Even at a time when the perfect three-minute single is the most commonly-traded currency for shuffle-enabled listening, there's still something wildly satisfying about long-form pop music. When a band makes room to stretch and allow for sonic exploration -- not to mention, say, a B-section, or even a second chorus -- those songs can feel like fully-formed statements capable of transporting the listener somewhere else. Cue Adult Jazz, a band that has a way of making expansive, otherworldly sounds with very little.

On it's recently-released record, Gist Is, the deceivingly-named Leeds quartet crafts minimal, yet headphones-rich layers -- lovely and clanging guitar lines, horn lines, droning keyboards, intricately syncopated percussion -- full of precisely-timed starts and stops and experimental tangents. Its blend of prog and post rock, electronics -- and maybe even a touch of jazz -- serves as an instrumental bed for vocalist Harry Burgess' voice which can glide high into a choir boy falsetto that recalls James Blake or Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, or rumble in a soulful low register. It all adds up to some of the most thoughtfully composed and unique music this year.