The self-contained indie-pop band known as St. Vincent (Annie to her family, the Clarks) returns. On Actor, Clark leads with her cute, pointy chin, updating the ambitiously composed songs that made her debut, Marry Me, one of 2007’s most smashing hits. Several of the songs on Actor have a curiously unresolved quality about them—not unfinished but rather just vaguely unsettled (not the same as unsettling, mind you);—that set off winning tunes like “Actor Out of Work” and the charming (not just in its title) “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood” marvelously. There’s plenty here for indie-sophisticate slow-dancing, as well as swooning and dissecting, and since it’s bound to be one of the year’s most talked-, blogged- and thought-about albums, well, what exactly are you waiting for? (M.L. Thrope)

Composer, pianist, laptopper, producer, comrade to Eno, Coldplay and others—no wonder Jon Hopkins’s new album sounds afflicted with multiple-personality . . . well, “disorder” isn’t the word. The ten electronic-based instrumental pieces on Insides veer from pensive and ambient to crackling and kinetic, and though it can be difficult to tell at times, there is a consistent melodic sensibility throughout. Dig the rich sweep of strings on opener “The Wider Sun,” or the dim-light sci-fi creepiness of the title track—which, like a few other songs on Insides, replicates certain elements of dubstep admirably (the shuddering physicality of bass-tones against steely rhythms, for instance). “Color Eye” and “Vessel” even advance the onerously-named subgenre known as IDM in an interesting fashion—no small feat, that. Evocative but open-ended, Insides should be able to provide something of a life-soundtrack to most modern lifeforms. (M.L. Thrope)

Everybody’s favorite band-with-a-slash-in-its-name follows up Love Is Simple with another spectacularly eclectic offering that flits from screaming brass (somewhere between Balkan marching band and avant-garde improv with African flavors) to lo-fi piano-plus-vocals—and that’s just on one song, “Gravelly Mountains of the Moon.” Elsewhere on Set ‘em Wild, Set ‘em Free there’s some harmonica so raw even Dylan might be taken aback, some chants so primal I expected spirits to appear, songs that sound done that then kick back in again, and so many bone-rattling crescendos that Akron/Family could’ve named the album Thirteen Ways of Recycling Ravel’s Bolero. Its ramshackle beauty is unparalleled by anything else in indie rock. (Steve)

Thee Oh Sees on In the Red: In this age of suffering and unenlightenment, finally, something just plain makes sense. John Dwyer & Co.’s latest follows in the style of their lastest, The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Leaving Your Panties In—at least we think that was the title. Regardless, Help has an easier name and every last micron of the same echoey, reverby quasi-mod rawk thrills, from outright garage-punk (“Meat Step Lively”) to more canonistic turns on rock’s past (“A Flag in the Court” could be 1962’s best single). The boy-girl vocal interplay between Dwyer and Brigid Dawson is about the best you’ll hear in rock music—they go together way better than cameras and phones. Like an American Billy Childish (not just in thee name, either) but way more versatile, Dwyer is a national hero and if you don’t have Help, then you don’t like rock music. Says me, that’s who. (M.L. Thrope)

A Broken Consort is one of several pseudonyms employed by U.K. artist Richard Skelton, who operates the Sustain-Release imprint, which issues music and other artisanal works that (in the accurate words of The Wire) trace out a “pastoral psychogeography” of Skelton’s Lancashire stomping grounds. Like much of Skelton’s work (apparently/presumably), Box of Birch is a swirl of memory—faded, reclaimed, half-imagined—and evocative vibrations that at least partly concern the loss of his wife, Louise, who passed away in 2004 and to whom this recording of dreamy mysticism is dedicated. Working alone, Skelton blends moods and sounds nimbly: violin streams in multiple-helix patterns with acoustic guitar, subliminal percussion and an unbounded tonal palette. Fans of Godspeed and comparable acts will find much to love in these four long pieces. (M.L. Thrope)

Though a look at Tara Jane O’Neil’s musical history reveals that she’s spent time in the taut post-rock band Rodan, most of her solo music has been textured and low-key—songs whose emotions sneak up on you unexpectedly, to impressive effect. A Ways Away is her first full-length for K, and a feeling of renewal suffuses the album as a whole. O’Neil’s sense of atmospherics here encompasses an ambient pop texture that recalls Yo La Tengo at their most nocturnal, as well as Bill Frisell’s forays into Americana. Vocally brighter than on previous albums, O’Neil also works in a British folk influence on a number of the songs, contributing to A Ways Away being as immersive as anything she has made. It’s an unexpectedly welcome evolution from a musician whose work rarely disappoints. (Toby)

Hailing from Baltimore, the mid-Atlantic’s unlikely cultural locus, Weekends have unleashed an essential CD-r of summer jams for both the all-ages set and the bitter, curmudgeonly thirty-something psych nerds. Comprising just guitar and drums, Weekends traffic in fuzzed out psych-punk that’s lean enough to fit into your sister’s jeans without sacrificing any lysergic texture. Vocals are echoed and distorted rendering language meaningless, and reminding us of a mellower, more tuneful Lightning Bolt. Weekends have successfully trimmed the fat off of modern indie-psych without losing any of its flavor. Highly recommended. (Jeff)

Can I just tell you? I have had it up to here (here, see?) with the new wave of ambient. It’s all pretty, yes . . . pretty lazy. It is the one subgenre of music where so-called artists feel most free not to build on what’s been done before. So imagine the warm surprise felt upon hearing Mokira’s fairly sublime Persona, which, after a good headphone listen, reveals itself to be not so much ambient anyway and rather a well-pitched return to the dubby, evocative, mainly beatless sub-techno sounds emanating from Europe with more frequency at the turn of the century (Gas and Pole are good referents). And finally, a peak around the Internetting shows that Mokira is in fact one Andreas Tilliander, a techno-versatile Swedish chap of wrist-flick virtuosity for more than a decade. Extra lush and nodding more than once to psych magi Spacemen 3, Persona will be a deeply satisfying listen for those feeling a bit Krank-ed out. (M.L. Thrope)