These albums are definitely not new, but I only recently discovered them.
They are each highly recommended. This is why:
I don't know how Sleepytime Gorilla Museum does it, but "Of Natural History" is absolutely awesome! The band is known for using homemade instruments, and they are often described as avant-garde metal. However, they experiment in a variety of genres: some in this album are prog, country, post-metal, IDM, and funk. Their sound is really heavy, and they include a good amount of growling. This is definitely one of the better avant-metal albums of late, though.
"Planet Drum" is a really fabulous album that experiments with different drums and percussion. It was recommended to me in my "Drum-Only" thread the other day. It's a world album, but it has a sort of otherworldly feel. Mickey Hart collaborated with many different percussionists around the world; In case you don't know who Mickey Hart is, he used to be a member of the Grateful Dead.
I actually did not listen to all of "2032", but everything I have heard from it is really, really great! Particularly, I loved "How To Stay Alive": I have been looking for more intelligent, experimental rap lately, and this really did it for me!
"The Book Of Heads" is now one of my favorite albums by John Zorn, and I changed it to be my profile picture here on Prog Archives. It is really just a collection of 35 etudes for solo guitar, recorded and released in 1995, and featuring Marc Ribot. Recently, it is has been gaining a lot of attention... That's why I decided to give it a listen, and boy was I amazed! In terms of innovation, John Zorn did a lot here: I'm not going to spoil the album; Listen to this gem for yourself!
These albums are going to go down in time as some of my favorites. I really hope you enjoy as much as I did, and be sure to leave a vote: Which one left the greatest impression on you?
(I'm undecided)