REM – Collapse Into Now
For anyone wondering what Michael Stipe wants after all these years, Stipe has chosen R.E.M.’s 15th album as the place to run down his wish list. “I want Whitman proud!” he declares in the superb finale, “Blue.” “I want Patti Lee proud,” meaning old friend Patti Smith, who’s there in the studio making gorgeously guttural noises. “I want my brothers proud,” probably meaning Peter Buck and Mike Mills, who cut loose with a country-feedback guitar groove. “I want my sisters proud! I want me! I want it all! I want sensational, irresistible! This is my time, and I am thrilled to be alive!” And he sounds it. Read the full review on Rolling Stone

Jonny Greenwood – Norwegian Wood Original Soundtrack
Greenwood (formally noted for such scores as There Will be Blood) approaches the score with the same sincerity that Murakami writes with; there seems to be a genuine respect and appreciation among both Greenwood and Murakami, particularly heard on ‘And I’ll Come and See’, and it is beyond speculation to say either were informed in the participation of the other, but it is a complementary and successful partnership nonetheless. As the film follows Toru Watanabe through his nostalgic freshman university days, developing relationships with Naoko, a beautiful yet emotionally troubled women, and lively and outgoing Midori, the score evokes these themes of alienation and loneliness that Murakami plays with by the minimal instrumentation and obvious sorrow within most pieces that Greenwood creates. Murakami always seems to gamble with this idea of ‘spiritual emptiness’ within his generation and how, what he believes to be an apathetic and ‘weak-willed’ protest feeds into the work-dominated culture of Japan and its dehumanization of its people. Read the Full Review at Sound on Sight

Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
“On tour, Lord of the Flies. Aw, hey kids, what’s a guuuii-taaaaar?” So begins the sharply titled “On Tour”, a spacious, diary-like explosion nestled just a few minutes into Smoke Ring for My Halo, Kurt Vile’s fourth and finest full-length to date. Strings buzz, strummed patterns double back on themselves and from up above it all, the Philadelphia-native showers everything with cosmic, harp-like harmonics. It’s a song that’s both monastic and vast all at once, the kind of curiously rich work that seems like it was crafted by forty longhairs instead of just one. But Vile has gone great lengths in answering his own question in recent years, finding a way to distill thousands of hours spent with classic American guitar music into one very singular and sublime vision. Whether he’s channeling the energies of John Fahey or Tom Petty or even Bob Seger, Smoke Ring makes clear that the end result is his alone. Read the review on Pitchfork