The 100 (and a bit) best albums of 2012 Part 2: 75-51

75. Matthew Bourne - Montauk Variations (Leaf)

A solo piano album of uncommon patience and grace - and a fascinating contrast with Bourne's  more untamed improvised ensemble work. There are hints of wildness here, not least in dedications to Cecil Taylor and John Zorn, and there is a preoccupation with sound as much as with harmony. Still, the predominant feeling is one of happy suspended animation, music where you can hear the musician's brain cells working their magic.

musicOMH review

74. Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II (Southern Lord)

A fascinating interview with Dylan Carlson in The Wire last year discussed the many virtues of War's Four Cornered Room, one of my favourite tracks whilst growing up and exploring my parents' record collection. That track is slow, serious and spacey, with a sense of creeping unease, building as much as humanly possible from essentially one chord and a few additional notes. It's easy to see the parallels with Earth's patient but menacing sound world, even though one might never have associated Carlson's heavy rock background with War. It's a rare example of a fascinating and helpful comparison. This second volume in the Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light series essentially offers more of the beautiful same, with Cellist Lori Goldston playing more of a key role. 

73. Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball (Columbia) 

Springsteen's response to the global financial crisis and its impact on ordinary Americans was not in the slightest bit subtle. It's hard to see how the fantasies about violent, murderous revenge on bankers really help anyone. Still, amidst the righteous anger, there was also a sprinkling of tenderness and the usual sense of resilience and hope. Land of Hope and Dreams had a stoical studio makeover, with a brilliant last blast from the much missed Clarence Clemons, whilst the title track is a moving, celebratory eulogy for the demolished Giants Stadium. Throughout, there's a love of Irish folk dance and a splash of the American storytelling model of the Seeger Sessions, all fused with the E Street Band's relentless and monolithic energy. As with most recent Springsteen albums, there are distracting production flourishes (particularly with occasionally intrusive programmed drums), and it all came together much better in concert (that horn section was an absolute masterstroke) - but resistance, as ever, is futile and, at its best, Wrecking Ball is the sound of a compelling American legend, still in thrall to the virtues of hard work, and still able to speak to working people as no other multi-millionaire celebrity could.

72. Neneh Cherry and The Thing - The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Supersound)

One of the year's most satisfying collaborations, and an album that threw Neneh Cherry out of her studio enhanced comfort zone right back to her freewheeling roots. It paid brilliant tribute to her father and had such raw, blistering spirit throughout. I was lucky enough to interview Neneh about this album earlier in the year, and she spoke articulately and enthusiastically about the 'lifesaving' force of the project.

musicOMH interview

71. How To Dress Well - Total Loss (Weird World)

Tom Krell's warped, haunted R&B proved to be an excellent vehicle for this examination of grief and loss. What could easily have been rendered sentimental turned out to be haunting and powerful, even if Krell's adoption of soul tropes can sometimes feel a little forced. Total Loss works well because there is such a personal, intimate feeling throughout that it feels like a primal, honest statement. Another successful feature is Krell's economical approach - nothing here is extraneous, and every effect is used for a real purpose.

70. Blues Control - Valley Tangents (Drag City) 

Valley Tangents is one of the year's strangest albums and it's hard to explain quite why it is so effective. It is resonant with strains of barroom jazz, albeit played with a fairly rudimentary grasp of technique and rhythm. It's mostly very imprecise music, but it is without doubt utterly riveting. It's  a peculiar, deceptive combination of raw rock and roll and improvised sketches that has a strong cumulative impact.

69. trioVD - Maze (Babel) 

Another brilliant rude awakening from the Leeds power trio, Maze is a significant advancement on their previous work both in terms of arrangement and in the fearsomely precise nature of its execution. This is music that bursts from the blocks with pulverising force and refuses to acquiesce.

musicOMH review

68. Holly Herndon - Movement (RVNG International) 

An increasingly common feature of experimental electronic music has been to explore and exploit the malleable nature of the human voice. Holly Herndon has made an album that does this quite brilliantly, avoiding some of the potential pitfalls of such a project. Movement never sounds academic or studied - instead, it is mostly thrilling and engaging music, in which the most human of sounds is suddenly rendered part of a detached, disconcerting machine sequence. 

67. Troyka - Moxxy (Edition)

Of the many lauded acts of London's contemporary jazz scene, Troyka are the band with which I've most struggled. I've seen them live several times and often come away feeling that I've wanted to enjoy the experience but have not quite been able to yield to it. The high level of musicianship in the group could hardly be in doubt - and all three musicians (Chris Montague, Kit Downes and Josh Blackmore) are among my favourite improvisers in other contexts. Yet there's always been something a little off-putting about Troyka's tricksy, attention deficit approach to composition. Sometimes I just wish the grooves would develop more before the next idea is introduced. Moxxy, however, has lead me to revise my opinion. Perhaps it's simply that it feels like a massive step forward from the debut - the writing is definitely stronger and the pieces feel more complete. There's more of a sense of breathing space and the music doesn't feel like it's constantly striving to dazzle or impress. Instead, this is actually a thrilling and genuinely exciting set - full of rhythmic invention and wizardry, but also benefiting from a more evolved sense of theme and development. They could yet become one of my favourite bands.

66. Zhenya Strigalev - Smiling Organizm Vol 1 (Whirlwind) 

Royal Academy of Music graduate Zhenya Strigalev has long been one of the true characters and prime movers of London's jazz scene, booking gigs and organising jam sessions at Charlie Wright's and performing regularly himself.  He has taken time to begin recording as a bandleader though - and this gestation has paid massive dividends. For Smiling Organizm Vol 1 (is there going to be a Vol 2?), he has assembled a transatlantic dream team of a band, including the idiosyncratic, brilliant pianist Liam Noble, two American bassists (Larry Grenadier on acoustic and Tim Lefevbre on electric), and the superb drummer Eric Harland, who purposefully matches dexterous technique with deep groove. Strigalev has a gift for bizarre juxtapositions, mixing the musical influences of his Russian heritage with contemporary asymmetry or burning post-bop vitriol. Strigalev's almost absurdist rapid fire improvising often seems to have only tangential connection to his themes (this feature came across even more strikingly in the astounding launch gigs for the album at Strigalev's natural home Charlie Wright's), but this is all part of the quirky, maniacal fun.

65. Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos (Warner) 

Donald Fagen returned with what must be, by his slothful standards, unusual haste. The Nightfly, Kamakiriad and Morph The Cat have been retrospectively grouped together in a trilogy, but it's hard to see how Sunken Condos represents much of a departure, either musically or conceptually. It's a brilliantly Donald Fagen-esque album, with generous sprinklings of his intellectual bent, hipster irony and brilliant horn charts.

musicOMH review

64. Cooly G - Playin' Me (Hyperdub) 

Signed to Hyperdub back in 2009, it's taken Merissa Campbell quite a while to get her debut album out there. The resulting music is actually quite some way from UK funky genre tropes, instead offering something much weirder and more intoxicating, with its stuttering guitar samples and string pads. Campbell's voice floats above it all with a curiously disconnected, ghostly quality. Perhaps strangest of all is the cover of Coldplay's Trouble, which finds a genuine tenderness in an otherwise sickly stadium ballad.

63. Jessie Ware - Devotion (Island) 

It's rare for me to find a major label-backed pop act that I like - Jessie Ware is such an artist. She is undoubtedly a natural talent, with a rich and powerful voice that creeps up on you but never smothers you with unnecessary virtuosity. Perhaps most importantly of all, she has worked with sensitive musicians and producers, including The Invisible's Dave Okumu, who have crafted clever, appropriate accompaniments for her superb songs, many of which are wonderfully infectious. This is a lush, genuinely soulful debut and it richly deserved its Mercury nomination. 

62. Sidi Toure - Koima (Thrill Jockey)

Malian musician Sidi Toure has been a quite brilliant and unexpected signing for Thrill Jockey, and has now produced two richly rewarding albums for the label. It's a natural development from the rustic, homely duets of its predecessor, with more fleshed out band arrangements recorded in a studio. Like much Malian music, it has a joyously hypnotic quality and a nimble, dancing feel even with very sparing use of percussion. It is an absolute delight from start to finish. I don't normally use this space to plug gigs - but it's worth mentioning that Sidi will be performing alongside the majestic Tamikrest and the amazing Bassekou Kouyate at the Barbican's Sahel Soul event in January, a surely unmissable concert.

61. Dice Factory - Dice Factory (Babel) 

Dice Factory is comprised of some of the London jazz scene's brightest individual talents -  saxophonist Tom Challenger, madcap pianist George Fogel, bassist Tom Farmer and the ever in-demand, multi-tasking drummer Jon Scott. The band are named in homage to Luke Rhinehart's classic novel The Dice Man, and the music explores the relationship between chance and structure in improvisation, inspired in equal parts by Vijay Iyer and Deerhoof. There's certainly a thoughtful, perhaps even intellectual quality to the music, but the group's fearless, well organised explorations are also bold and exciting. Dice Factory started life as a jam band, and even following a long period of development, that spotaneity is very much still present. There's also a real oddness to much of this music (particularly the angular, striking Gooch). As intricate and attacking as this music could be, the band often find moments of singular grace and lyricism, and striking dynamic contrasts abound.

60. Tindersticks - The Something Rain (Lucky Dog)

I wish I could claim to be a long-standing Tindersticks fan with a vast knowledge of their now substantial repertoire, but the truth is that they've been a band it's taken a long time for me to appreciate. I've tended to find Stuart Staples' deep, half-mumbled singing in the club style a little off-putting, even when I've enjoyed the delicate, fragile soul of their music. Although their personnel has changed, they still seem to release albums of dependable quality, and The Something Rain has encouraged me to delve back into their earlier work (it turns out I particularly like the second self-titled album and Curtains). The Something Rain might even rank as one of their best - characterised as it is by brilliant arrangements and understated beauty. This Fire of Autumn is one of my favourite songs of the year, whilst Chocolate is a brilliant story-as-song with a surprisingly comic flourish at its close.

59. Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill/Americana (Warner)

I have not been as indulgent towards Neil Young's wayward latter career as many of his more ardent admirers. He has at times been mind-numbingly repetitive or simply staggeringly careless in what he has chosen to release. For me, though, this reunion of Crazy Horse, that most dogged and determined of bands, has been a reminder of his core talents. Some dismissed Americana, a collection of mostly American folk standards transformed into familiar Crazy Horse trudges, as a big joke, but I think it stands alongside Springsteen's Seeger Sessions project as a singular, career revitalising work. It's hard to see how hoary old standards such as Clementine or Oh Susanna could have been made to sound more like brilliant, coruscating Neil Young originals. That he also managed to produce Psychedelic Pill, a lamely-titled but mostly thrilling double album of warmly familiar extended Crazy Horse jams, has been something of a revelation. The album has the occasional lapse into sentimentality or farce, but many of the songs rank among his very best, particularly Ramada Inn and Walk Like A Giant. 

musicOMH review

58. VCMG - Ssss  (Mute)

Vince Clarke and Martin Gore haven't worked together since the formative days of Depeche Mode, but this remote collaboration does not herald a return to the blissful infectious pop of the Speak & Spell era. It is rather a faithful reconstruction of the early days of techno and, judged on its own terms and its own ambitions, it's difficult to see how it could have been any more successful. Perhaps surprisingly, Clarke seems to have had little knowledge of techno until recently, and perhaps that distance, or rather fresh appreciation, is what has imbued Ssss with its often childlike sense of awe and wonder. There is a warmth and joy here often absent from the genre.

57. Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan (Domino)

If Swing Lo Magellan initially felt like a rather unassuming, less ambitious work when compared with the likes of Bitte Orca, Rise Above or The Getty Address, repeated plays revealed a statement of surprising depth. It doesn't quite have the coherence and flow of its predecessors, feeling more like a collection of sketches - but many of those sketches strip down Dave Longstreth's compositional approach to its absolute core, and his turbulent melodies and improbable harmonies still feel very much alive. There is also something admirable in the music's relative minimalism, not least because Longstreth has resolutely refused to repeat himself.

56. FLY - Year Of The Snake (ECM)

The trio of Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard continue to make lyrical, emotive music with subtle shades and deep interaction. What is perhaps most enjoyable about Year Of The Snake is that it sounds refreshingly unlike an ECM release - there's much more rhythmic invention here than on the average glacial European offering. This feels like a real departure from the trio's previous releases, with the multi-part The Western Lands showing a darker, more ruminative side to the group and Grenadier's lengthy Kingston pushing further into abstraction. There's a strong sense of forward motion throughout this very fine album.

55. El-P - Cancer For Cure (Turnstile)

This most radical pioneer of visionary hip-hop continues to make striking, uncompromising music on the margins, and Cancer For Cure is a more than worthy addition to his catalogue. The opening track, which bears a surprising resemblance to The Prodigy, thankfully proves to be a red herring - throughout the rest of the album, the tone is dark and menacing. There have been few colder, more frightening openings to a track than the opening lines of Tougher Colder Killer. The guest appearances have varying degrees of success, but the album manages to cohere in spite of this.

musicOMH review

54. Julia Holter - Ekstasis (RVNG International)

My intital review of this much loved second album from Julia Holter may have been a little on the harsh side, although I still feel it lacks some of the depth and mystery of last year's outstanding Tragedy. Still, it has brought Holter to a much wider audience and this cannot be a bad outcome. Holter is inspired in exploring textures and the many facets of the human voice, and there's something ethereal and compelling about her arrangements. Holter certainly seems to be a restless artist, always pushing for something new and unusual.

musicOMH review

53. Laurel Halo - Quarantine (Hyperdub)

This weird and wonderful music felt hermetically sealed, insular and isolated, making its title strikingly apt. Consciously eschewing rhythm in favour of experiments with sound and layering, Quarantine was frequently an uncomfortable and disorientating listen. The melodic lines, often deploying unpredictable, jarring intervals, are often intrusive and dominant, and it is difficult to tell whether these pieces have been meticulously pre-arranged or whether the melodies have simply been casually improvised.

musicOMH review

52. Narasirato - Warato'o 

This vigorous, refreshing album has a special place in this year's list for succeeding in completely redefining my relationship with one of the world's most unfairly derided instruments - the pan pipes. Forget any ghastly Pan Pipe Moods stereotypes here - this is the pipes as you have never heard them before. Hailing from Malaita in the Solomon Islands, Narasirato explore that region's music with a joyous energy and irresistible fervour. The pipes prove surprisingly versatile, veering between percussive blending with the drums and playing a more leading melodic role. The intensity of projection in the group's vocal performances is also remarkable.

musicOMH review

51. Monolake - Ghosts (Imbalance Computer Music)

Robert Hencke remains one of the most gifted exponents of machine music, in part responsible for the development of the Ableton software and creator of some structurally pristine but impressively challenging music as Monolake. Ghosts is now the second part of a projected trilogy of long form works that begun with the excellent Silence in 2010. What is most impressive about Monolake is the extent to which the human creator behind the technical brilliance always cuts through. This music is appropriately haunting, with an intentionally monochromatic but nuanced sweep.

The 100 (and a bit) best albums of the year 2012 Part 1: 100 - 75

The order here is inevitably slightly arbitrary. I make no apologies for inconsistencies of opinion and rating between original reviews and rankings in this list - relative opinions do change quite rapidly. It is probably best taken as simply a list of albums I've enjoyed in 2012, although the top 30 probably reflects my true favourites. I realise I have written next to nothing on this blog in 2012 and I hope this list goes some way in compensating for this paucity of activity - that is, if anyone remembers this place still exists! I've included links to my reviews of some of these albums for musicOMH if anyone would like to investigate further.

100 = Bill Fay - Life Is People (Dead Oceans) 
100 = Dexys - One Day I'm Going To Soar (BMG)

Here are two excellent albums that begin the list only because I didn't feel they were quite the solid gold masterpieces many well-meaning writers wanted them to be. Kevin Rowland's self-lacerating comeback definitely drags in its cabaret section, but is bookended by songs that rank with his finest. Vocally, he is in superb form throughout, and there's a thrilling vibe that captures the emotional rollercoaster of his words. We believe in his soul.

Bill Fay is a modest man who thoroughly deserves the success and acclaim he has achieved this year not least because he has no interest in such things. He remains an honest, peerless artist primarily directed by spiritual concerns. If the arrangements on Life Is People sometimes erred towards the staid and plodding, at its best it proved characteristically moving, particularly when Fay was more or less alone at the piano (his stately version of Wilco's Jesus etc and The Never Ending Happening). Sometimes, a sense of mystery and awe abounded (City of Dreams) and this also worked very well. If Life Is People sends a new audience back to his 70s Decca masterpieces, this will be a very good thing indeed.


musicOMH review (Bill Fay)
musicOMH review (Dexys)

 98. Calexico - Algiers (City Slang)

These days, it is fairly easy to predict what a Calexico album will sound like. If the band have hit a comfortable groove, then at least that sensation is a satisfying one, particularly given the affectionate detail and sensitivity in both their musicianship and their songwriting. Algiers had a much-trumpeted New Orleans dimension, although I'm not so sure this came through that strongly. In places it returned to the unfairly derided rock edge of Garden Ruin - but it also contained some of their most touching songs, Fortune Teller being a particularly fruitful example.  

97. A.C. Newman - Shut Down The Streets (Fire)

Carl Newman's solo work seems to be somewhat dismissed here in the UK. It's hard to fathom why, as there are few solo singer-songwriters this imaginative with melody. His songs remain unpredictable and surprising, in spite of the fact that he has developed something of a signature sound. Newman's colleague in the New Pornographers Kathryn Calder appears frequently here, adding strong vocals and some of her flair for instrumentation and arrangement appears to have influenced Newman too. This is power pop with individual quality and ambition.

96. Charlatan - Isolatarium (Type)

Unusual, swirling and hugely immersive synth soundscapes. A captivating and enthralling listening experience that keeps throwing up new details, shades and tones.The sounds here feel hazy, warped or refracted. It's disorientating, but at times oddly comforting too.

95. Jessica Sligter - Fear and the Framing (Humbro) 

A new name for me at the very close of play this year - and I'm very glad to have let this sneak in. Sligter deftly blends singer-songwriter conventions with approaches and colours drawn from the avant-garde.

musicOMH review

94. Chris Robinson Brotherhood - Big Moon Ritual/The Magic Door (Silver Arrow)

The Black Crowes always tended to be too slavish to a particular kind of canonical past for me (although their catalogue certainly has its moments). These two albums from Chris Robinson's latest project proved visceral and thrilling, however, not least because of the presence of some superb musicians (including the excellent Neal Casal). Totally unconcerned with commercial pressures, this exploratory, often improvisatory music felt compositionally faithful but also allowed for moments of brilliantly unhinged wandering.

93. Ry Cooder - Election Special (Nonesuch)

Cooder just seems to keep getting better, to the extent that even his throwaway releases sound brilliantly crafted. His satirical side has been getting a good look in recently - but for me this deft commentary on issues surrouding the US election was stronger than last year's Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Cooder's late blooming talent as a songwriter shows no signs of dissipating and the playing remains dependably lucid and skilled.  

92. Pelt - Effigy (MIE)

The tragic loss of Jack Rose could easily have dealt a blow to Pelt from which it might be impossible to recover. Instead, Effigy might just be their most compelling and sophisticated work - an elaborate, protracted revery and elegy both in touch with musical traditions and thrillingly contemporary in sound and approach. This has made me want to delve deeper into the work of both Pelt and Rose - artists with which I'm currently only cursorily familiar.  

91. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch (4AD)

It might have lacked the coherent terror of The Drift, but Bish Bosch compensated for this with a wry and sometimes uncomfortable sense of farce. At its best, it had an urgency and immediacy that sounded like a vehement warning, even when the fragmentary nature of Walker's compositions can feel confounding or incomplete. It's worth emphasising that nobody else sounds like this and, as is usually the case with Walker, it rewards repeated listens.

musicOMH review


90. Juju and  Jordash - Techno Primitivism (Dekmantel)

If techno is often a genre known for exploration through conscious limitation, this duo from Amsterdam make a refreshingly wide-ranging, questing form of the music. This is a long album made up mostly of long pieces - there's a strong sense of narrative to each one, with nuanced colours and a fluent, spellbinding musical language at work. Here is a powerful reminder of the capacity of music to create different worlds and to render the here and now blissfully irrelevant.

89. Mariee Sioux - Gift For The End (Almost Musique)

Much as I love Joanna Newsom, it always strikes me as at best odd and at worst unjust how little publicity has been afforded to the almost equally flighty and scintillating Mariee Sioux. This third album is in some ways her most assured and confident - she is more controlled and selective, with seductive and intriguing results.

88. Matthew Dear - Beams (Ghostly International)

Matthew Dear's journey from techno to bright eyed synth pop, via some sleek leather fantasy, is peculiar on the surface but in reality has sounded rather effortless. His detached, robotic voice is more prominent still here (often telling stories with a distinctly melancholy or solipsistic hue), but the music is more radiant and vibrant than anything he has attempted before.

87. Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society (Decca)

Along with Robert Glasper's Black Radio, this excellent album sparked a rather unfortunate and distracting debate within the jazz community. Is it jazz, or is it pop? If it's the latter, is its (relative) success a 'bad thing' for jazz as a genre? Frankly, why does anyone care? Jazz is in good enough health both in the US and here in the UK for it not to matter if one of its more accessible exponents veers in yet more commercial directions. Casting these concerns aside though, even a quick listen to Radio Music Society should reveal the care, knowledge and great ears that have gone into the arrangements. The rich harmonies and deep grooves should be food enough for any jazz fans - and pop listeners should embrace the chance to hear some more adventurous and challenging melodic lines.

86. Jessica Pratt - Jessica Pratt (Birth) 

Singer-songwriters often seem to be shouting to be heard, but Jessica Pratt's sublime and understated debut arrived with more of a sensuous whisper than a scream. The influences are transparent - 60s and 70s folk, Laurel Canyon, Joni Mitchell - but Pratt's stories have a quiet intensity and personal resonance of their own. Nothing is overheated or insistent - the dynamic is mostly hushed and gentle, and Pratt's exquisite delivery delivers much in very small gradations. Music with so little need to state its purpose tends to work through implication and suggestion - such is Pratt's distinctive talent. More please. 

85. Elephant Micah - Louder Than Thou (Product of Palmyra)

It begins with the rustle, rumble and quiet chaos of a rehearsal. Yet, for the loose off-the-cuff feeling of most of the music here, the songs feel breathtakingly literate and complete. They are miniature kitchen sink epics to place alongside the work of Mark Kozelek, Jason Molina or Will Johnson, and the breezy manner in which they are delivered often serves to mask some occasional and unexpected lapses into excoriating attack.  Like many of the albums on this list, it's also somehow unassuming - quietly casting its spell rather than insisting that you listen straight up. This is obviously a quality I admire more and more as I get older.

84. Partikel - Cohesion (Whirlwind)

Here is an energetic, exciting trio that manage to create all manner of suspense and suggestion without the presence of a chordal instrument. Whilst nominal leader and saxophonist Duncan Eagles is a fluent and articulate improviser, his rhythm section of Max Luthert and Eric Ford provide not just strong support, but also a sense of mutual adventure and experiment. Ford is rhythmically playful throughout, but also manages to draw an impressive range of colours and textures from his drums. Danger is never far away with this music, but the playing is assured and sensitive too, and the memorable compositions offer firm thematic grounding.

83. Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist (Software)

Bit of a dream team, this, probably to the extent that it couldn't really go wrong. This mostly improvised collaboration may, for me at least, lack the emotional pull of Hecker's Ravedeath, 1972, but it does contain some fascinating sound worlds that often play with our expectations. There's also much more specific musical information than one might expect from two artists predominantly preoccupied with sound collage and drone. I hesitate to dip my toe into the 'hauntology' debate, but there does seem to be a sense of a journey through forgotten, neglected worlds here. 

82. Lindstrom - Six Cups Of Rebel/Smalhans (Smalltown Supersound) 

2012 has been a particularly productive year for Lindstrom, with these two releases offering very different sides of his musical personality. With Smalhans, a streamlined mini-album, we are in familiar cosmic synth territory and the results are predictably irresistible. Six Cups of Rebel, however, is a very different beast and proved more divisive. For me, it was a wonderful surprise - a true flight of fantasy that found one of electronic music's leading figures branching out into increasingly weird and risky territory, blending organ music, compositional minimalism, trancey grooves and rampant wildness. 

81. Raime - Quarter Turn Over A Living Line (Blackest Ever Black) 

That I found myself enjoying this album tremendously as the end of the Mayan calendar loomed cannot be entirely coincidental. Raime's debut felt like a more articulate and natural documentation of perpetual apocalypse than Godspeed's decent but overly-familiar comeback. In fact, this often feels like the soundtrack to a surveillance state, with helicopter blades whirring and all manner of menacing sound choices. It's dark, mechanistic and sometimes brutal - but there's a humanity lurking within these cages too. 

80. John Surman - Saltash Bells (ECM) 

A 'solo' album from John  Surman, with its use of multiple saxophones and clarinets, as well as multi-tracking techniques and synthesisers, can no longer offer the shock of the new. Indeed, much of Saltash Bells could have been recorded at any point during Surman's illustrious career. Yet its expressive playing and meditative qualities could only have come from Surman - and his immediately recognisable sound is all over this very fine, typically evocative collection. 

79. Demdike Stare - Elemental (Modern Love) 

This lengthy set compiles some EPs released by Demdike Stare in the wake of their outstanding Triptych 3CD set. It's quite challenging to digest and maybe lacks something in the way of conceptual coherence - but it is brilliantly moody and stark nonetheless. They remain masters of the slow build - often delaying pivotal moments for as long as possible in the service of music that is full of auditory nightmares and ugly tensions. 

78. Oriole - Every New Day (F-IRE) 

In the relatively long gap between Oriole releases, guitarist and composer Jonny Phillips spent time living in Cadiz. If anything, the experience seems to have strengthened his resolve and identity as an artist. Every New Day amplifies all of the qualities inherent in Oriole's music so far - mellifluous, touching melodies that glimmer and dance, the rhythms of the world delivered in informed but unshowy fashion and a rich, evocative band vibe that honours the places and memories that inspire the music. There is a lightness of touch and maturity throughout.


musicOMH review

77. LV - Sebenza (Hyperdub) 

If the admirable intentions of the Africa Express tour sometimes tend to fall flat when rhythmically advanced West African acts combine with the more rhythmically and harmonically stilted end of UK drongey indie, here is a fusion of several musical cultures that works brilliantly. The resulting music, which blends UK bass music with the sounds of South Africa, is effervescent and joyous, as one might expect, but it also has a harder edge that serves as a compelling juxtaposition. Featuring contributions from Kwaito duo Ruffest and Spoek Mathambo, this is a true meeting of minds that demands to be heard. 

76. Sylvie Lewis - It's All True (Sylvie Lewis)

That Sylvie Lewis is not more widely known is a great injustice. This is her third album and follows deftly in the footsteps of its predecessors, although perhaps this time with a little more confidence in its style that harks back to the American standard repertoire. There's a sprinkling of cabaret and musical theatre, but Lewis' unhurried, wry delivery is always a complete delight, somehow combining both art and artifice. This collection is mercilessly concise but, as a result, it is free from excess. It is a brilliant encapsulation of her effortless way with words and melody. 

Albums Of The Year 2012: Honourable Mentions

As always, I find picking even a top 100 a near impossible task. Every year, I devise increasingly absurd conditions by which to rule out a handful of the year's finest releases from my list, which is drawn from increasingly larger spreadsheets. Can I really sustain this for much longer??

This year I decided to render ineligible any albums where I had a personal vested interest. These include three albums on Basho Records where I have helped out with the PR:

 Trish Clowes - and in the night-time she is there
 Christoph Stiefel - Live!
The Golden Age of Steam - Welcome To Bat Country

 These are highly accomplished albums that have been a major part of my life this year. I recommend them highly and with complete honesty. Trish's writing has grown considerably between the release of Tangent and this second album, particularly in terms of her arranging for strings. The music is beautifully subtle, and characterised by warm, affecting melodies and a lyrical quality. Christoph Stiefel's live album is a brilliant example of piano trio interaction and rhythmic creativity. The Golden Age of Steam album has sadly been a little neglected in my view - it's a brilliant, kaleidescopic torrent of wild ideas and inspired improvising, with a quirky sense of humour and a psychedelic range.

 I should also mention Gwilym Simcock, who is managed by Basho and released the very fine Lighthouse album on ACT with Tim Garland and Asaf Sirkis. Some other albums that didn't quite make it through, but which I've really enjoyed. This should also serve as a note for myself to return to some of these, as some of them I just haven't quite managed to spend enough time with. Perhaps on a different day, some of these would have made the list.

Daphni - Jiaolong, Gareth Lockrane's Grooveyard - The Strut, Dave Douglas - Be Still, Damon Albarn - Dr. Dee, Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe, John Abercrombie - Within A Song, Robert Ellis - Photographs, Dinosaur Jr. - I Bet On Sky, Carter Tutti Void - Transverse, Orbital - Wonky, Hot Chip - In Our Heads, The 2 Bears - Be Strong, Animal Collective - Centipede Hz, Susanna - Wild Dog, Lightships - Electric Cables, Micachu and the Shapes - Never, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury - DROKK, Jack White - Blunderbuss, Grimes - Visions, Liars - WIXIW, Darren Hayman and the Long Parliament - The Violence, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland - Black Is Beautiful, Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It, Wishmountain - TESCO, Singing Adams - Moves, Dirty Three - Toward the low Sun, Laura Jurd - Landing Ground, Rick Simpson - Semi Wogan, Lambchop - Mr M, Mount Eerie - Clear Moon, Eric Chenaux - Voice and Guitar, Nedry - In A Dim Light, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra - The Jazz Age, Death Grips - The Money Store, Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!, Angel Olsen - Half Way Home, Patti Smith - Banga, Fennesz - Aun, Corin Tucker Band - Kill My Blues, Alexander Tucker - Third Mouth, Spain - The Soul Of Spain, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Trembling Bells - The Marble Downs, Dan Deacon - America, Mark Lanegan - Blues Funeral, Peaking Lights - Lucifer, Alex Hutton Trio - Legentis, Avishai Cohen with Nitai Hershkovits - Duende

Top 100 (and a bit) of 2011 (In One Place)

100)Feist - Metals (Polydor)
99)Cornershop - And The Double-O Groove Of (Ample Play)
98)Fatoumata Diawara - Fatou (World Circuit)
97)The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
96)Tyshawn Sorey - Oblique 1 (Pi)
95)Wild Flag - Wild Flag (Wichita)
94)Kuedo - Severant (Planet Mu)
93)SBTRKT - SBTRKT (Young Turks)
92)Meg Baird - Seasons On Earth (Wichita)
91)CANT - Dreams Come True (Warp)
90)Africa Hitech - 93 Million MIles (Warp)
89)Cass McCombs - Wit’s End/Humor Risk (Domino)
88) Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica/Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure (Software)
87)A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Erased Tapes)
86)John Escreet - Exception To The Rule (Criss Cross)
85)Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
84)Roly Porter - Aftertime (Subtext)
83)Ambrose Akinmusire - When The Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note)
82)Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Vol.1 (Southern Lord)
81)Phil Robson - The Immeasurable Code (Whirlwind Recordings)
80)Andy Stott - Passed Me By/We Stay Together (Modern Love)
79)Peaking Lights - 936 (Not Not Fun)
78)Sidi Toure - Sahel Folk (Thrill Jockey)
77)Six Organs Of Admittance - Asleep On The Floodplain (Drag City)
76)Twelves - The Adding Machine (Babel)
75)Deerhoof - Deerhoof Vs. Evil (ATP)
74)Kode 9 & The Spaceape - Black Sun (Hyperdub)
73)Kairos 4tet - Statement Of Intent (Edition)
72)Singing Adams - Everybody Friends Now (Records Records Records)
71)Outhouse & Hilmar Jenssen - Straw, Sticks & Bricks (Babel)
70)Rustie - Glass Swords (Warp)
69)Clams Casino - Instrumentals (Type)
68)Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Wolfroy Goes To Town (Domino)
67)Moritz Von Oswald - Horizontal Structures (Honest Jon’s)
66)Hiss Golden Messenger - Poor Moon/From Country Hai East Cotton (Black Maps/Paradise of Bachelors)
65)Isolee - Well Spent Youth (Pampa)
64)Egyptrixx - Bible Eyes (Night Slugs)
63)The Decemberists - The King Is Dead (Rough Trade)
62)St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)
61)Mara Carlyle - Floreat (Ancient and Modern)
60)Julia Holter - Tragedy (Leaving Records)
59)Avishai Cohen - Seven Seas (Blue Note)
58)Machinedrum - Room(s) (Planet Mu)
57)Vijay Iyer with Prasanna & Nitin Mitta - Tirtha (ACT)
56)Destroyer - Kaputt (Dead Oceans)
55)Keith Jarrett - Rio (ECM)
54)Bill Callahan - Apocalypse (Drag City)
53)Micachu & The Shapes with London Sinfonietta - Chopped & Screwed (Rough Trade)
52)Dean McPhee - Son of the Black Peace (Blast First Petite)
51)Nils Frahm - Felt (Erased Tapes)/Nils Frahm and Anne Muller - 7fingers (Erased Tapes)
50)Sully - Carrier (Keysound)
49)Bill Frisell and 858 Quartet - Sign of Life (SLG)
48)Bon Iver - Bon Iver (4AD)
47)Khyam Allami - Resonance/Dissonance (Nawa Recordings)
46)Kit Downes Trio - Quiet Tiger (Basho)
45)The Weather Station - All Of It Was Mine (You’ve Changed)
44)Aquarium - Aquarium (Babel)
43)Joe Lovano - Bird Songs (Blue Note)
42)Dalglish - Benacah Drann Deachd (Highpoint Lowlife)
41)John Taylor - Requiem For A Dreamer (CamJazz)
40)Phaedra - The Sea (Rune Grammofon)
39)PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Universal)
38)The Advisory Circle - As The Crow Flies (Ghost Box)
37)Tom Waits - Bad As Me (Anti-)
36)Three Trapped Tigers - Route One Or Die (Blood and Biscuits)
35)Kate Bush - Director’s Cut / 50 Words For Snow (Fish People/EMI)
34)Becca Stevens Band - Weightless (Sunnyside)
33)King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine (Domino)
32)Low - C’Mon (Rough Trade)
31)Thundercat - The Golden Age Of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder)
30)Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean (4AD)
29){Ma} - The Last (Loop)
28)Boxcutter - The Dissolve (Planet Mu)
27)Bjork - Biophilia (One Little Indian)
26)Mark Hanslip & Javier Carmona - DosadoS (Babel)
25)Kathryn Calder - Bright & Vivid (File Under Music)
24)Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise (Circus Company)
23) Hallock Hill - The Union/There He Unforeseen (Hallock Hill)
22)James Blake - James Blake (A&M)
21)Colin Stetson - New History Of Warfare Vol. 2 (Constellation)
20)Bill Orcutt - How The Thing Sings (Editions Mego)
19)Brad Mehldau - Live In Marciac (Nonesuch)
18)Tinariwen - Tassili (V2)
17)Pinch & Shackleton - Pinch & Shackleton (Honest Jon’s)
16)Matthew Herbert - One Pig (Accidental)
15)Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter One (Constellation)
14)Grouper - AIA: Alien Observer / AIA: Dream Loss (Yellowelectric)
13)Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Schloss Elmau (ACT)/The Impossible Gentlemen - The Impossible Gentlemen (Basho)
12)Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX - We’re New Here (XL)
11)Charles Lloyd Quartet/Maria Fantouri - Athens Concert (ECM)
10)Zomby - Dedication (4AD)
9)tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)
8)Alexander Tucker - Dorwytch (Thrill Jockey)
7)Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
6)Marius Neset - Golden Xplosion (Edition)
5)Julian Siegel Quartet - Urban Theme Park (Basho)
4)Craig Taborn - Avenging Angel (ECM)
3)Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 / Dropped Pianos (Kranky)
2)Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
1)Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest (Acony)

The 100 (and a bit) Best Albums of 2011 Part 5: 20-1

20) Bill Orcutt - How The Thing Sings (Editions Mego)
Bill Orcutt is that rare breed of artists who can actually break established boundaries on his chosen instrument and seem as if he is approaching it from a new angle entirely. All conventional techniques are abandoned. In their place comes a visceral, almost violent approach, yet at the same time an ability to draw out resonance and emotion as well as tension. The centrepiece of How the Thing Sings is the triumphant, visionary A Line From Ol Man River, one of the most shocking and remarkable recordings of the year.

19) Brad Mehldau - Live In Marciac (Nonesuch)
Recorded in 2006 but only now seeing the light of day, this extraordinary live package was one of the year’s most essential investments, consisting of 2CDs and a DVD. It captures Mehldau in a solo setting, at his most expressive and musical, improvising with extraordinary harmonic and melodic skill and a world away from the neutered Highway Rider. Every quality that has lead to Mehldau being hailed among the greats is here in abundance - his refined touch, his extraordinary separation and integration of parts, the long, fluent lines and his openness to a range of source material.

18) Tinariwen - Tassili (V2)
Opinion seems to have been divided as to whether Tinariwen’s move into a more acoustic sound world compromised their distinctive musical quality. Certainly, one of the most appealing aspect of the Malian group’s approach has been their dogged consistency of tone and attack - a bubble that Tassili defiantly pierces. It’s a bold move - but this album retains the group’s sense of hard won experience whilst expanding their lexicon. For me, it’s something of a triumph.

17) Pinch & Shackleton - Pinch & Shackleton (Honest Jon’s)
Shackleton seems to be building a career on releasing fantastic albums that little bit too late to be considered for most end of year lists. Is this a noble abrogation of the media PR circus? Or is it simply his obvious desire to release as much of his work as possible? Either way, this collaboration with Pinch is dependably brilliant - sometimes dark and oppressive, sometimes sinister, always masterfully controlled. It is a coherent whole rather than a collection of mini-masterworks.

16) Matthew Herbert - One Pig (Accidental)
By some distance the year’s most controversial album, One Pig had already enraged PETA and other animal rights supporters many months before its release. Whilst the idea of recording the life cycle of a pig farmed for meat and making musical instruments from its remains may seem like anathema to some, I found One Pig to be a thought provoking and intelligent statement from a consistently radical and committed political artist. Herbert’s intentions were less to shock and more to once again draw attention to industrial food processes (see his previous masterpiece Plat Du Jour, a particular favourite for this blog) and, most importantly, the sheer level of waste involved in animal rearing. The music itself was tough, abrasive and - at least until the daring irony at the end - entirely unsentimental. One Pig was another imaginative triumph of modern electronica and sampling techniques.

15) Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter One (Constellation)
Chicago/New York saxophonist Matana Roberts appears to be the sort of constantly restless musician ideally suited to the field of improvisation. So far, she has yet to establish a regular stable ensemble, instead recording with various groups depending on her musical intentions and location. Coin Coin Chapter One, apparently the first part of a hugely ambitious project in twelve parts that aims to document her ancestral heritage back to the 1700s, was recorded live in the studio in front of an invited audience. It utilises a huge fifteen piece ensemble from Montreal. It has the urgency, passion, excitement and danger of a live recording. Much of it sounds highly liberated. But it also has plenty of compositional flair, clarity and organisation too, much of it dealing with the difficult subject of slavery. The use of the human voice is frequently masterful.

14) Grouper - AIA: Alien Observer / AIA: Dream Loss (Yellowelectric)
Whilst this eerie, beautiful double album doesn’t exactly tear up Liz Harris’ by now established sound, it does suggest that her work is becoming increasingly refined. Some reviewers have suggested that ghostly memories of composers past can be heard buried within these soundscapes (Satie, Messaien). I’m not sure I could pick out any possible samples, but I can be sure that A I A is a tremendous achievement - a consistently enthralling suite of sound.

13) Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Schloss Elmau (ACT)
The Impossible Gentlemen - The Impossible Gentlemen (Basho)
Simcock, among the UK’s most virtuosic pianists, has long been a big name in jazz - but 2011 was the year in which he boldly stated his claim to artistic greatness. Whilst the young jazz scene in London is buzzing, it’s hard to see whether there is anyone among the legions of gifted, creative players who might join the ranks of legends or bring jazz to a wider audience. Simcock may now be that musician. On his last album, he was caught a little between his uninhibited improvising and his love for the formalism and rigour of classical composition. Good Days At Schloss Elmau, his first solo piano album, seems to integrate all his musical concerns brilliantly. At last, there’s an energy to his playing here - and a percussive quality that sometimes makes him sound, alone, like a complete ensemble. There’s also an abundant lyricism and an emotional richness to the material here.

Simcock also appeared on the debut album from The Impossible Gentlemen, a transatlantic jazz supergroup that could hardly fail to dazzle. Really, though, this album is all about Mike Walker - a superb guitar player with an incisive sound and a sophisticated composer sadly all too little known at home in the UK. He finds melody in every sequence here, playing with an authority that is genuine and devoid of ego.

12) Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX - We’re New Here (XL)
For some, remix albums are ineligible for these kind of lists, and it’s easy to see the argument for this. But Jamie XX’s take on Gil Scott-Heron’s final recorded work felt like a valedictory statement, and a fitting epitaph for a musical legend. Even though the two artists did not meet and communicated by post, We’re New Here still feels like a considered and complementary meeting of minds. Isolated from its original context, and contrasted with earlier recordings (including snippets from the classic Home Is Where The Hatred Is), Scott-Heron’s worn-down latterday voice acquired an even greater authority and lived-in power. Jamie XX’s music - minimal but inspired - pushed him to new artistic levels and showed that his solo career may well prove more fruitful than that of his parent band.

11) Charles Lloyd Quartet/Maria Fantouri - Athens Concert (ECM)
Along with Wayne Shorter’s Quartet, Charles Lloyd’s current ensemble are among the most stable and ceaselessly exciting in contemporary American jazz. Their concerts are completely unmatched for sustained spiritual intensity. This pairing with Greek singer Maria Fantouri is an unexpected setting for Lloyd’s rich and lyrical sound, but it works superbly, with both sides of the collaboration bringing passion, conviction and emotional depth. Lloyd’s latterday catalogue is substantial and inspiring.

10) Zomby - Dedication (4AD)
One of those strangely divisive 2011 albums, Dedication proved challenging not least because it saw Zomby branching far away from the musical approach and character that made his, erm, name - but also because of the necessarily disparate and fragmented nature of the album’s structure. Dealing as it was with issues of grief, loss and memory, this seemed an intelligent and reasonable approach to take, even if it made the experience for the listener unpredictable and strange (quite why this should be a bad thing is something of a mystery). Dedication was haunting, immersive and, perhaps most importantly of all, artistically courageous.

9) tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)
Merrill Garbus is so relentless inventive that her manic, exciting music can leave you breathless. w h o k i l l represents a substantial step forward, with studio production techniques making for a big improvement in sound quality. There’s also a feeling that these performances have been well orchestrated and arranged. Yet there’s still a certain roughness around the edges - a looseness and perhaps even improvisatory approach to songwriting that makes it all so unpredictable and wild. Certainly, few artists in the alternative pop field have made so much gold from rhythm and phrasing. She sounds entirely like herself - with little in the way of obvious reference points.

8) Alexander Tucker - Dorwytch (Thrill Jockey)
By far Tucker’s most successful fusion of electronic noise and arcane musicology yet - Dorwytch is a triumphant and innovative record - weird and wonderful at every turn. It’s also a world away from his sometimes stoically combative live shows. This sounds like a real narrative, incorporating drones, songs and some delicate passages of improvisation. What emerges is a fearlessly modern form of chamber folk.

7) Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
This exquisite merging of musical history and modern technology really deserved more attention. Barwick loops her own vocals to create an ecstatic one woman choir - and the results are somewhere between early music and contemporary performance. Certainly, a return to the music of the distant past makes for far more stimulating retrogression than so much of the regurgitation of recent cultural history discussed in Simon Reynolds’ excellent Retromania book. There is a purity and beauty in Barwick’s voice that makes her wordless reveries all the more haunting.

6) Marius Neset - Golden Xplosion (Edition)
Golden Xplosion was undoubtedly the year’s most virtuosic jazz album but it also stood out as uniquely thrilling and involving. The title is apt, given that much of this album sounds like a fireball of bright colours. There is a genuine restlessness at work here, not just in Neset’s tricksy, rhythmically challenging compositions but also in the individual contributions from all the musicians, not least the extraordinary drummer Anton Eger. Barely a bar goes by in which he is not putting in all his musical energy and resources in service of the impact of the ensemble. Neset’s brilliant mentor Django Bates is a characteristically mirthful presence, but is very much in a supportive role here. Whilst Neset is an outrageously gifted and articulate musician, he also finds space for some disarming lyricism and quiet reflection.

5) Julian Siegel Quartet - Urban Theme Park (Basho)
Julian Siegel is one of the great artists in British jazz and ought to be recognised as such. His work with Greg Cohen and Joey Baron is significant enough but, for Urban Theme Park, he formed what can only be described as a fantasy jazz ensemble. With Liam Noble on piano, Oli Hayhurst on bass and Gene Calderazzo on drums, Siegel armed himself with a rhythm section that is at once supportive, propulsive and creative. His compositions are deft and subtle, always seeming slightly elusive and mysterious. Yet there is also a vibrance and spirited interaction at work here that makes this a theme park of thrills and delights, which is exactly as it should be.

4) Craig Taborn - Avenging Angel (ECM)
With Gwilym Simcock’s brilliant Mercury nominated Good Days At Schloss Elmau, Brad Mehldau’s stunning Live In Marciac, Keith Jarrett’s Rio and this, the solo piano marketplace has been crowded with excellence in 2011. Taborn is a world away from Simcock’s hybrid of classical lyricism, gospel energy and jazz harmony however. He is inventing a language for the piano that seems bold and innovative. Whilst his technique is near-flawless and his flow of ideas often intuitive, Taborn is more interested here in a controlled minimalism. Every note is carefully considered and the result is a sparing, unconventional creation.

3) Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 / Dropped Pianos (Kranky)
There are few artists in the field of noise soundscaping more consistently compelling and haunting than Tim Hecker. Where sometimes this musical space can seem cold and forebidding - Hecker imbues it with a sense of longing and curiosity. Whilst the titles of the pieces hint at paranoia and anxiety - the music, particularly in its use of organ, also hints at something more mournful and a sense of faded grandeur. The additional material collected on Dropped Pianos is harsher and more unforgiving.

2) Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
It seems utterly bizarre to have to refer to a Radiohead album as one of the most underrated releases of the year, but this has been the strange fate meted out to The King of Limbs. It is apparently one of the group’s more divisive recordings and can mostly be found languishing near the lower end of top 50 lists. Some found the transparent variation in style and mood between the album’s two halves difficult. In light of the special edition’s two 10” vinyl discs it would appear the track sequencing was entirely deliberate. To my ears, KoL marked a continuation and further development from In Rainbows, an even more seamless and successful fusion of a now super-relaxed, confident and impressive working band and their preoccupations with electronica and modern composition. Seeing the band live in 2012 with Clive Deamer joining as an additional drummer will surely be essential. Perhaps most impressive is how unshowy an album this is - unlike, say, OK Computer - it is completely unconcerned with being seen as important or epochal, and much more concerned with relaxed, consummate musicality. Together with the two additional singles that followed the album release, this represents Radiohead’s best music.

1) Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest (Acony)
Good things come to those who wait. After eight years in the wilderness, Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings returned with a near flawless album. Returning to the stripped down bare essentials that characterised their previous masterpiece Time (The Revelator), The Harrow & The Harvest proved a wonderful companion piece to that album, similarly intoxicating and so fluent in the language of traditional American songwriting that any questions of authenticity are simply meaningless. The balance of their harmonies, kept in serene proportion throughout (although in fact more sparingly used here - everything extraneous is jettisoned), the splendour of Welch’s telling lyrics, the sweet elegance of the melodies - everything just sounds so effortless, but behind it is the work of two musicians who have studied their craft with honesty, conviction and determination.

The 100 (and a bit) Best Albums of 2011 Part 4: 40-21

40) Phaedra - The Sea (Rune Grammofon)
What an utterly beguiling album this is - at once icy and warm - and perhaps one of the most charming albums in recent years to be so thoroughly preoccupied with death and decay. It’s a beautiful, intensely focused work with a calm but magical presence. Ingvild Langgard already feels like a contemporary folk auteur. Sadly, it appears to have passed by unnoticed in much of the mainstream UK music press.

39) PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Universal)
It would be easy to be distracted by the ubiquity of Polly Harvey’s dependably beguiling musings on war and empire. There was a crushing inevitability about her becoming the first artist to win the Mercury prize - as if going against the collective wisdom on this occasion would have been tantamount to sacrilege. Still, Let England Shake is a confident, and coherent album - a work of mature, direct and poetic artistry that somehow manages to be accessible and uncompromising in equal measure. What is perhaps more impressive is that it seemed to be a point of consensus in what is now a very disparate, fragmented and over-saturated music marketplace.

38) The Advisory Circle - As The Crow Flies (Ghost Box)
It’s tempting to be a little sceptical about the retrofuturist vision of the Ghost Box label - this new album from Jon Brooks’ Advisory Circle uses seventies and eighties government advice advertisements (from the now defunct Central Office of Information) for its main source material. ‘We make the decisions so you don’t have to’, as the introduction proudly (and somewhat threateningly) proclaims. There are hints of underlying sinister currents (Village of the Damned meets The Midwich Cuckoos, with a touch of Boards of Canada) and the swathes of old school synthesisers brilliantly capture a blend of menace and awe.

37) Tom Waits - Bad As Me (Anti-)
There has long been a sense that Tom Waits has journeyed so far across contemporary music’s wide terrain that there is little truly new ground left for him to cover. Bad As Me somewhat confirms this impression, feeling a little like a career summary in new songs. Still, it’s a typically thrilling, scattershot and engaging trip, made all the more appealing by virtue of being one of Waits’ more concise albums. Most wonderful of all about all this is Waits’ voice, which has never been more versatile or theatrical.

36) Three Trapped Tigers - Route One Or Die (Blood and Biscuits)
Bands of this level of invention and quality in the UK are all too rare in the UK, and often it seems like critics are unprepared to take the risk in investing time and energy in their progress. After a series of mind-blowing EPs, Three Trapped Tigers finally brought their slanted take on heavy post-rock to the full album format. If anything, the intensity seemed to have been amplified even further, to the extent that it’s often hard to believe just how attacking and visceral this music is. At times perhaps a little clinical, but always virtuosic and near-perfect in execution, TTT remain one of the country’s most exciting bands.

35) Kate Bush - Director’s Cut / 50 Words For Snow (Fish People/EMI)
Kate Bush albums, it would appear, are like buses. You wait several years, and then two come along at once. Director’s Cut was almost dismissed by a pop media for whom reworking older material appears to be anathema. It’s hard to understand this attitude, which appears in sharp contradiction to that same media’s obsession with constantly reaffirming the rock and pop canon. In almost any other art form, developing existing works is seen as an essential part of the artistic process. Director’s Cut is not consistently successful - and there are points at which one might prefer the original takes - but it is a challenging, ambitious set. At its best, it offers radical and satisfying reversions (Deeper Understanding, This Woman’s Work). Both Director’s Cut and the patient, graceful 50 Words For Snow are enhanced by the colourful, textural drumming of session legend Steve Gadd. He adds a lightly jazzy tinge that heightens the expressive qualities of the music. On 50 Words For Snow, Bush’s compositions are minimal but elongated - they take as long as required to deliver her typically eccentric, poetic narratives.

34) Becca Stevens Band - Weightless
Stevens is a singer-songwriter from New York deserving of much wider attention. She operates in that hinterland between jazz, folk and Americana beloved of Norah Jones, but doing so in a much more provocative and idiosyncratic manner. Far from coffee table music, Stevens’ own songs can be rousing and touching but are often also mysterious and charming. Even more impressive here are her radical interpretations of The Smiths’ There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, Animal Collective’s My Girls and Seal’s Kiss From A Rose.

33) King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine (Domino)
For plaintive and disarming beauty, few albums could compete with this all too brief but thoroughly delightful collaboration between the eccentric Fife songwriter Kenny Anderson and film composer and arranger Jon Hopkins. Satisfyingly, this seems to have put to rest the brief but disconcerting drive to turn King Creosote into a bankable indie-crossover act. How much more affecting and honest his music is when it takes place in this kind of intimate, personal space. Diamond Mine provides the perfect setting for his peculiar musings (Diamond Mine may be the only album ever to contain a verse about the difficulty in gaining planning permission).

32) Low - C’Mon (Rough Trade)
Even by Low’s doggedly consistent high standards, C’Mon feels like something of a watermark recording. After a succession of detours through territory both more aggressive (The Great Destroyer) and more experimental (Drums and Guns), C’Mon returned them to their most accessible and familiar territory, reaffirming the fundamental strengths of their slow, repetitive songs and the beautiful blend of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s voices and the defiant simplicity of their performances. Yet, C’Mon felt fresh because of its brilliant, irresistible intensity.

31) Thundercat - The Golden Age Of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder)
In which the unfairly reviled fusion genre is reconstructed and modernised with mastery and effervescence. Few albums this year have been quite as overwhelming, quite as brazenly unfashionable or quite as fun as this effort from Flying Lotus’ bass player. It’s not just a set of rapid fire bass solos (Thundercat is astoundingly dexterous and is more than capable of turning the bass into a melodic, frontline instrument) - there is soul and fire in here too.

30) Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean (4AD)
Along with Radiohead’s King of Limbs, this probably ranks as among the most listened to albums of the year for me. Its polished diversions and unusual sounds may have proved too much for the Iron & Wine fan drawn in by Sam Beam’s acoustic ruminations, but I can’t help but admire Beam’s adaptability and willingness to absorb influences from outside the American folk tradition. His voice is stronger and more upfront now, although still charmingly understated and he remains a lyricist of peerless invention.

29) {Ma} - The Last (Loop)
Among top level US jazz musicians, a debate has been raging recently over the quality (or lack thereof) in contemporary jazz. Some have conservatively criticised the prevalence of hybrid forms, something increasingly common in the thriving London jazz scene. The Last seems to be a prime example of just how well hybrids can work - improvised music with reference to the jazz tradition but placed in vivid and compelling new contexts. The blend between Matt Calvert’s bristling electronics and Tom Challenger’s fluent, sometimes caustic improvising is brilliantly executed. The textures are multi-faceted and exciting and this feels like a complete work with a detailed, filmic quality.

28) Boxcutter - The Dissolve (Planet Mu)
One of 2011’s most criminally ignored achievements, The Dissolve shared with the stunning Thundercat album unfashionable preoccupations with fusion, jazz-rock and heavy seventies funk. It addressed these concerns through the prism of UK bass music, in which area Boxcutter has been an underrated pioneer. The vocal tracks should perhaps have reached a wider audience, whilst the music here is consistently intricate, nuanced and forged with a great sense of enthusiasm and fun.

27) Bjork - Biophilia (One Little Indian)
These days, Bjork releases, whilst still infrequent and conceptually extravagant, have delivered something dependable, with a diminishing sense of the shock of the new. Perhaps, long into a career that has consistently hit the highest levels of artistry, we no longer have the right to expect the breaking of new ground. Biophilia attempts to change the way music is consumed and utilised - with its technological and educational dimensions. The music itself is more of what we’ve come to expect from Bjork - detached and intellectual whilst also wonderfully intimate and tender. The arrangements are superb, with Bjork reunited with the Icelandic choir that helped make Vespertine such a masterpiece. If anything, Biophilia is more of a grower, its tracks highly nuanced and taking a while to reveal their magic.

26) Mark Hanslip & Javier Carmona - DosadoS (Babel)
A refreshing improvised duo session, with Carmona’s free flowing textural percussion providing the perfect counterpoint for Hanslip’s eloquent, occasionally visceral saxophones. There’s a real empathy and understanding between these two musicians and the results - captured permanently on disc but never to be replicated - are thrilling.

25) Kathryn Calder - Bright & Vivid (File Under Music)
Still woefully under-promoted in the UK, Calder (a member of New Pornographers and of the sadly now defunct Immaculate Machine) is undergoing a remarkably rapid development as a solo artist. Are You My Mother? was an affecting and mature debut - but Bright & Vivid succeeds in making a bolder, more ambitious, more cinematic musical statement. Again, the songwriting is infectious, melodic and touching, and the arrangements and production detailed and clear. This is indie-pop without any of the regression and introversion that sometimes stifles the genre. It is bold and brilliantly executed songwriting.

24) Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise (Circus Company)
James Blake may have been the name to drop for downtempo electronica in 2011, but the more stealthy choice may have been this superb album from Nicolas Jaar, another impossibly young and prodigious musician in this field. With a childhood spent in Santiago and influences ranging from Satie to Mulatu Astatke, Space is Only Noise presented a poised balance between reflection and rhythm.

23) Hallock Hill - The Union/There He Unforeseen (Hallock Hill)
Tom Lecky’s two albums as Hallock Hill were prime examples of composition through improvisation. The Union was a meditative, haunting reflection made up of layered guitars whilst There He Unforeseen somehow both broadened the canvas and managed to create a more claustrophobic atmosphere. Lecky also has an assured and confident hand when it comes to complex and intricate structure. His music is beautiful, spacious and compelling.

22) James Blake - James Blake (A&M)
Few albums seemed to divide opinion quite as sharply as this debut long player from the much feted Blake. Perhaps the criticisms sprung from subconscious resentment - Blake is young, having only recently graduated from a Goldsmith’s music degree, tall and handsome, and had been given a big PR boost through the BBC sound of 2011 poll. There was also his frequent creative use of vocoder - something that fascinated some but irritated many (although it bears repeating that he wasn’t using the device as an autotune). Even without the technology, his voice is decidedly odd, yet appealing in its inherent vulnerability. The most cursory listen to this debut should establish Blake’s musicality - he has embraced the song form with as much thought and intuition as he did production at the edges of UK bass music. He’s a master of space and tranquility, two qualities so rarely found in contemporary mainstream music, and he clearly understands harmony very well. Repackaged later in the year with the broody, strange Enough Thunder EP (which included a collaboration with Bon Iver), the album became a substantial, impressive document.

21) Colin Stetson - New History Of Warfare Vol. 2 (Constellation)
Saxophonist of choice to the American indie scene (he has spent much of the year playing as part of the massive extended Bon Iver ensemble), Stetson is a hugely creative musician in his own right. Occupying a hinterland somewhere between jazz, improv and contemporary composition, this second part of the New History of Warfare series was compelling and imaginative. Stetson approaches his instrument more percussively than melodically, challenging convention and building a broad palette of sound.

The 100 (and a bit) Best Albums of 2011 Part 3: 60-41

60) Julia Holter - Tragedy (Leaving Records)
This is a fantastic, beautiful record, but one that is very difficult to pin down. Free from restrictions, it appears to veer over a very wide terrain, incorporating fuzzy found sounds, moments of operatic grandeur, folk ballads, and Angelo Badalamenti/Julee Cruise cinematic eeriness. In spite of this open-minded spirit of enquiry, this album still sounds emotionally overwhelmed and somehow isolated and self contained. It’s a strange and remarkable achievement.

59) Avishai Cohen - Seven Seas (Blue Note)
Few musicians operating in jazz and improvised music have quite as advanced a sense of melody as Avishai Cohen. Everything he does is supremely lyrical - with a singing, resonant quality underlying it. Added to that is the powerful but lightly executed rhythmic drive of his band. Seven Seas is once again a memorable, touching album that melds the language of jazz with the traditions of various forms of folk music.

58) Machinedrum - Room(s) (Planet Mu)
For me, this was one of 2011’s most unsettling and disturbing albums, although it came wrapped up in the guise of energising club music. Still, there’s little denying its oppressive and murky textures (ingeniously constructed), or the restless and disorientating nature of its underlying rhythms. Like much of the post dubstep/footwork landscape, it makes superb use of the sound of the human voice - fragmented and manipulated in imaginative ways - but it also has a character and approach that is entirely distinctive.

57) Vijay Iyer with Prasanna & Nitin Mitta - Tirtha (ACT)
Although this is perhaps the most explicit investigation of Vijay Iyer’s roots in Indian traditional music, it is also a refined and empathetic collaboration between three musicians with shared concerns and musical vocabulary. It is a brilliantly relaxed and exploratory venture - full of both innovation and heritage and effortlessly flowing. It sounds completely unforced - much more a natural meeting of minds.

56) Destroyer - Kaputt (Dead Oceans)
Vancouver’s Dan Bejar, also a non-touring member of Canadian supergroup New Pornographers, has been recording strange, dense and allusive music under the Destroyer name for some time now, although Kaputt is probably the first of his albums to gain significant attention in the UK. His lyrics remain surreal and verbose, whilst the music here seems like an homage to the lusher, more detailed end of 80s pop (Roxy Music, Scritti Politti, early Talk Talk). If it initially sounds dated, repeated plays reveal a deft and clever creation, with Bejar expending time and a great deal of care on every small detail.

55) Keith Jarrett - Rio (ECM)
Perhaps this should be higher up the list - there are places where it hits the dizzy heights of Jarrett’s most inspirational solo performance work. Yet there is also the lingering sense that recorded examples of Jarrett’s solo concerts are now so plentiful as to have made them seem somehow less special. Then there’s the infuriating issue of ECM’s exorbitant CD prices (£19 - £22 for this double set in most stores and no download available). Still, there’s no escaping the spiritual thrill of his rolling, urgent vamps or some of his wilder flourishes. Rio also has its moments of calm and considered reflection - almost as if Jarrett is pondering an entire career spent in the riskiest performance environment of all.

54)Bill Callahan - Apocalypse (Drag City)
Apocalypse intitially sounded like one of Bill Callahan’s more otiose and obtuse works, but an utterly spellbinding performance at London’s Barbican Centre, in which the creative, improvising drummer Neal Morgan played as significant a role as Callahan himself, brought these songs into sharper relief. It’s a brilliant, tumbling, expressive work - one of Callahan’s most musically and narratively bold.

53) Micachu & The Shapes with London Sinfonietta - Chopped & Screwed (Rough Trade)
This live concert recording of Mica Levi’s collaboration with the wonderful London Sinfonietta (one of this country’s greatest musical assets) is every bit as weird, dislocated, dissonant and invigorating as one might expect. Even the most wayward and fuzzy ideas are somehow carefully calculated and the unconventional ensemble sounds carefully integrated, although often markedly disorientating in sound and effect.

52)Dean McPhee - Son of the Black Peace (Blast First Petite)
This is an exquisite collection of solo electric guitar pieces, drenched in enough reverb to make it sound as it if were recorded in a grand cathedral. It is one of those solo albums that genuinely does sound isolated and individual - mostly tranquil, but also sometimes imbued with a fragile, brittle tension. McPhee eschews unnecessary displays of virtuosity, instead always aiming for mood and feeling.

51) Nils Frahm - Felt (Erased Tapes)
Nils Frahm and Anne Muller - 7fingers (Erased Tapes)
The German musician and composer Nils Frahm has been involved in not just one, but two wonderful albums in 2011. Felt is probably the most significant - a brilliantly touching and intimate album of calm and considered reveries, on which Frahm mutes the strings of his piano with thick felt. It is subtle and demanding, but also hugely rewarding. 7fingers, a collaboration with the cellist Anne Muller, is a superb, highly creative balancing act between the modern and the traditional. It has been unfairly neglected in the light of Frahm’s achievement with Felt.

50) Sully - Carrier (Keysound)
So much has been made of the post-dubstep landscape that this wonderful album surprised by reaffirming the classic sample and bass-heavy dubstep sound, with plenty of references back to UK garage too. In the album’s second half, he does show awareness of the prevailing trend for Chicago ‘juke’ or footwork rhythms, but in this case it is more successfully subsumed into a distinctively British sound. Carrier is a crisp, clean, focused and consistent set.

49) Bill Frisell and 858 Quartet - Sign of Life (SLG)
Frisell’s first recording with this group, inspired by a series of Gerhard Richter paintings, was one of the great guitarist’s more abrasive ventures. It gave little notice of the deceptive simplicity and staggering beauty of Sign of Life. The sense emerging here is that the 858 Quartet, with violin, cello, bass and Frisell on electric guitar, is essentially a contemporary chamber ensemble. The music traverses the great American musical landscape, from Reich, Copland, Adams and Ives to The Impressions by way of the Delta Blues singers. With its delicate themes recurring in the form of echoes and embellishments, Sign of Life feels like a coherent suite of music.

48) Bon Iver - Bon Iver (4AD)
This widescreen, meticulously arranged piece of rock composition inevitably divided opinion this year. Moving so far beyond the intimate, highly charged personal confessions of For Emma would always be controversial - but how much more exciting this is than any kind of forced attempt to repeat the unrepeatable. Arguably a little too much attention was given to the Peter Cetera of Phil Collins-esque closing track Beth, Rest. Much of the rest of this music is haunting and beautiful as well as epic, although there is the lingering sense that any kind of spontaneity and excitement has been forced out through Vernon’s almost obsessive sense of organisation. It will be interesting to see where he goes next - Bon Iver is so brilliantly crafted as to leave a suspicion that it would be difficult to take this compositional approach any further.

47) Khyam Allami - Resonance/Dissonance (Nawa Recordings)
Initially a drummer, but now justly regarded as a great exponent of the oud, Khyam Allami made one of the year’s great solo instrumental albums (and there have been many of those this year - see also Taborn, Simcock, Mehldau, Hallock Hill, Dean McPhee etc). His music is graceful and sounds effortless, but is also prone to rapid and intense flurries of activity. With a beautiful balance of composition and improvisation, this is a work proudly displaying traditional Middle Eastern influences, but also utterly unconcerned with genre restrictions.

46) Kit Downes Trio - Quiet Tiger (Basho)
When is a trio not a trio? Emboldened by the presence of various guest musicians, not least the inspired, adventurous reedsman James Allsopp (who also plays with Downes in the fiery Golden Age of Steam project), much of Quiet Tiger is at the very least a Quartet project. It’s a refreshing and satisfying departure from the reflective tone of Downes’ Mercury-nominated debut, demonstrating that he is a consummate musician with the ideas to match his phenomenal technique. Quiet Tiger is an album where the listener would be right to expect the unexpected.

45) The Weather Station - All Of It Was Mine (You’ve Changed)
Operating in a similar space to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings or The Be Good Tanyas, The Weather Station produce a more modest take on traditional American folk. This is a minimal but richly empathetic album, utterly unforced and delivered without any extraneous elements.

44) Aquarium - Aquarium (Babel)
This first album from the gifted pianist and Royal Academy of Music graduate Sam Leak proved to be one of the year’s most stylistically varied and exciting British jazz releases. Leak is a sophisticated composer with a clear ability with melody and harmony. Yet he’s also clearly inspired by the wilder possibilities of improvisation and rhythm. With Aquarium he has formed a superb ensemble that is deep in expression and nuance.

43) Joe Lovano - Bird Songs (Blue Note)
Joe Lovano imbues everything he does not just with his peerless articulacy but also his highly individual, bold and vibrant sound. Now joining Django Bates in a growing group of contemporary jazz musicians suddenly keen to revisit the legacy of Charlie Parker, Lovano has taken the spirit of Bird but brilliantly adapted it for his excellent current ensemble Us Five. The results are fluent and exciting, a reminder of how important the history of this music is for its contemporary practitioners, but also a living, breathing and fresh document in its own right.

42) Dalglish - Benacah Drann Deachd (Highpoint Lowlife)
An album I’ve very quickly regretted not purchasing immediately on release as it appears to have all but disappeared, at least in its digital form. Still, this must be Dalglish’s finest work so far, a deft combination of lingering atmospherics and high frequency sonic attack. It is some of the year’s most unsettling and nervy music.

41) John Taylor - Requiem For A Dreamer (CamJazz)
Still one of the most sophisticated and innovative composers in British jazz, John Taylor has here unveiled a mature and deeply felt set of music dedicated to the late, great American writer Kurt Vonnegut. A brilliant example of how other art forms such as literature can serve as extra-musical inspiration, Requiem For A Dreamer is richly melodic and characteristically subtle. Taylor’s trio with Palle Daniellson and Martin France is communicative and light of touch, whilst the presence of Julian Arguelles on saxophones adds weight, attack and melodic potency. Splendid.

The 100 (and a bit) Best Albums of 2011 Part 2: 80-61

80) Andy Stott - Passed Me By/We Stay Together (Modern Love)
These two EPs/mini albums were repackaged together as one long album towards the end of the year. Bass heavy and influenced by dub, but in an altogether distinctive space of its own, Passed Me By is singularly detached and agitated, filtering soul, reggae and r&b through all manner of abstract textural intrusions.


79) Peaking Lights - 936 (Not Not Fun)
The hazy dub of Peaking Lights proved to be one of 2011’s more straightforward pleasures, and one that did a great deal to enhance the reputation of the Not Not Fun label. The cascading, incandescent sound of much of 936 is immersive. Whilst the duo tend to eschew verse-chorus song structure, there were plenty of imaginative vocal hooks here too.

78) Sidi Toure - Sahel Folk (Thrill Jockey)
Sahel Folk was the first internationally distributed album in sixteen years from the artist hailed by Bassekou Kouyate as a ‘worthy successor to Ali Farka Toure’. Sahel Folk is a series of duos with a variety of collaborators, and this setting seems to suit Sidi remarkably well. The music is relaxed, sensitive, unshowy and unobtrusive but also quietly authoritative.

77) Six Organs Of Admittance - Asleep On The Floodplain (Drag City)
This may have been overlooked simply by being one of Ben Chasny’s most inviting and least foreboding albums under the Six Organs moniker. It’s mostly an album of soft drones and calm reveries that have a cumulatively hypnotic effect. Chasny may be at his least provocative here, but he is also at his most musically eloquent and articulate.

76) Twelves - The Adding Machine (Babel)
A great example of where freedom and flexibility meet discipline and control, Twelves’ second album is both supple and fascinating. With new guitarist Rob Updegraff adding a gritty, incisive undertow to the ensemble sound, The Adding Machine further develops the group’s inspired balance of knotty compositions, melodic development and turbulent free improvisation. A strong sense of narrative is apparent throughout.

75) Deerhoof - Deerhoof Vs. Evil (ATP)
Having already achieved so much, there seems to be little that Deerhoof can do now save for repeating themselves, although each release now seems to veer further towards what might be described as accessible pop territory. There’s still plenty of infectious quirkiness here though, and the band are as innovative as always with rhythm. With every release, their sound gets crisper and more dynamic.

74) Kode 9 & The Spaceape - Black Sun (Hyperdub)
Spaceape is less of a rapper and more of a surrealist storyteller. When paired with the claustrophobic soundscapes of Kode9, his words assume an even greater potency. Black Sun is another album to veer beyond the conventions of UK bass music and microgenre classifications, often emphasising texture more than the lower end frequencies. Over on musicOMH, I described the effect of Black Sun as being a kind of ‘disaster idealism’ - a dystopian urban vision tinged with the hope that something better and more sustainable will emerge.

73) Kairos 4tet - Statement Of Intent (Edition)
Remarkably now winners of the MOBO award for best jazz act, Kairos 4tet have had a busy, impressive year. That all this has been achieved as a result of an album considerably subtler and more refined than its urgent, memorable predecessor is all the more satisfying. Now with Ivo Neame’s graceful, considered touch on the piano, and still benefiting hugely from the experienced, empathetic rhythm section of Jasper Hoiby and Jon Scott, Adam Waldmann’s compositions have taken elegiac and unpredictable turns here.

72) Singing Adams - Everybody Friends Now (Records Records Records)
Steven Adams has managed to weather the quiet storm of the Broken Family Band split with consummate ease, forming a new band and simply getting on with business as usual. Singing Adams (initially a solo side project but now a band of the same name) inevitably share some qualities with BFB - Adams’ barbed humour and his deft hand with a tune being one. Some of the shuffly or chuggy rhythmic urgency remains too. But there’s also a sense that Everybody Friends Now is a less forthright, more reflective affair - perhaps the start of Adams’ maturity as a singer-songwriter. He certainly deserves more attention.

71) Outhouse & Hilmar Jenssen - Straw, Sticks & Bricks (Babel)
The Loop Collective’s flagship band continue their brilliant explorations of groove, texture and communication here, this time working in collaboration with Icelandic guitarist Hilmar Jenssen. Jenssen adds an air of menace and threat, whilst the band sound increasingly confident and controlled. The album is often brooding and mysterious but also fleet-footed and intuitive.

70) Rustie - Glass Swords (Warp)
Of all the wild electronic music released in 2011, Rustie’s long awaited debut album came brimming with the most fun. This is a sly, insanely over the top stew of retro synthesisers and modern awkwardness that is unashamedly entertaining. As the year draws to a close, it seems, perhaps surprisingly, to have moved outside genre circles to be picked up by major publications such as The Guardian.

69) Clams Casino - Instrumentals (Type)
2011 seems to have been the year of the ‘mixtape’ (even as I write this, singer-songwriter Marques Toliver has just unleashed his own rather splendid series of mash-ups), compilations of material released online, usually for free. Perhaps this format is where we’re headed in this new technological age - ‘albums’ becoming less important, but ‘selections’ of material both old and new becoming increasingly prevalent. This was a selection of beats that Mike Volpe sent to various rappers - but it’s pretty much like nothing in hip hop right now - and completely far from being generic. Although it’s termed a set of instrumentals - one of those instruments is certainly the sampled human voice, of which Volpe makes highly creative use. Much of this music is bold, intense and brilliantly arranged.

68) Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Wolfroy Goes To Town (Domino)
Will Oldham’s music seems to assume greater subtlety as he enters his mature period. After the red herring of the direct and bold opener No Match, much of Wolfroy Goes To Town is so subdued as to almost be vaporous. Whilst it’s one of his least immediate recordings to date, it does yield significant rewards. The highlight for me is the wonderful, quietly evocative New Whaling, a song largely unlike anything else he has recorded so far. Overall, this may be the best result of his experiments with female vocalists so far, the balance of the voices being remarkably complementary.

67) Moritz Von Oswald - Horizontal Structures (Honest Jon’s)
Horizontal Structures made for a marked contrast with Oswald’s previous trio release, the more propulsive Vertical Ascent. If the music here was more challenging and less immediate, it proved equally successful on its own terms. Horizontal Structures mostly eschews rhythm in favour of stark textures and rumbling undertones. These sound collages mix found sound, live instrumentation, improvisation and programming to brilliant effect.

66) Hiss Golden Messenger - Poor Moon/From Country Hai East Cotton (Black Maps/Paradise of Bachelors)
Although clearly informed by the American folk tradition, there’s something extra - something more intuitive and mysterious - about MC Taylor’s work as Hiss Golden Messenger, much of which finally saw the light of day here in the UK in 2011. From Country Hai East Cotton was a delicate and vulnerable affair, patiently unfolding and admirably understated in its execution, but with some lush string arrangements and a soulful vibe. Much has been written about Taylor’s understanding of bluegrass and folk - but less seems to have been written about the soulful side of his music, which echoes writers such as Dan Penn and Tony Joe White. His language is rich and evocative and his delivery soft and almost conversational. These two albums are an absolute delight.

65) Isolee - Well Spent Youth (Pampa)
Given the impact wearemonster had a few years ago, it’s bewildering just how ignored this latest, supposedly long-awaited Isolee album has been. Perhaps it’s too straightforward and lacks cultural currency in an electronic world that has been dominated by bass music trends in the period between Isolee albums. On the other hand, it really ought to be invigorating to hear an electronic album with rather different concerns. Well Spent Youth strikes me as being thoroughly enjoyable, and rich in melody and a careful ear for sound. It’s depressing when albums this strong are dismissed by those demanding an instant classic.

64) Egyptrixx - Bible Eyes (Night Slugs)
This austere but thrilling album from Toronto’s David Psutka felt like an artist challenging himself and rising even above his already lofty reputation (at least within bass music circles). In fact, Bible Eyes is largely free from dubstep cliche - instead reaching into other areas of minimal electronic music. It’s a confident, refreshingly consistent album.

63) The Decemberists - The King Is Dead (Rough Trade)
This is the sort of unassuming, straightforwardly decent album that is all too easy to neglect when making these round-up lists, especially as it was released very early in the year. Still, it’s worth noting that this is a rare case of a ‘reaction’ album actually working very well - it’s a definite retrenchment after the theatrical excesses of The Hazards of Love. It’s a real reminder of Colin Meloy’s narrative and melodic gifts as a songwriter, and the playing is frequently marvellous, including a guest appearance from Peter Buck.

62) St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)
It’s immensely satisfying that Annie Clark’s odd, angular take on pop music seems to have reached a surprisingly wide audience this year. For all of Strange Mercy’s tricksiness, it also comes armed with some superb hooks and melodies, even if Clark often tries to hide this by dressing them in very elaborate, unpredictable arrangements. Clark is adept at using the studio to its full potential.

61) Mara Carlyle - Floreat (Ancient and Modern)
The long-awaited Floreat (first shelved by EMI as far back as 2008) makes me wish I had taken more notice of Mara Carlyle much earlier. She is an idiosyncratic and bold singer-songwriter, keen to explore a wide variety of musical spaces. There are hints of early jazz and show tune stylings - but also a decidedly modern touch and approach. Carlyle has a bite and a sense of humour that brilliantly undercuts her more florid, theatrical moments.