Favorites of 2011

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Despite many of us having differing tastes in our favorites, we came together with a top-20 summation of our separate lists from Alisa Rodriguez, Brandon Greter, myself, M@, and Tyler Chambers. Consider this list a guide to our all-encompassing highlights of the year, and enjoy!


20. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)
From the ruins of rap-metal, Dope Body have shown that there's no reason you can't improve on your source material. With an outstanding drummer, a guitarist the love-child of Tom Morello and Arto Lindsay, and a barking bro-tastic drill-sergeant lead singer who rarely keeps his shirt on, Dope Body are too weird for the frat, and too cool for the schooled. --M@


19. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Mexican Summer/Software)
Replica seems to be the first piece of Daniel Lopatin's work to polarize, though is also the first to distance his Oneohtrix Point Never project from just about any other synth-rekindling artist today with a beautiful, haunting, and bewildering crossbreed of kosmische and plunderphonics. --Carter Mullin


18. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It's not surprising that Givers' debut name-checks Talking Head's classic Remain In Light, considering its make-up: three vocalists, short-circuit guitar playing, and a skewed Afro-beat sensibility. Givers' infectiously upbeat album was has broad, full-band widescreen feel refreshingly different than the cloistered bedroom pop of recent years. --M@


17. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon)
I've been a huge fan of John Maus' since 2009. It was understandable to see people ripping on him for making weird synth pop and singing songs about having sex on top of cars. Personally this is not my favorite release from him but I think he still does a fine job at making haunting and catchy synth driven tunes. It's still a little weird how everyone is in love with him now but it's about goddamn time. --Alisa Rodriguez


16. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Who knew raw noise could be so danceable? Like Holy Fuck led by a schizophrenic karaoke robot, or Black Dice congealing into a fragrant new concrète, this band occupies a uniquely disorienting space between cold, harsh electronics and pulsating human junk. --M@


15. Death Grips - Exmilitary (Third Worlds)
The cunning Death Grips gang are to be credited for defying hip-hop stereotypes to boundary-pushing heights. With subject matter regarding obsessions with drugs and sex, references to Minutemen and Sonic Youth, and becoming your inner demons, Exmilitary conjures noise-rap reckless abandon backed by abusive and intricately designed beats. --Carter Mullin


14. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
I have a tendency to underrate "pop" music (with the notable exception of UMO, below), and it's hard to say exactly why; is it because nowadays albums seem singles-based, or because I lack the attention span to enjoy an entire album of "pop" music? For whatever reason, this classic twin-guitar/drums/bass lineup captivated me from the start, and reaffirmed my love of albums made up of well-crafted, singable, danceable, enjoyable music. --M@


13. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (4AD)
At a time when pop music seemed boring and dull, this band came out head first with a creative punch in the face! Loved by 'indie kids', bloggers, soccer moms, and music haters everywhere. --Brandon Greter


12. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
Real Estate make it sound easy-- almost *too* easy, but that's sort of the point. It wouldn't work so well if the band wasn't so self-aware-- as singer Martin Courtney sings on "Green Aisles": "those endless drives down green aisles/our careless lifestyle/it was not so unwise." Beneath all the sunny jangle there's a real melancholy for a youth that's either fading away, or-- sadder still-- already gone. --M@



11. Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group)
How Apollo Brown managed to make it all sound so simple, yet so god damn effective from start to finish I still don’t know. Holding a simplistic approach in hip-hop has for a long time meant a stripping of creditable, artistic merit. Apollo Brown comes out on Clouds with every gun loaded, drum-machine and sampler in hand, with 27 loop-based project beats, guided by whirling cosmic-lite synthesizers and sentimental orchestral samples, that simply don’t miss a beat. If a consistent lyrical flow is what makes a good MCee great, then the same is true for an instrumental hip-hop artist consistently delivering quality beats. --Tyler Chambers


10. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
Hip-hop has blossomed and ventured into daring realms in 2011, and none more cerebral than Shabazz Palaces' particular journey. Referencing his days in Digable Planets and lamenting the decline in quality of the genre he's long championed, Ishmael Butler voices poignant commentary on our current musical state while Tendai Maraire transmits the message through an abstract, metaphysical, and cosmic lens of production. --Carter Mullin


9. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
I heard this album described brilliantly as "the sound of Tears for Fears turning themselves inside out." A wonderful example of how a band can embody and combine their influences while at the same time being entirely and inimitably themselves. --M@



8. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss/Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
A I A feels like an odd step for Liz Harris. Contrasting the clarity that graced 2008's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, this double-LP submerses the scope of her pattern-developing songs through the obscuring murk of Wide or Way Their Crept. Grouper has struck a perfect medium through this coupling of old and new visages, though, as Harris' austere voice is blanketed by her fervent guitar melodies. Dream Loss wanders into malaise, whereas its successor, Alien Observer, is tangibly comforting. --Carter Mullin


7. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
A lot of people seemed to be upset when Tyondai Braxton left Battles. After all, he was the lead vocalist but he was certainly not the focal point of the band. With Gloss Drop, Ian Williams, Dave Konopka, and John Stanier managed to make the most energetic and outstanding record of their music careers. Almost every other track features a guest vocalist who adds an extra twist on the vibrant instrumentals. One of the highlights is Blonde Redhead's singer Kazu Makino's vocals on "Sweetie & Shag", which could be considered as the first pop song Battles has undoubtedly perfected. "Sundome" is the mind-blowing finale that features vocalist Yamatanka Eye from Boredoms, howling gibberish onto a layer of cheesy 80s synths and a pulsating drum beat. I wouldn't call this album a sequel to Mirrored but more of a step up from their dark, post rock sound. It's Battles without chipmunks. --Alisa Rodriguez


6. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
Generally speaking, I would anticipate my noise rock album of the year to explode with detail, but Doomsday Student's execution remains straight and narrow throughout A Jumper's Handbook, with piercing guitar leads, pummeling drum assault, and vulgar ramblings; nothing I could expect more from the men once behind Arab on Radar. --Carter Mullin


5. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
There’s a scene in The Pianist where Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist in hiding during World War II, is caught by a German officer. In the swollen tapestry of a run-down slum consists a piano, and soon after Szpilman is caught, he’s asked by the officer to play a piece on it. It’s an engrossing, utterly haunting piece, and every time I put on An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, I’m echoed of its memory. Szpilman’s condition is devastating and his ballad is somber, yet there’s a ghostly beauty to it all; a man on his last leg, with all circumstance against him, releasing such a delicate elegance through the keys of music. The Caretaker created an entire album of such quality, ultimately rivaling any ambient release I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. It’s entrancing, emotional, and timeless music that anyone with two ears and a pumping heart can get completely lost in. --Tyler Chambers


4. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Four years after In Rainbows, one of the most reliable acts in rock music unveil The King of Limbs, an opus with not a single "Bodysnatcher" in sight and almost devoid of rock essentials. Radiohead pursue an unforeseen procedure of songwriting, basing Thom Yorke's sprawling croons over meticulously looped cadences. As another chapter in the discography should do, The King of Limbs continues to define the spirit of Radiohead while baffling devotees all the same. Considering the fluctuating accompaniment of "Bloom" and "Little By Little" the band feels so incredibly comfortable in this state that it seems effortless, spawning anxiety for forthcoming efforts despite the album's final words. --Carter Mullin


3. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
In many ways Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance pop sequel to Gas' Pop. The way the album takes lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones is astounding. Its subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether or not it's coming from your own backyard, creates the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. The Field's Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key, though replace the deeper low-ends and nature samples of Pop with thicker beats and subtle vocals samples. Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to be a rewarding listen, as subtle complexities and woven grooves are distinguished in given time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is real trance, not that it fits the particular genre, but the very essence, the very definition of the word. --Tyler Chambers


2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Their debut manages to be irresistibly funky, weird, ramshackle and consistently fun with every listen. The name's a hint at the sound; like a golem cobbled together with old 45s, UMO is both warmly familiar and utterly strange. --M@


1. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Grooms debuted two years ago with Rejoicer, a vivid snapshot of seminal acts that peaked before the turn of the millennium, from Sonic Youth to Polvo. And though Prom is deeply rooted in nostalgia, the band exhibits its darker facets-- times of insecurity and angst. It's gnashing and visceral but equally colored by beauty and grace; frontman Travis Johnson puts it best before "Aisha"'s tense close: "These are my primitive feelings on sophisticated dealings." --Carter Mullin

Favorites of 2011: Tyler's Selections

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Honorable Mentions:

AraabMuzik - Electronic Dream (Duke)

Destroyer - Kaputt (Merge)
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)

Mastodon - The Hunter (Reprise)

The Midnight Eez - The Midnight Eez (All City)

SebastiAn - Total (Ed Banger)

The Stepkids - The Stepkids (Stones Throw)

Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine (Carpark)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)

Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning (Kscope)

25. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin’ (Columbia)
Raphael Saadiq is on a mission (whether he knows it or not) to supply the mainstream with the most universal music he can, through the only way he knows how; soul baby, soul. His relativist act could be dismissed as novelty, but Stone Rollin’ is proof Raphael is indeed the real deal. He’s a man of pure, raw talent; armed with a set of golden pipes, and an acute ear for sounds that would sound just as relevant 50 years ago as they do today. He rarely misses a beat on Stone Rollin’, and it's oh-so refreshing to see the mainstream taking notice of his flawless singles. Raphael is like a rain-check to pop music, because when all’s said and done, no matter how far you progress, no matter how high up the ladder you get, you can never forget where you came from. And that baby, is universal.


24. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon)
Soaring somewhere high above the clouds, John Maus gazes down upon the dampness the hidden land below. His songs are in many ways a deconstruction of pop music; an unfiltered, castaway collection of synth-pop crooners that sound neither here, nor there. Ideas of ‘80s-pop revivalism are irrelevant, for Maus’ songs don’t hit the same way the over-saturated indulgence of the day did. It’s sorrow music for the upbeat; catchy hooks and vintage instrumentation pull the listener into something deeper, something darker than what’s heard on the surface. Atmosphere is key here, as everything else fuels Maus’ eerie memory without an easy association.


23. Omar S - It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It (FXHE)
When I began compiling this year-end list, finals week was in full throttle. In the midst of the boiling pressure that was, during a lonesome night at an unholy hour, I began studying for my Algebra exam. It was going to be difficult test, despite any fluffy mental substitution that said otherwise. As time continued to tick, I began to set up; overwhelming Algebra text-book open, 12 clean sheets of college-rule notebook paper on side, and a finely sharpened pencil wielded. Amidst the sparkling workplace, something was missing… a soundtrack; noise, background, filler, something to keep this interesting, something to fill the void. Omar S and his misunderstood It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It immediately came to mind, after several respectable yet hesitant listens. I knew something was there, beneath the shaded lull of consistently challenging house. After a tireless night of dim-lit questions, equations, and solutions, Omar S cradled me into a mental state I hadn’t thought possible; a cinematic night of crunch-studying. It was motivation in numbers, guided by sunken textures, pulsating rhythms, and the utter audible aroma that oozes out of every pour of this album. Off the dance floor and into your mind; Omar is there waiting patiently around the corner.


22. Stendeck - Scintilla (Tympanik Audio)
How can an artist manage to spark such a wide array of noise? How can an artist manage to spin, twirl, flatten, and crease the spark into such varied templates of mood? How can an artist manage to control it all, as the seamless by-product of an ape-shit mad scientist with a heart of gold? Questions loom, Scintilla remains. It’s an album driven by its own impending doom, only to be swept gracefully by a starry cosmic force, with its feet stuck on the ground and mind high up in the air. In the process harsh magnets crash, light explodes into fragments, dusk-ridden beats flash a dizzy pattern, and as contraction is stretched, pulled, and released from its throbbing mount, one thought remains; there is beauty in chaos.

21. Andy Stott - We Stay Together (Modern Love)
If you’re ever attempting to come up with synonyms for the word “Dark”, skip the thesaurus, and look no further than We Stay Together. Glum, somber, arcane, deep, cryptic, abstruse, dismal, morbid, the list goes on. You’d have to be a burning pessimist, a raging sociopath, or a sore anti-socialist on a steady diet of low-grade soy milk to enjoy the sounds of such music, no? How about a suburban teenager at a crossroads, or a 30-something as life begins to regress. In other words, this is music that can be appreciated by anybody. All you need is a little adventure in your belly and an eye open enough to see conventions flipped upside down. And on this level, We Stay Together is a revelation.


20. Maybeshewill - I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone (Function)

Post-rock is a relatively fresh genre taking time into consideration, and like any genre, eventually pressure has been laid on the fundamental sound to strive for further over-zealous concept, creativity, and ambition. Call it natural evolution, but as we’ve seen in the past decade, less and less “groundbreaking” post-rock albums have been released, which ultimately begs the question; how far can you take a genre? The answer lies within albums like I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone. Nothing here is the particularly awe-inspiring, sprawling, and climatic monsters of the late ‘90s / early ‘00s, though Maybeshewill aren’t out to drill away at past glory. Here they ground themselves on shorter structure and tighter arrangements, and as a result the band wastes absolutely no time in composing superbly effective little nugget anthems. The instrumentation is flawless throughout; whimsical orchestral tones in constant heat with grinding piano lines and escalating percussion, balancing a fine line between erratic and calm sentiment. It’s why no other post-rock album this year was better, and it’s why the genre will continue to strive long into the future.


19. DJ Rashad - Just A Taste Vol. 1 (Ghettophiles)
While Clams Casino was spotlighting atmosphere, BADBADNOTGOOD were creatively fusing jazz and hip-hop, and AraabMuzik was dipping beats in gooey trance, DJ Rashad reimaged bass-drilling juke in what was easily the most overlooked instrumental hip-hop album of the year. While it’s a tougher pill to swallow than the aforementioned acclaim, Rashad was completely short changed this year after managing to seamlessly mix a unique formula of 70s soul samples, repetitive vocal blips, project-approved g-beats, and furious low-end proficiency. Just A Taste is the perfect merger of soulful ecstasy and gangsta prowess, Rashad tipping his cup of hypnotic plunderphonics somewhere distant to those willing to take the first sip.


18. Irrelevant - I’ll Be OK (Kokeshi)

Slowly swaying in the view past your soaking window wipers, a hooded figure looms in the dead of night. You’re in a make-shift downtown of rotting lofts and smoky sewer pipes, unable to tell if the figure you plant your fragmented scope on is there to help, or hurt you. I’ll Be OK recorded, looped, and played with emotions. Grave textures haunted long structured atmosphere, dissonant voices echoed in despair, rhythm was molded into a mood. Cold, bleak, haunting, beautiful, that was up to you, what wasn’t was the woven drones of unsettling melancholy drifting throughout the album that persuaded a simple gesture, how much can you take until your response to it all is just.


17. Zombi - Escape Velocity (Relapse)
Zombi are the epitome of a modern group embracing the vintage aesthetic to electronic music. In the land before time, there were pioneers such as Klaus Schulze, Ashra, and Tangerine Dream embracing their work around progressive rock’s electronic rational. Zombi compose the whirling electronic psychedelia of their ‘70s kraut-ancestry in a more controlled and simplistic linear pattern. Beyond just its primal sound, what really set Escape Velocity apart from other electronic releases this year was its unrivaled consistency and pacing, that any electronic musician, whether young, old, vintage, or future-forward, should take cues from.


16. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (Matador)
About a month ago, you couldn’t have convinced me this album would have made it on the list, absolutely not. It was long and those damn vocals were too abrasive. But oh was the guitar work just lovely, and hey it was pretty catchy too. After a chance revisit to David Comes To Life, nearly every negative I had embedded in me was replaced with positives. It’s a catchy, powerful, sprawling, and utterly magnificent album that manages to sound so coarse and raw, yet maintains its ambitious conceptual sprawl of a man and woman vs. the world. Though concept or not, Fucked Up managed to put out one of 2011’s most powerful musical statements.

15. Causa Sui - Pewt’r Sessions 1 (El Paraiso)
Pewt’r Sessions 1 breathes the same way a live album does. It sounds raw and untamed, yet there is structure and hold to the chaotic sandstorm that is Causa Sui. It very well could have been improvised, as there’s no doubting how high this band’s musicianship is. In reality, nobody jammed quite as hard as Causa Sui did this year; their post-rock leaning build-ups consistently gave goosebumps, for once they reached that shimmering gold-plated monolithic solo 40,000 feet above consciousness, there was no turning back. If this session is a testament of anything, it’s of a band with no foreseeable limits, whether it was a blazingly psychedelic solo or a reflective moment in the wind, Causa Sui were the chosen ones for those 46 minutes.


14. Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group)
How Apollo Brown managed to make it all sound so simple, yet so god damn effective from start to finish I still don’t know. Holding a simplistic approach in hip-hop has for a long time meant a stripping of creditable, artistic merit. Apollo Brown comes out on Clouds with every gun loaded, drum-machine and sampler in hand, with 27 loop-based project beats, guided by whirling cosmic-lite synthesizers and sentimental orchestral samples, that simply don’t miss a beat. If a consistent lyrical flow is what makes a good MCee great, then the same is true for an instrumental hip-hop artist consistently delivering quality beats.


13. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)

In many ways Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance pop sequel to Gas' Pop. The way the album takes lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones is astounding. Its subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether or not it's coming from your own backyard, creates the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. The Field's Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key, though replace the deeper low-ends and nature samples of Pop with thicker beats and subtle vocals samples. Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to be a rewarding listen, as subtle complexities and woven grooves are distinguished in given time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is real trance, not that it fits the particular genre, but the very essence, the very definition of the word.

12. The Weeknd - Thursday (Self-Released)

Thursday should be heard by all current and aspiring pop artists, as a reminder of how to get the job done. The opening two tracks embody a perfect balance of borderline commercial appeal and Abel’s signature broken-strobe, gorgeous R&B haunt. The rest digs in deeper and darker territory; smoky corridors of club ridden aftermath, parties where people with persona’s like his have never ventured. To just about any other contemporary artist, a second album within the span of a year would be a cheap victory lap from the success of the first, but that’s not the way Abel works, and Thursday is evidence he’s an artist first, entertainer second.

11. ArtOfficial - Vitamins & Minerals (Self-Released)

ArtOfficial create hip-hop that effortlessly exudes a level of confidence that was simply unmatched this year. Featuring multiple MCee’s and a complete live jazz band, their music is packed to the brim with saucy smooth jazz, catchy live beats, and more soul than voodoo night in east New Orleans. Being such a huge year for hip-hop, it’s appalling to see ArtOfficial remain so overlooked. It’s painful, it really is, because Vitamins & Minerals is the best hip-hop album of 2011, and not enough realize how good these guys really are.

10. Elder - Dead Roots Stirring (Meteor City)

Elder describe themselves as "a sonic interpretation of the forces that surround us; the pounding waves of ancient seas, the weight of stone colossi rising up from the earth and the endlessness of inflamed, majestic skies." Dead Roots Stirring proves their poetic self-description is truth. Elder's balance of doom-heavy bombast, bulky metal, and long, structured monoliths of massive, slow-burning charcoaled incense makes for what I can only call the best doom album of the year "The waves of ancient seas" act as the foundation in which their songs are layered upon, "the weight of stone colossi rising up from the earth" as the copious, blackened adrenaline of their massive guitar riffs, and "the endlessness of inflamed, majestic skies" as the mythic, earth-toned atmosphere signaled from their self-created, smoke filled sky above. Elder continue to push the limits of rock music, taking melodic heaviness to a completely new level of musicianship.


9. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Radiohead unfortunately have live up to an unholy amount of hype every time they release an album. This year we were treated with an album that seemingly came out of nowhere; enter The King of Limbs, arguably Radiohead's most challenging set of songs yet. Most of this frame lies within the first half of the album, where glitchy atmospheric rock and subtle dub electronics scatter the plot. For most, these are songs that won't click right away. However the second half is much mellower, trading the darker vibed textures for harmonic acoustics and vocal delays. I was first on the fence with The King of Limbs for a number of reasons; it's their shortest album by far, from a production stand-point easily is their most sunken, and it packs a lot of new modern influences with it. So it's not much of a surprise why this album is so polarized amongst fans. Although, The King of Limbs is Radiohead's most cohesive work to date; its hypnotic tone glides effortlessly from song to song. It took me 6 months to come to this conclusion, though most great albums have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. I always enjoyed it, but never to the extent I do now. And what's most striking of all is; after almost two decades, Radiohead are still a fresh and magnificant band who manage to record subtle, unique, and complex recordings to devote fans, and wide commercial audiences alike.


8. Submotion Orchestra - Finest Hour (Exceptional Blue)
Finest Hour is the sound of ethereal ships-in-a-bottle, once in the hands of humanity, now guided by the free flowing fate of nature’s whimsical embrace. Voice acts as a guide of the trumpet’s distant siren, and it’s a gracefully mellow journey to the very end. Cold resonating brass, sweeping orchestral tones, trembling, guttural low-end, and Ruby Wood’s lush vocal fragility escort the unrelenting beauty throughout. Taking all into consideration, it's a bold statement to call your debut album Finest Hour, though Submotion Orchestra demonstrate their point to a fine, glossy print with this piece of majestic finesse that may very well be their finest hour.


7. Rich Aucoin - We’re All Dying To Live (Sonic)
In the process of recording We’re All Dying To Live, Rich Aucoin compiled over 500 musicians, friends, and fans from across Canada. The album acts as a musical scrapbook of his trek to completion, sonically documenting where he’s been, who he’s met, and what’s happened to him along the way. Aucoin is an artist who on his debut album, sounds like he wants to start something new, something big, something universal. The evidence is all here; as it shouldn't take long to realize We're All Dying To Live isn't your typical indie rock album. His influences are clear; the climatic grandiose of fellow Canadians Arcade Fire and the infectious robotics of Daft Punk, though he translates them into a unique cohesion that bleeds throughout the album, as a splurge of genre-melting sonic’s mold into a completely thrilling and captivating hour of music.


6. Leyland Kirby - Eager To Tear Apart The Stars (History Always Favours The Winners)
Leyland Kirby's drowsy orchestrations of emotional unease and underlying drone eject a stark contrast between merciless beauty, and unforgiving hostility. Unrestrained delicacy, a soft haze of static electricity, gorgeous piano reflections, and frail murmurs of vaporized liquid succession harrow through the distressing climate that is Eager To Tear Apart The Stars. “We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of time. And there are but two means of escaping this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose." - Charles Baudelaire. There are those who will listen and hear pleasure background ambient music, and there are those who will listen closer, and hear mind-altering sonic perceptions of their own lives. Both are equally acceptable conclusions to come to after listening, it's simply a matter of finding out which side you're on. I found the latter, and as a result the album reached a level of emotional consciousness few have ever reached.


5. The Weeknd - House of Balloons (Self-Released)
There's something mysteriously appealing about Abel Tesfaye. His smooth, sensual, and haunting compositions of stripped down R&B, depicting bleak, black and white romanticism, reflects his shattered imagination on love and loss. Structure is thrown out, continually allowing itself enough time to properly express emotion, rather than fall victim to vacuum-packed reflections of tired ideas. His mix of dwelling phantasm with engaging, borderline commercial appeal is as heartfelt as it is fresh. As a result it’s not your typical R&B album, more a scatterbrain anticipation of where it's heading. Tesfaye is indeed the real deal, and with House of Balloons, he’s created the latest standard for R&B in the 21st century.


4. Swarms - Old Raves End (Lodubs)
“The only place I get hurt is out there. The world doesn’t give a shit about me.” Sorrow, regret, and pain; ideas that can be difficult to truly express through electronic music. The operator is human, with emotions and a pulse, the hardware is not; wired and cold, completely lifeless. A debate often sparks on whether or not emotions can be conveyed through synthesizers, drum-machines, and laptops. The answer lies within albums like Old Raves End. From start to finish, Swarms created a flawless emotional rollercoaster. The tone is often faint, as cloudy textures of atmospheric low-end, descending drones of fallen reflection, and ethereal rays of hope shine down on the foggy perspective below. Ultimately where Old Raves End succeeds most is taking the concept of cohesion to new levels; a shining example of how to translate a persistent, yet distinctive sound throughout an album on each and every single track.


3. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
Julianna Barwick is proof there is beauty in within the simplest of things. She takes a shockingly stripped down approach to ambient music, and by incorporating sunken choral drones, subtle acoustic delays, and her gorgeous looped siren, The Magic Place struck a deep emotional chord within me. It’s an almost unexplainable feeling, the feeling of being atmospherically one with your surroundings. Whether it was on the computer or a simple walk around the neighborhood, every time I listened, The Magic Place spoke a solemn, unforgiving message of peace; an ease of mind. Feeling was a memory, pain was an illusion, and no matter where I was or how I felt, I was consumed in her mysterious place of majesty.


2. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
There’s a scene in The Pianist where Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist in hiding during World War II, is caught by a German officer. In the swollen tapestry of a run-down slum consists a piano, and soon after Szpilman is caught, he’s asked by the officer to play a piece on it. It’s an engrossing, utterly haunting piece, and every time I put on An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, I’m echoed of its memory. Szpilman’s condition is devastating and his ballad is somber, yet there’s a ghostly beauty to it all; a man on his last leg, with all circumstance against him, releasing such a delicate elegance through the keys of music. The Caretaker created an entire album of such quality, ultimately rivaling any ambient release I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. It’s entrancing, emotional, and timeless music that anyone with two ears and a pumping heart can get completely lost in.


1. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Mute)
“I just turned 30 and I think it was the right time for me to go for it and try something like this … something I'd remember all my life." If there was one massive achievement this year in music, M83’s sprawling synth-pop epic was it. The album managed to bridge catchy pop-aesthetic in a seamless flow of unbridled ambition, making it a thunderous, unstoppable pop juggernaut. If the music here is a product M83’s urge to appeal to a wider audience, while continuing to grow increasingly more confident within his work, he succeeds in every way possible. But widening your sound doesn’t have to mean flaunting to the capital regression of artist merit, because whether it was a whirling synthesizer portrait, a mountainous percussive build-up, or a reflective pond of atmospheric adolescence, this was an album that journeyed into an ambitious scope of music’s many audible horizons. M83 dared to dream big, and in the process created a world of waning sorrow, irresistible pastoral finesse, and inspirational fireworks, exploding into an unrelenting sense of intimate nostalgia. It's my final catharsis for 2011, a place of peace only in dreams, yet despite it all this is a dream I refuse to wake up from.

Favorites of 2011: M@'s Selections

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Honorable Mentions:
Deaf Center - Owl Splinters (Type)
Marcus Fjellström - Schattenspieler (Miasmah)
Hella - Tripper (Sargent House)
KK Rampage - Crawlspace (Self-Released)
Kreng - Grimoire (Miasmah)
Liturgy - Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey)
Mr. Dream - Trash Hit (God Mode)
Satanized - Technical Virginity (Skin Graft)
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - The Tape Club (Polyvinyl)
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)


25. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)
From the ruins of rap-metal, Dope Body have shown that there's no reason you can't improve on your source material. With an outstanding drummer, a guitarist the love-child of Tom Morello and Arto Lindsay, and a barking bro-tastic drill-sergeant lead singer who rarely keeps his shirt on, Dope Body are too weird for the frat, and too cool for the schooled.


24. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It's not surprising that Givers' debut name-checks Talking Head's classic Remain In Light, considering its make-up: three vocalists, short-circuit guitar playing, and a skewed Afro-beat sensibility. Givers' infectiously upbeat album was has broad, full-band widescreen feel refreshingly different than the cloistered bedroom pop of recent years.


23. bbigpigg - Phantom Photography (Self-Released)
Okay, it's just an EP, but bbigpigg (along with Doomsday Student, The Men, White Suns, Dope Body, Satanized, et. al.) are an affirmation that despite the pull of chillwave's sun-kissed nostalgia, there is a rising tide of noise more indicative of the world as it is, not as we'd wish it to be.


22. White Denim - D (Downtown)
While a lot of credibility is placed in a band's "consistency," there's definitely something to be said for the band talented enough to pull off the kitchen-sink approach so effortlessly. With a second guitarist, White Denim embraced all its proggy tendencies, while still showing they can write the hell out of a damn good pop tune as well.


21. Braids - Native Speaker (Kanine)
Sure, this album is pretty shamelessly Animal Collective, circa Feels, but Braids take AC's modern shamanism into tougher territory: contemporary suburbia, and like Avey & co., they're able to capture all the strangeness and wonder of what it is to be human.


20. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
I'm not much of a hip-hop aficionado, but that further underscores Black Up's universal appeal: it's just that good. An *album* in its truest sense, the songs are amazing, the pacing is perfect, and it conjures a place unto itself.


19. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
A lot has been made of this album's cover and the way it was recorded, but moreover, to me, it's about what Hecker does best: makes gorgeous sentient drones that sound bigger than any set of speakers can reproduce.


18. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (4AD)
I was afraid that the lo-fi quirkiness of Merril Garbus' debut was part of its charm, but her follow-up showed that it had more to do with her amazingly elastic voice, great arrangements and smart songwriting. A political album without beating the listener over the head with it, Garbus questions gentrification, violence and sexuality without sacrificing a single song.


17. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
Speaking of reinvention, what does a band do when they lose one of their most recognizable members? In Battle's case, they made the smart move of hiring great collaborators-- among them, Gary Newman?! I didn't expect such a cerebral band to make such a goofy album, but it's living proof that Battles too just wanna have fun.


16. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
It may sound crazy to say, but you've gotta feel a little bit sorry for Radiohead. After the complete genius one-two punch of OK Computer and Kid A, everybody expects them to both: A. completely reinvent themselves; and B. make another masterpiece. Isn't consistency a great thing for such a long-lived band to have? Maybe Radiohead have set the bar too high for themselves, but overall, they're too consistent for us to take for granted.


15. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
Real Estate make it sound easy-- almost *too* easy, but that's sort of the point. It wouldn't work so well if the band wasn't so self-aware-- as singer Martin Courtney sings on "Green Aisles": "those endless drives down green aisles/our careless lifestyle/it was not so unwise." Beneath all the sunny jangle there's a real melancholy for a youth that's either fading away, or-- sadder still-- already gone.


14. The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
The Men's singer was seriously ill at the time of this recording, and it shows (in the best way possible). Careening from the shoegauzy opener to the immolating storms of "L.A.D.O.C.H." and "Bataille", this is the sound of a band coming apart at its seams. But, like any good punk-rock catharsis, there's redemption to be had here-- both exhausting and exhilarating, this album shows off the eternal power of youthful bile.


13. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
Better than any other album, this one best exemplifies "hauntology." Using old pre-war 78s, Leyland Kirby accentuates the surface qualities of the old vinyl-- the pops and scratches-- and gives us only the ghosts of the songs themselves. The songs endlessly loop fragments of hazily recollected tunes, and create something that's cozy familiarity is slowly eroded by the tension of their own trapped dementia.


12. TV Ghost - Mass Dream (In the Red)
TV Ghost's lead singer, Tim Gick, doesn't so much sing as he does *channel*. While Gick and co. are creators of the music's haunted-house paroxysms, he sounds less like a willing participant and more like a terrified bystander. But as their name and album title suggest, they're here to tell us that sleepwalking through what's real may be the scariest thing of all.


11. The Psychic Paramount - II (Thrill Jockey)
Like Liturgy's amazing track "Generation" (also from this year), no other band rocked a single chord so fully, so inventively and so completely. With the "post-rock" tag being applied to seemingly everything without vocals, here's an entirely instrumental band that could finally lop off that overused prefix and both reclaim and remake "rock" into something new and yes, utterly rocking.


10. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
I have a tendency to underrate "pop" music (with the notable exception of UMO, below), and it's hard to say exactly why; is it because nowadays albums seem singles-based, or because I lack the attention span to enjoy an entire album of "pop" music? For whatever reason, this classic twin-guitar/drums/bass lineup captivated me from the start, and reaffirmed my love of albums made up of well-crafted, singable, danceable, enjoyable music.


9. United Waters - Your First Ever River (Arbitrary Signs)
An album so organic sounding, you can scarcely believe anyone had to actually record it. An ambient album with actual hooks, but ones buried under others, rendering the entire experience nearly subliminal.


8. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
What if your favorite band came back after a near 10-year hiatus, and instead of sucking, in fact rocked harder than ever before? If it's not completely unprecedented, someone please email me both chapter and verse, as I'm still not entirely sure this recording is real.


7. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
In a day when looping technology has become commonplace, the fact that Colin Stetson built this album with a single saxophone and his breath is nothing short of heroic. And it *sounds* heroic; insectile clicks, deep, sonorous drones, shimmering ostinatos-- often all happening simultaneously while Stetson is *singing* through his instrument-- this is an entirely different breed of soul music.


6. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Who knew raw noise could be so danceable? Like Holy Fuck led by a schizophrenic karaoke robot, or Black Dice congealing into a fragrant new concrète, this band occupies a uniquely disorienting space between cold, harsh electronics and pulsating human junk.


5. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
I heard this album described brilliantly as "the sound of Tears for Fears turning themselves inside out." A wonderful example of how a band can embody and combine their influences while at the same time being entirely and inimitably themselves.



4. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss / Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
Not just one, but *two* amazing albums from Liz Harris; the first disc harkens back to her darker drone work, while the more redemptive second album capitalizes on the hushed hymnal grace of her more recent recordings.


3. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Their debut album was a favorite as well, but didn't prepare the listener for the depth and complexity of this follow up. A concept album with a subtly small 'c,' this group of songs perfectly captures the bittersweet confusion in bloom that is high school.


2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Their debut manages to be irresistibly funky, weird, ramshackle and consistently fun with every listen. The name's a hint at the sound; like a golem cobbled together with old 45s, UMO is both warmly familiar and utterly strange.


1. Amen Dunes - Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)
From the opening chords of "Baba Yaga", this album casts a spell that lasts its entire duration; it's a place, and its own transportation device, as every great album should be.