For my money, Tim Hecker is the best electronic composer today (especially now that Milton Babbitt is no longer with us), and his latest release, Ravedeath, 1972, once again shows the master in fine form. The back stories behind an album are usually good for just filling space, but this one holds genuine interest. Hecker holed himself up in a church in Reykjavik and recorded this album in little more than a day, using primarily the church organ. The results are stunning. The organ gives the music remarkable depth and texture, far deeper than the usual electronic fare, particularly on the gorgeous three-part "In the Fog" and the rich, densely layered "Studio Suicide." On "Analog Paralysis" Hecker employs subtler sounds, lush and lovely, without losing the grandeur of the instrument. Meanwhile, the title track, which opens the record, is a feast of choppy synths and bold rhythms. "Ambient" just won't do in describing Hecker&rsquos music, not when it comes to music this rich and alive. On Ravedeath Hecker worked with the Iceland-based musician Ben Frost (whose work you should check out as well), and the two have great chemistry. Stravinsky once famously intoned about the church organ: "The beast doesn't breathe." This music not only breathes, it pulses with life and energy. A sure candidate for one of the year&rsquos best electronic records.

Conor Oberst’s future-shock album is here. We don't mean synthesizers and sci-fi, just that Oberst has returned to his Bright Eyes moniker — in order to properly retire it, claiming that The People’s Key will be the last record released under the name — and that he’s shelved the rootsy moves of Bright Eyes’ recent past to make a modern record, one suffused with a worried, where-do-we-go-from-here atmosphere. If not exactly crushing, a song like "Approximate Sunlight" (in name and tone) displays Oberst’s shaded worldview, while the comparatively spirited "Shell Games" counsels that "madness [is] the only place to be free." But Oberst is nothing if not complex, and finds bursts of sunshine and possibility in these confusing times — and does so in that heart-throbby way he has. "Haile Selassie" (yes, a white guy from Nebraska singing about the old Ethiopian king) is the pick hit here, but the nervy "A Machine Spiritual" will also get the old fans braced for whatever comes — from the world and Oberst, post-Bright Eyes.

Almost everyone thinks of Asobi Seksu as "shoegaze" and "dreampop" except for Asobi Seksu themselves, who change a little with each album. As James Hanna continues to pare back the guitars to fewer and fewer layers, Yuki Chikudate’s keyboards become more and more prominent. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of guitar, but individual guitar tracks and their distinctive sounds no longer get all smushed together into an impressionistic blur, making the overall vibe a little more ’80s synth-pop and making the My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins comparisons less valid (though the album’s cover, by the one and only Vaughan Oliver of 4AD, will probably keep them coming anyway). The songs are still lushly beautiful, Chikudate’s vocals still waft delicately above it all, and the mood of ecstatic wistfulness still dominates, but in an increasingly individualistic style that no longer fits so easily into preset categories.

Scotland’s finest post-rock outfit delivers—wait a minute, let’s look at that "post-rock" tag these guys always get. Is there more of a misnomer for Mogwai’s style? It’s nothing but rock: big booming guitar riffs that fill up all the sonic space, big walloping drumbeats that accent the riffs, big fat bass lines that anchor the riffs. Did I mention riffs? Yeah, awesome riffs that even hook onto your brain on the occasional quiet track that’s thrown in for variety. On the mostly instrumental quintet’s first new studio album in three years (and seventh overall), there are a few new moves: a slightly clearer-than-normal vocal on one track, a little electronic flavoring on another. But mostly it’s rock, gritty and grungy enough to fit in on their new U.S. label, Sub Pop. And of course the track titles are as laugh-out-loud irreverent as usual. (Note that 2xLP package includes an extra downloadable track, "Music for a Forgotten Future," the band's soundtrack to an art installation.)

Greg Dulli has been busy working under his own name and with Mark Lanegan in The Gutter Twins, so this is the first Twilight Singers full-length in five years. He’s still the charming rogue, excelling at witty melodrama and anthemic production gestures, and still ropes lots of his musical friends into contributing: Ani DiFranco, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden, Carina Round, Nick McCabe (the Verve), and Lanegan all make appearances. This is Dulli’s most lush, thickly textured work yet, and in some ways his darkest, too—though really all his albums rank highly in that category. Warning: side effects of listening to this album may include unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse and perpetual stubble.

Rarely appearing but always most welcome, Isolée albums are among the coolest in the techno/house continuum. For album number three, his first since 2005, Rajko Müller (a.k.a. Isolée—hey, you aren’t in techno if you don’t have a cryptic alias) neatly sculpts 11 tracks that sound distinctly contemporary even as they pick and choose moves pioneered (by many, including himself) over the past decade of beat-driven electronic music. "Thirteen Times an Hour" sets a reliable 4/4 pace but wraps it in velvet; it’s forceful but just a bit softened, lending the entire track a warmth amid its vigor. The opening "Paloma Triste" shows just how playful Müller can be, with a series of odd lines—cockeyed keys, a bassline breaking down (more like a car than a funk tune)—all perforating a most simple rhythm track. Creative stuff, and (as the sticker on the front of Well Spent Youth reminds us) it only comes along every five years or so!

On his first album in five years and seventh overall (spread across two decades), Fred Cornog’s outlook has not gotten any sunnier, which is good news for fans of morose home recordings (also known as East River Pipe fans). Lo-fi purists may complain that his equipment upgrade has moved his music into mid-fi range, but so what? His downtempo combination of mournful vocals (often with an aching strain, strummed acoustic guitar, synthesizer icing, and occasional rhythm box is all about putting across his fatalistic lyrics in the most tunefully depressing fashion possible. His bedroom-pop distillation of the saddest ’70s soft rock is actually a glorious sound all its own, and We Live in Rented Rooms is one of the best albums in his discography.