Erik Skodvin takes home the prize for the month's darkest album with 'Black Tie', a quite fearsome collage of string drones and spooky choirs, plodding bass tones, ominous ambiances and sudden outbursts of TERROR! Scary shit.

Emphasizing its recent off-dancefloor focus, Dial releases this great experimental rock album by NYC musician Scott Mou (aka Jane). 'End Times' consists largely of Mou's solo guitar playing and oddly pitched singing, drawing comparisons to Grouper, Panda Bear and the golden age of shoegaze. Check!

The Secret Rhythms series between dub shaman Bernd Friedmann and unsurpassed talents of Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit reaches its fifth episode in just over a decade. Alongside guitar, bass, drums, are kalimba, dholak and rubberbox, breathtaking rhythmical and timbral alchemy ensues.

Despite their fundamentally misleading name, the Manchester-hailing quartet Egyptian Hip Hop do make some pretty good indie rock. Their latest release on R&S skirts psychedelic rock, bleary shoegazer echos and rhythmic experimentation, showing their very well-informed take on longstanding band format.

Picked!

A Greek trio of double bass, cello and oscillators with two LPs on Athens' Antifrost label make a first appearance on PAN. Dramatic swaths of delectable immense noise tremble between acoustic complexities and subtle swelling electronic drones, if you're not afraid to embrace the dark side, this one's for you.

'We just want to stay under our blanket', sings Françoise Cactus over a clattering beat and bleepy punk synths, creating a perfect anthem for all stay-at-homes, couch potatoes and club refuseniks out there.

UK's Strut revisit Celluloid Records in-depth, telling of Jean Georgakarakos who founded the label in Paris before moving to New York and releasing Bill Laswell's work from Massacre to Material. From early hip-hop. experimental disco, no wave, world music fusions, with five extras on the digital release. A slice of music history to behold!

Hamburg's popular ByteFM radio compiles a second volume of goodies for the open-minded listener, combining everything from new-school bass music (Om Unit, Robot Koch) over deep techno (Chymera) to folk, soul, indie and power pop. Respect for a bold selection!

His sixth album on home label Warp, Jamie Lidell proves as unstoppable as ever. His usual explosion of funk, soul and hip-hop into strong song-led productions, bouncing with dynamic energy of 80s gleaming synths and rockin' grooves. No real surprises here, but for Lidell fans definitely a hit.

Selected as release of the week

Picked!

Picked!

His third album proper, Chaz Bundick's rich pop textures take a tangible slant towards the dancefloor, cranking a few bpm up from 2011's 'Underneath The Pine'. Adventurous instrumentalism and dreamy synths, led by his atmospheric pop/R'n'B vocals, he manages to maximise pleasures in his heartfelt, immersive way.