Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form.

Review: Heavy duty stuff in all senses, The Residents channelled feeling following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US into this three-part concept album. Divided into 'Loss', 'Denial', and, finally, 'The Three Metaphors'. It's as powerful a listen now as it was back in 2002, when it landed on the ears of art rockers and others shellshocked by one of the most significant political events of the post-Cold War period. While there's always been a melancholy to The Residents, this is particularly audible here, although it's delivered through fascinating juxtapositions - the 1980s funk-esque of 'Wolverines', the Parisian pop of 'The Weatherman', the eerie soundscapes on 'Ghost Child', the Broadway balladry of 'The Car Thief'. A fantastic, dense listening experience, which is only elevated by the true meaning and message.

Review: The self-described "world's most famous unknown anonymous art-concept multimedia pop group" return with one of their most expansive, daring, absurd and bad taste visions to date. Doctor Dark is a project over two years in the making while the concept has been in inception for decades with its overarching theatrical narrative inspired by the real life case of James Vance, the young man from Reno, Nevada who tried to commit suicide with a shotgun in 1985 after listening to Judas Priest and the subsequent unsuccessful, infamous 1990 court case that followed. Combining this with the life of the real "Doctor Death" - Jack Kevorkian; the Armenian-American pathologist and proponent of physician-assisted euthanasia, said to have assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998, you get the culmination of an orchestra-backed punk-opera written in collaboration with co-producer/conductor Edwin Outwater and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Detailed as "a journey into the greasy world of euthanasia, drug abuse and an unhealthy obsession with heavy metal", revolving around "a couple of heavy metal kids (Maggot and Mark) and an insomniac Russian physician (Dr. Anastasia Dark)", the three-act modern theatre piece offers a head-melting sonic concoction of abrasive art-punk stylings emboldened by complex brass and horn work, with a deft balancing act of chaotic yet controlled punk and classical arrangements. With both CD and vinyl versions including a "read-along libretto", with listeners encouraged to read as they listen to the album, as well as a stage adaptation apparently in the works to follow upcoming live tour dates, this just might be The Residents' piece de resistance of avant-garde art-punk multimedia absurdity.

Review: Finish dub techno powerhouse Joachim Spieth welcomes UK artist Rhubiqs to his well-regarded Affin label for a debut appearance that sinks you into a widescreen world of ambient lushness. His Aegis of Silence album takes cues from divergent sounds like post-rock and soft ambient as well as drone and even modern classical. It's an ever-shifting soundscape with smeared pads and nostalgia dreams, half-remembered thoughts and a sense of mood that ranges from escapist and blissed out to more ominous and paranoid.

Review: Marlene Ribeiro's cult status has already guaranteed copies of this will be flying out faster than you can say "first album under own name after years as Negra Branca, a member of GNOD, and collaborations with luminaries from Valentina Magaletti to Thurston Moore". And her first offering as herself, as it were, rockets straight to the pinnacle of career highs to date, a record that's so full of ideas yet consistent and complete.

Produced between Ireland, Portugal, Madeira and Salford, partly inspired by Ribeiro's grandmother, Emilia, introducing her to the concept of "recording things, here and there". The result is this incredible combination of hallucinatory dream pop, found notes and captured moments, resulting in a vivid tapestry of hook-laden songs that are meditative yet catchy, late-night but bright and breezy.

Review: Surprisingly, Arthur Russell's first posthumous collection of music, 1993's Another Thought, has never before been released on vinyl. With this gatefold double-album, Be With Records has finally set the record straight. It's well worth picking up, not least because the set, which was initially put together after raiding the legendary cellist-turned-producer's archive of unreleased recordings, is little less than superb. Full of hard-to-pigeonhole songs in Russell's unique style - effects-laden blends of cello, acoustic guitar, emotive vocals, twangy double bass and so on - Another Thought contains some of Russell's most refined and emotional recordings, including such classics as 'How We Walk on the Moon' and 'In The Light of a Miracle'.

Review: Those with an intricate knowledge of the sadly cut-short career of the late, great New York experimentalist and leftfield disco specialist Arthur Russell will happily tell you that his most celebrated solo album, World of Echo, was not only developed over several years, but also utilised edited and chopped-up recordings of shows he performed in his home city in 1984 and '85. This release presents both of those performances in full, with Russell - performing songs to his own effects-laden cello motifs and little else - delivering sparse (but effortlessly emotive) early versions and 'sketches'. These are a mix of lesser-known songs and familiar favourites, including a haunting take on 'Let's Go Swimming', a medley of 'Hiding Your Present From You/School Bell', and the inspired 'Sunlit Water'.