Amoeba Music

Small Black’s lush Limits of Desire proves there’s more to the Brooklyn band than the limiting chillwave genre would suggest. Much as chums and genre-mates Washed Out and Toro y Moi did with their sophomore albums, Limits of Desire finds them significantly upping the ante, coming across like vintage U2 after taking muscle relaxers on opener “Free at Dawn,” with all of the epic melodicism and none of the melodrama that that implies. “Canoe” is brilliantly catchy with a high cooed melody and battling synths, bearing some resemblance to M83 but, you know, chilled out. “No Stranger” introduces a light dance beat, pushing the vocals further toward the front of the mix and giving Small Black one of their best singles yet. The reason it works is that while a song like “Sophie” might be your perfect poolside jam for the summer, it doesn’t aim to be just that. Particularly in the way “Sophie’s” romantic sophistication dissolves into whispered nothings that lead into the danceable “Breathless,” Small Black have a knack for elegant pacing and delivering the jams, while making it all sound effortless. Limits of Love is putting in an early bid for the perfect summery pop album of 2013.

Music inevitably lives with us as we experience our daily lives. Matthew Cooper makes music as Eluvium that seems to make the mundane more epic, the insufferable peaceful. His ambient washes of sound never feel smothering; rather, they are canvases of sound that open up new possibilities. The organ drones of “Don’t Get Any Closer” feel like a pan-religious ceremony. “Warm” lifts off from there and sends us through the clouds with angelic tones. “By the Rails” pulls us back in from drifting away with its heartbeat throb. Though Eluvium’s music favors drawn-out, slow-motion movements, there’s an emotional push-and-pull at its core that keeps it interesting as well as soothing, and Nightmare Ending is immaculately paced, such as the way the nearly nine-minute, more obscure “Unknown Variation” is followed by the short and straightforward piano piece “Caroling” — either piece might have fallen flat, if not for the other’s presence. Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo’s voice also makes a welcome appearance here on album closer “Happiness,” which will bring wide smiles to any fan of either (or both) acts. Why Cooper chose to title his latest album Nightmare Ending is anyone’s guess. It’s like a beautiful dream throughout.

Victoria "Little Boots" Hesketh is a thinking woman's electropop diva -- not brassy or ridiculous enough to be Kylie or Gaga, not indie or artsy enough to be Cat Power or Bjork, but just that right level of girlish sass, disco sophistication and British self-deprecation to be the next St. Etienne (not to say Donna Summer). She made a big splash in 2009 and then inexplicably faded from view. Now after some years of regrouping (and DJing), she's back with a moodier, housier record, produced by the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy. Her new sound is simpler, dancier and darker, and the change is for the better -- it lets her elegant melodies and airy choruses shine through, with a propulsive low-end and a Chicago soul clap driving them along. The tunes are lovely, timeless meditations on fantasies of escape ("Motorway"), dancefloor seduction ("Beat Beat") and rejuventating a frayed relationship ("Strangers"). They're mostly about the night life. A great, cohesive record that's equal parts dancefloor honey and lyrical liqueur; beat connoisseurs will feel it and hopefully that elusive legion of fans will give it the box office it deserves. More

The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation is an aptly named trip into the other side of the human ego. It takes listeners on a dark ride, requiring several listens for its movements to sink in and rewarding the patient with a unique listening experience. Starting with deep bass drum hits on “Consumed,” it moves into the two-part “Excavation,” which at first feels like travelling at the deepest part of the ocean, drumless and with little light let in, but deep sonar blasts of bass, heartbeats and backward sound guide us as if we’re seeing the unseen. Part two opens the chasm a bit, with squelching beats you could almost dance to, were they not so brutal and irregular. “Mara” sounds like the exact moment the protagonist finds the body in film noir or a horror film, built on unseemly strings and a door-slamming beat. The two-part “The Mirror Reflecting” gets even deeper, with a beautifully decayed last quarter, and the nearly 13-minute “The Drop” actually finds The Haxan Cloak’s Bobby Krlic at his most open and easy to follow, with melodic synths that sound like a synth-pop song slowed to quarter-speed. Though it provides few easy entry points and demands much of its listener, The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation is a worthwhile journey, even just to say you made it to the other side. More