Domino Vinilo y CD

Review: Defeat is a 22-minute new mega-single by Animal Collective, who by now should need no introduction (but for the rookies, we'll indulge one anyway) as the paradigm-breaking experimental pop band and formed in 1999. 'Defeat' is divided into two parts. The first is a beatless, coming-of-age pop seance, spanning surreal harmonia, whirling organelles and beatless spirallings, lyrically centring on the theme of overcoming adolescence. Part two is far darker, concerning the implicit alienation of a mother restlessly searching for her daughter in a lost dystopia, while horrific, tremolo'ing cellos play out in bad-trip horror flick fashion. Recorded with producer Russell Elevado, violinist Samara Lubelski, cellist Leila Bordreuil, and saxophonist Ben Chapoteau-Katz, it's certain to sate fans of the Collective, who remain committed to an ever-chameleonic bravado.

Review: Seven years after he gave us the spectacularly beautiful Asleep Versions, Jon Hopkins presents four minimal piano stunners to help us return to those half-awake moments of absolute bliss. The bit before the dark in the back of your eyes turns red and you realise it's going to be another 12 hours or so before you're climbing back into the sack and returning to a place where, let's face it, most of us are pretty happy.

In terms of the music itself, this is Hopkins and therefore you know the score in terms of vision. Opening on the tranquility of 'Heron', which sounds as though it was recorded by a lakeside in southern England complete with wildlife on tape, from here things only get more intoxicating, until the delicate pitter pattered notes of 'Wintergreen' close us out on a subtle but moving air.