10. Indian Jewelry – Totaled(This album is a great dream pop, Witch House chillwave thing that sounds so immersive that you instantly get swept away to a star filled land of woozy magic and night time beats. What makes this just superb though is that it works as a proper albums album, a cohesive little world contained within its 13 tracks! Its the more grown up sibling to MGMT and Yeasayers attempts at 2nd albums!)
9. Tinie Tempa – Disc-Overy (Best British rap this year, dance centred and different and with the ambition of a giant, the production makes you cum in your pants, its kinetic and immensely dynamic, dancefloor gold> no more like platinum. Really great styling that is more dance and fashion than grime and bling. Really great lyrical skills. Everything about it awesome, its like getting a new top of the line mobile phone at Xmas, its just so damn cool! Plus Jay Z loves him and wants to help him break the US!)
(None more heavy, the heaviest most drugged up satan worshippers this side of the Galactic rim made a new album this year, its still the Hammer Horror Doom of past albums but its just deeper and fuller, more layers and more lyrics, more Black Sabbath and more virgin sacrifices, blood drips from the cd when you buy it in store!)
(Partly a mixtape, partly an album all parts amazing these three dudes are more inventive and hip than anything, and its a mixtape that has loads of cool producers doing each track! Go get this its free some places or 50 cents from their Bandcamp. I blogged about them and this album a few days ago!)
(Geneva Jacuzzi is very weird, and this album is no deviation from that, finally released this year its a collection of artsy, posing, 80s retro, synth based, Italio pop songs from a reincarnated Cleopatra. It's lo-fi and pretentious but so hard to fault or dislike and has kinda been overlooked but is all kinds of awesome! Plus she is one of the hottest singers of this decade!)
(He comes out of prison and single handedly manages to create an amazing black metal album that doesn't disappoint at all. Yes he probably is an awful person but that's the thing with black metal you kinda have to look past the crazy to see the beautiful. This is a great "almost" easy to listen to album that takes you in to the pine forest and cuts your legs off at the knees!)
4. Teengirl Fantasy - 7AM (Future dance music that manages to combine and sparkle across a whole load of genres from R&B to chillwave, mellow House vibes and every bit of the 90s you can mine for audio gold, to well anything that gets in its way and yet it all sounds like Teengirl Fantasy, I can recognise Teengirl Fantasy remixes straight off from miles away and this album has to be hear for a thousand different reasons, often combined within one song. If you're not listening to this then you should be about to!)
(Too perfect a sound to ignore †‡† is Witch House for superclubs. Its all slowed down trance synths heralding a slo-mo apocalypse, you cant dance to this really but your brain never really realises that. It all sounds like the best breakdown in the best dj set ever and any moment the earth will shift its magnetic alignment, line up with the planets and bring the roof down. Its a trance build up then never breaks. Imagine Kanye Wests "Power" video with †‡† as the music and you suddenly get it, this is an album in search of a million dollar vanity film project , its size is immense, its sound is more 2012 than 2010, listen to it and be afraid! That is if you can get hold of it as it might not be available on Disaro any more!)
(A follow up, hard to do 2nd album that covers all it failed to first time round, promises the world and delivers the moon on a long space elevator instead of a stick -ie teeth grindingly brilliant! Songs that stick in your head like post brain surgery complications and beats and sounds that live in their own little world where only this album is played on repeat in a club all night forever. I need to hear this album djed out on huge sound systems more than it has been this year!)
1. Salem - King Night
(well I had too didn't I what else this year had the build up, the excitement and the future kick of this! Dark and epic and close to and lo-fi all in one foul swoop. Crack filled and haunted and overdriven and out of tune and beautiful. Over all creating a sound that is already and will continue to be mined for inspiration. Its Hip Hop and Gothic and Noize band and trippy and shoe gaze and unique. Also it has the best final track out of any of the albums on my entire list, Killer is a straight out shoe gaze, overblown fuzzed out and glitchy track and the most beautiful thing ever and just on a song writing level it kicks ass!)
Top 20 songs of 2010:
