released in June 2009, four months after Ovals and Emeralds, and marked the start of a new sound and era, embracing vocals, hip-hop beats, folk and pop song structures, and funk/soul guitars. Wilkinson regarded it as "another debut album" and recalled recording the album during "difficult years, having a degree that meant nothing to the world around me... being in my mid 20s and not knowing where I was heading in life in a town with little opportunity," and was uncertain whether people would enjoy its variety. Ambivalence Avenue was met with largely favorable reviews, with Tiny Mix Tapes describing it as his "most creative and penetrating release yet" and Pitchfork ranking it as the 33rd best album of 2009, stating "it's shocking how utterly and successfully he rewrites his playbook." Some reviewers were more critical, with Drowned in Sound claiming "Bibio’s tendency... to either smooth the edges of his creations into non-threatening abstraction or fail to zone in on his best ideas is frustrating." Companion release The Apple and the Tooth followed shortly after in November 2009, his fourth major release of the year, featuring four new songs and eight remixes of tracks from Ambivalence Avenue. The original tracks were described as "expert, full of electronic papier-mache layers of arpeggiated guitars, glitchy drum patterns and joyful percussive samples," by The Guardian. In some publications, it is referred to as Bibio's fifth album due to its length. Mind Bokeh and Silver Wilkinson (2011–2014) Bibio's next studio album, Mind Bokeh, was released on 29 March 2011 in the US and 4 April in the UK, promoted by the single "Excuses" in February 2011. It continued the sound of Ambivalence Avenue with more mixing of genres, including forays into power pop on "Take Off Your Shirt" and microhouse on "Saint Christopher". Wilkinson described the album as having a "balance of the familiar and the non-familiar." Mind Bokeh was met with mixed reviews. Clash ranked Mind Bokeh the 24th best album of 2011, and Slant praised the album for being "fluid and formless, committing to pop structure and melodies one moment only to eschew them the next, often all within the same track", while Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "an ugly stepchild of a record, neither diverting enough to work as pop nor novel enough to satisfy as pure electronic music," and XLR8R felt the LP had "a less than desirable success