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2017 has been an exceptionally strong year for the group of live instrumentalists. 'Expectations' is a remarkably well-balanced, funk orientated release which sits comfortably within an equally respectable six-track EP.

Jlin's long awaited second album “Black Origami” is a percussion-led tour de force, sealing her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music.

Equiknoxx’s debut album proper, following the hugely acclaimed 'Bird Sound Power' (Number 2 in both RA and FACT albums of the year 2016), featuring 13 brand new nuggets recorded over the last 12 months and featuring darker, more psychedelic, starkly dubbed perspectives on up-to-the-second dancehall.

No Luscious Life – seven proximate cuts lovingly collected from the group's work within the velveteen walls of the notorious Green Door Studio.

Channelling influences including UK jazz, New Jersey house and Chicago footwork, it’s the melodies – played on trombone, tenor sax and the keys – which are the bright-shining, consistent thread throughout Hello Skinny's second album. The solo project of esteemed drummer Tom Skinner (whose other recent projects include Sons of Kemet and Owiny Sigoma Band), the album features influential trombone player and composer Peter Zummo (a friend and collaborator of Arthur Russell, who’s recently released new material on Glasgow’s Optimo label).

“Mnestic Pressure” is Lee Gamble’s first album since 2014 and his first with Hyperdub, a reset that sees a noticeable change in his sound and the concepts that feed into his music. The music has a hardness, with a structure and melody that was sublimated in Lee’s previous LPs. It builds on his more recent experiments with more functional dancefloor forms.

Grammy Award winning singer songwriter, virtuoso bassist and long-standing member of Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder family, Thundercat returns with his incredible new album ‘Drunk’. 23 tracks deep, ‘Drunk’ features an insane cast of guests including Pharrell, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and certified legends Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. Its deliriously funky, has elements of soft rock, contains fart noises and one of the strangest covers of the year (not to mention the triple 10-inch format)!

The spellbinding Cali groove machine that is Nicky Benedek emerged onto our radars in 2013 with his debut album Test Pressing. He's consistently and continuously dropped laid back, unhurried heaven ever since. First appearing on Leaving Records last year with the stupendously sedate, Balearic and beautiful "Coolin" EP, he's returned with his sophomore Bene's World... And it's every bit as shiny, soulful and experimental as you'd hope. Part jazz, part soul, part wave, all synth bliss, the timing of this release couldn't be better.

Visible Cloaks’ Reassemblage is a collection of delicately rendered passages of silence and sound that invokes – and invites – consciousness.

Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. The Petrified Forest mini-album is inspired by the movie of the same name, released in 1936 and directed by Archie Mayo.

After a session together in a Bergen studio 20 years ago which sadly only resulted in a distorted tape, Bjørn Torske and Prins Thomas finally got back together to make music for 'Square One' ; a collection of loose, abstract and freeform avant-disco jams, parallel world-disco maybe? Whatever you call it, this album is a labour of love and a meeting of two minds!

Released just in time for the third anniversary of Japan Blues' show on NTS radio - a monthly Japanese musical nabemono, occasionally straying into other Asian territories. Previously at Honest Jon's, Howard Williams gave us this stunning self-released 6 track album that formed an atmospheric Nipponese travelogue.

Former Nine Inch Nails band member with his well-received third album (under that name, but his 6th in total). Analogue synths and futuristic visions combine on his best yet.

20 years after their singles were released in the mid-1990s and became international calling cards for the Chain Reaction label, the Porter Ricks duo of Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig return For proof of Porter Ricks’ enduring legacy, look no further than the fact that “dub techno” is now a stylistic movement that has expanded far beyond the confines of Berlin and the Basic Channel / Chain Reaction label alliance (where Mellwig’s mastering skills also played a starring role).with an album.

This man is obviously in love with his drumbox, and so are we. 'Deadly' Davy Kehoe's debut is a beauty, and yet another suprise thrown up from the Wah Wah Wino camp. Deft production and sonic understanding combined with a real rock'n'roller mind set.

After wowing us with a crazy limited promo 45, Parisian Krikor Kouchian delivered 11 tracks of expertly executed boogie funk. Spending time as a youth in Southern Cailifornia, the French-born Kouchian developed an obsession with this Americana and the magic of everything California. Pacific Alley is a snapshot of this lost period, full of juicy low slung basslines, slow bpm cruisers, Linn drum crashes, and ride or die melodies. Equal parts uplifting and melancholic, downtrodden, yet not without rays of light; the soundtrack for days hanging in front of the corner stores and nights on the strip.

Performance artist & musician Pan Daijing’s first major work Lack is a spellbinding demonstration, or “purgative finale”, to her improvised live performances over the past two years; offering a far more nuanced and probing suite of electronic gestures than her gnarled handful of slamming, tapes and 12”s for Bedouin Records, Power Vacuum or Noisekölln Tapes since 2015.

Paul Woolford returns under his jungle and rave-inspired Special Request alias. The album presents a new style for the producer with vast layers of atmospherics, unhinged modular work and contact microphone recordings as well as the introduction of stark soundtrack pieces.

Owens, a 28-year old Londoner, turned her keen ear towards dance music after working with techno producer Daniel Avery in a London record store. Her voice and contributions can be heard on Avery’s Drone Logic. Since then, she self-released two white label 12”s and this, her debut solo album - first and foremost Owens’ vision, a record that exudes a startling level of intimacy even in its largest-sounding moments - such as Arthur, a percolating mixture of looped vocals and rustling rhythms that rides on a perpetual near-crescendo. The song is a tribute to the late iconoclastic musician and kindred spirit Arthur Russell.

Stormzy has moved out of the shadows and towards the masses, without greatly distorting the original premise (at least as much as the numerous pop anthems from grime MC’s which have preceded). Gang Signs & Prayer reflects the presence of a man who is currently too popular and too influential to be omitted.

New music from Simon Green aka Bonobo is always an event (and these days, he is Ninja Tune's biggest artist!) and this, his first since 2013’s “The North Borders”,is Green’s sixth album! Emotive, intricate production and one of this year's biggest sellers.

Zomby’s near-mythical Eski grime concept album was created over an intense two week period around 2008-2009 and features 16 uniquely formulated interpretations of Wiley’s seminal Eskibeat productions. It's been in hybernation ever since and, almost a decade later (and after many aborted attempts), is finally available for public consumption - still sounding like an ancient future.

Jana Rush received attention for her mind-bending drum acrobatics on last year's 'MPC 7635' EP also released by Objects Ltd. Jana started djing aged just 13, releasing her first record on Dance Mania back in 1996 but having a hiatus from music between 2000 to 2013. With 'Pariah' she has created an album rooted in Chicago's footwork sound, but with a myriad of influences, such as jungle, acid, soul, jazz and house, developing her sound on from 'MPC 7635'.

In 2015, Japanese producer and sound designer Kuniyuki Takahashi, sometimes known as Koss, released his “Newwave Project EP” a record, that tapped some roots of his musical education: new wave, German electro punk from bands like a DAF, EBM from acts like Front 242 as well as industrial music. Now, nearly two years after his first newwave project EP, he drops an album that is leaning towards his musical love from the past. Compared to his former work, that was rooted in worlds of classic, jazz, house, ambient, and electronic song-writing, his new tunes are full of melodic drifts and rhythmical shifts, using old synthesisers like a Roland Jupiter 8, a Juno 60, a Korg MS 20, an old tape echo machine but also new instruments like the Roland Aira. Furthermore, his modular synthesizers talk too.

Latest output from the great Kassem Mosse. Nine tracks of deep and twisted techno, abstract rhythms and repetitive loops. What is undoubtedly appealing to many as to its stripped back feel, for others, it may be too tool-like.