Honestly, you probably already know if you like Tomorrow’s Harvest, the new album from Scottish brother-duo Boards of Canada. That’s partly a testament to the band’s towering previous achievements—they frequently disappear for years between releases, only to suddenly put out music that ends up near the top of every year-end list.

Back at the tail end of 1980s Britain, things were getting loose. As the vise-like grip of Thatcherism tightened, the cultural reaction was antithetical: tent-sized flares, mind-altering chemicals, all-night raves, and skinny Manchester dudes with bowl cuts were all in vogue.

Dungeonesse finds Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner exploring some alternatives to guitar-driven indie-rock, teaming up with Jon Ehrens to craft some ‘80s and ‘90s flavored R&B, served pretty much straight-up.

Los Angeles-based master of synth, Jonathan Bates, has spent the past decade basically perfecting experimental pop with his band Mellowdrone.

Gauzy industrial pop laced with remnants of early ‘90s shoegaze, Ministry of Love is a surreal window into the world of Los Angeles group IO Echo.

Listening to a Dirty Beaches album is the aural equivalent of bloodletting.

The title of The Fiery Furnaces singer/songwriter Eleanor Friedberger’s second solo record could be read as a sly wink. Her 2011 debut, Last Summer, was the true Personal Record.

“I’ve been keeping my, keeping myself from you/Hoping you, hoping you just come to.” Such are the softly uttered lyrics that kick off Small Black’s second album, Limits of Desire, another exercise in ‘80s-tinged dream-pop after 2010’s debut, New Chain.

Typically, Tracyanne Campbell writes Camera Obscura’s lyrics from an omniscient narrator’s perspective, but even when she gets more personal, there’s still a bit of a guarded tone at play.