SML rattles and clatters, following slap-dash, stutter-and-roll rhythms through rave-glowing forests of incandescent synths. The personnel comes from jazz, more or less, but you can hear bits of ambient chill-out, early aughts EDM, hip hop, house and free improvisation. Slashing, bumping, “Take Out the Trash” runs on a noir-ish bassline, a bit of David Axelrod’s cinematics or Death in Vegas’ ominous dance grooves in its cowbell clanging, horn-bursting swagger.

Nicola Alesini & Pier Luigi Andreoni’s 1996 ‘ambient-word record’ Marco Polo. Vine-like, lush and minimal, layered and discreet, with assists from Japan’s David Sylvian (vocals), Pierrot Lunaire’s Arturo Stalteri (bouzouki, harmonium), Roger Eno (keyboards, percussion, vocals), David Torn (guitar), and Harold Budd (percussion). Fourth world, indeed.

A mosaic of romance and sorrow, Hats evokes a liminal metropolis bathed in the amber glow of sodium-vapor street lamps, where lonely souls wander down moonlit alleyways in search of something that has already left them long ago.

Kai Slater dons the velvet flares once again for this superlative dose of psychedelic 1960s pop, spun out on electric 12-string and recorded in a dazey cloud of lo-fi fuzz. This is the second LP this year for Sharp Pins following this spring’s Radio DDR, and Slater was also a big part of Lifeguards’ post-punk Ripped and Torn, as well.Never mind. The youth of Chicago have a lot in the tank. There’s not a bad song on the disc, and there are 21 of them in all. Impressive.

Some records feel impossible to write about. Not because they lack substance, but because they possess too much of it: too much quiet, too much space, too much mystery. They resist language the way water resists a net.

The third album from pianist/singer Nathan Phillips’ Big Bend project blends experimental methods with time-tested tradition. Working with avant-jazz master Shahzad Ismaily and a varied ensemble including Jen Powers of Rolin/Powers Duo and violinist Zosha Warpeha, Phillips transforms delicate folk songs into strange collages and elliptical ballads.

Like many notable Brazilian musicians before him, Sessa straddles continents and cultures, having launched his career in the U.S., but calling São Paulo home (again). We recently up with Sessa to discuss the way Pequena Vertigem de Amor sounds different from his previous albums, from the instrumentation to the vocals and may be his best album yet.

The music winds sinuously, like a river in deep, humid tropics. In six tracks which blend seamlessly into one musical entity, this pivotal collaboration from Brian Eno and Jon Hassell explores a mystical, minimalist music, tinted by Southern Hemisphere sounds but also incorporating 20th century electronics. The cuts move slowly but insistently, a sensuous wiggle in their syncopation.