Over the years, she’s recorded a number of solo records that each have their merits. But you can trace her career on a curve: the more records she releases, the more comfortable she becomes with singing. Her last record, Parts of Speech, was more or less a pop record.

A Badly Broken Code is her first record, released in 2010. And it’s filled with delicious and delirious hip hop. Dessa’s voice is seductively powerful and clearly very expressive, playing almost-sung hip hop lyrics, but she’s got a bit of venom in it at this point.

That’s not all to say that this is a pure hip hop record: Dessa is blatantly experimenting. Tracks like Dixon’s Girl expose not just her abilities behind a mic, but also her abilities as a songwriter and a singer.

Dessa is one of those artists who’s got bad timing: I think ten or fifteen years ago, she would have been way more popular. Tracks like Mineshaft II are potential radio hits, but Nicki Minaj beat her to it by 2010 and became the Queen of Rap.

But Dessa’s doing things that are more inventive and original without disrespecting hip hop’s past. She’s an artist that both hip hop fans and “regular folks” are going to love.

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So while Melted’s album art is a little hard to decipher, and makes the album look a lot more intense than it is, it owes as much to the Beatles as it does to The White Stripes. The album feels as diverse and eclectic as Ty Segall’s taste. From one track to the next, Melted rarely disappoints.

On Sad Fuzz, Ty Segall practically channels The Beatles in the chorus. Only a couple tracks later, he borrows from vintage punk for Imaginary Person. It’s as if he can’t decide what he wants to be as a solo artist, so he just throws a giant heaping of rock spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks — and this is one of those rare times that strategy actually works.

We could argue for days about what Ty’s best record is, particularly for his more hardcore fans, but I’m not sure that there are many better starting spots than Melted: it’s as good an introduction to the weird and wild world of Ty Segall as any.

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What makes Expo 86 different from Wolf Parade’s other work is that it has a little bit more of a riff focus, and it feels a bit more digestible. There are also moments of maturity that are highly memorable. The album shows signs of maturity for the band.

If Modest Mouse and Led Zeppelin had a weird, rebellious baby, it might sound like Wolf Parade. They are unto their own, and hard to define, but I think this is their best output.

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Every track on this record is a total gem. It’s not as barren as a Bon Iver record — McMorrow doesn’t shine away from percussion, for example — but it’s a great example of the best of the folk genre. Fans of not just Bon Iver, but also Dan Griffin, will find a lot to like here.

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The title references space, and the albums does have a track about that, but it also refers to electronic music itself. As Jaar loops over the tracks, it’s hard not to lose yourself in it as a backing track. Is Jaar’s music only noise? Are electronic beeps and bops only meant to be noise? It feels like Jaar is playfully asking us the question.

In lieu of dance tracks, which he was known for as a college student before this LP dropped, Space Is Only Noise feels like an ambient thumper of a record that defies every possible convention. Jaar doesn’t want you to dance, but he also doesn’t want you to notice what he’s doing either. Because if he can do it quietly, without you really noticing his subversive technique, then he’s won.

It’s easy to put Space Is Only Noise on a loop and muse over it, but I wouldn’t recommend this as a driving record, and it’s certainly not anything you can dance to. Nicolas Jaar’s debut is the sort of record you put on good headphones for and lose yourself in.

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Trent Reznor’s work here is obviously influenced by his more electronic Nine Inch Nails records, which I love. In fact, some songs — like In Motion — are remixes of work from Nine Inch Nail’s Ghosts (which is also a fantastic record).

Hand Covers Bruise is drenched in melancholy, but A Familiar Taste is dripping with angst. The Gentle Hum of Anxiety is a perfect title for one of the most anxiety-inducing bits of music from a film I’ve ever heard. But at the end of the day, the track you most need to hear from this is the cover of In the Hall of the Mountain King.

If there was ever an obvious pairing, it’s Trent Reznor and David Fincher. Both of them are fascinated by using digital techniques to improve what are traditionally analogue mediums. While both are praised by fans and critics, there’s also a left-wing conservative group of people in both mediums who say they’re going against what music and film is all about. But it doesn’t matter. With The Social Network in particular, they’ve made their piece de resistance: a piece of digital art in an analogue framework about a movement to make real relationships more digital and artificial. There’s something beautiful about that.

Film soundtracks are interesting because they rarely stand on their own. The Social Network not only stands on its own, but it’s one of my all-time favourite albums — and perhaps my favourite electronic album of all time.

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