release in the burgeoning realm of psychedelic black metal, this one-woman project’s debut shows how exploring darkness is done, existentially.

Oni 2, Darko US (independent). Like a rave at the gates of hell, this Chelsea Grin side project makes top-notch party music for the disillusioned nihilist that just wants to dance and break things.

Too Much Not Enough, Daði Freyr (Samlist). Iceland’s Prince of Bedroom Pop continues to present the funkiest grooves, hookiest melodies, and most relatable lyrics without ever resorting to meaningless pop platitudes. An album truly made for the near-constant sunshine of a Scandinavian summer.

Adriane’s Top 5:

Assikel, Tamikrest (Glitterbeat). Just when I thought I was getting tired of dobro sounds, here comes Tamikrest, using them right on new album Assikel. As usual, they’ve brought their smoldering and innovative all to the assouf sounds of Assikel, making it one of the best of the genre this year so far–saying something in a year marked by releases from both Imarhan and Tinariwen.

The Endless Dance, Hannah Peel and Beibei Wang (Real World). Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang and Northern Irish producer/composer Hannah Peel bring their international conservatory training together in a cross-cultural IDM album inspired by nature and the Chinese calendar. Wang plays with rice bowls and a jawbone, among other instruments; guest musician Hyelim Kim brings in the Korean daegeum (a flute). Luscious, neon art sounds.

III, Khun Narin (Innovative Leisure). Can this please be the year Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band breaks through? III is the group’s first release recorded in a professional studio (Diamond West, run by Tommy Brenneck of Budos Band, Menahan Street Band, and other Daptone acts) and includes finely tuned iterations of their rousing folk sounds with the psychedelic fuzz dialed up all the way to ecstatic.

Inferno, Boards of Canada (Warp). Masterful electronic duo Boards of Canada returned this month with their first album in thirteen years, and it’s an elemental shift, away from their usual luminous nostalgia and toward fire and brimstone. The beats are harder and more urgent, the references to religious iconography (from Krishna to evangelicism to the Antichrist) more intense: ambience for the apocalypse.

Lalézon, Jermaine from the South (independent). Recorded in both Baton Rouge and Bloomington, Indiana, Lalézon may well be the first hip hop album recorded entirely in Louisiana Creole. It’s an exceptional production for that as well as killer basslines, vivid lyrics about heartbreak and systemic violence, and generally spot-on production that all make for a brilliant and utterly relistenable EP.