2013 Best LPs

eMMplekz - Your Crate Has Changed
Semi lucid ranting over hallucinatory electronic dub splatter.

The Focus Group - The Elektrik Karousel
A spooky and disorientating trip out to melt your mind.  Psychedelia for now and never.

Ensemble Skalectrik - Trainwrekz
Transmissions from.....somewhere or nowhere.

Gesaffelstein - Aleph
Beautiful paranoid urban atmospheres, bangin streamlined EBM and cold rushes.

Primitive Calculators - The World Is Fucked
More confrontational than ever. Age has not mellowed Australia's greatest post-punk band!

Tim Hecker - Virgins
The ghosts of 20th century's monumentalism.

Umberto - Confrontations
The soundtrack to match the alien invasion movie in your mind.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
It was hard to resist those tunes on the back half of this album in the end. Get your singin & dancin shoes on.

House In The Woods - Bucolica
Rural isolationist journeys into sound.

Lieven Martens Moana - Music From The Guardhouse
Dolphins Into The Future's main man delivers another warped environmental electronic masterpiece. He's on an oceanic roll.

The others I also liked

Skull & Shark - Lazerhawk
Ooga Boogas - Ooga Boogas
New Dark Age Of Love - Xander Harris
Fire Funmania - The Horrorist
Cold Mission - Logos
Cortex Meridian - Panabrite
Devesham Dub - Ekoplekz
Earl Grey Whistle Test - Robin The Fog
Secret Songs Of Savamala - Howlround
The Harbinger Of Spring - Children Of Alice
She Beats - Beaches
Testpressings 1-3 - Demdike Stare
Watching Dead Empires In Decay - The Stranger

The others that I didn't

James Ferraro - Cold,
James Ferraro - NYC Hell 3am
Stellar Om Source - Joy One Mile
Grouper - The Man Who Died In His Boat

On The Fence

Tomorrows Harvest - Boards Of Canada
I dunno if this is great, just ok or a complete waste of time (and I love their other records).
A Fondness For Hats - Moon Wiring Club
Only got it today, I'll get back to you on that.
Night Slugs All Stars Vol. 2 - Various
It's good and all that but it sounds more like the recent past than the future (as many claim it to be). Then again it's good though....or is it?....
Living In The Past - Manix
Well the title says it all but when those mentasm stabs kick in towards the end it's a little bit awesome.
Empty Avenues - John Foxx & The Belbury Circle
A charming new pop direction for GhostBox or 'sounds a bit like Nik Kershaw singin over a crappy library record?'

Stay Away From My Eardrums Pleaz

Lorde
Lilly Allen
Arcade Fire
And most of what's on my Channel V ie. 10,000 of Mumford's sons.

Tim Hecker - Virgins

Was It Hemingway or Forster who said 'I write so I know what I think.' Anyway I feel I've got nothing to say but sometimes putting pen to paper reveals what is really going on in my brain. It's not like I'm not listening to a lot of music, maybe I'm listening to too much. I'd like to just focus on one or two records to write about but maybe nothing is outstanding enough. I am enjoying Tim Hecker's new album Virgins. Its got more exquisite drones that sometimes go berserk. Virgins is a fine proper follow up to his 2011 classic Ravedeath, 1972. I feel like this is music about architecture, skyscrapers and progress. Is it a paean to the 20th century's man made technological triumphs yet tinged with sadness that those heady days are behind us? It could be about nothing. I don't know maybe its about poverty in the 3rd world or mobile phones. It might be holy I mean check out the title. Perhaps this music is made for the joy of its own sonic delirium. Anyway its definitely monumental, its big, its urban and full of vibes I can't quite put into words. There are pianos, other acoustic instruments, synths and electric currents. Occasionally I'm put in mind of Maryanne Amacher along with other drone-ologists. Do I have to use the word decay somewhere in this paragraph? I don't want to! Abstract is a much overused term in music discourse of the last 20 years but on Virgins and Tim Hecker's other work it actually fits like a glove. This is a sound world I want to be part of again and again. Play it again Sam!

There you go who knew I was gonna write a review of that album.

I take that back

The previously mentioned new Dolphins Into The Future record is not a disappointment at all. In fact it is up there with the Dolphins best tapes Mountains Saturnus, ...On Sea Faring Isolation, Wildlife Tapes etc.

Canto Arquipelago

Dolphins Into The Future

2012

Speaking of a lack of good new releases, there were a couple of top records I missed last year to keep me going in this drought. Tim Hecker's Ravedeath,1972 is a cracker. This is berserk drone heaven.

Keeping in drone territory are the digital drones with more of a club music influence on Laurel Halo's Hour Logic LP.

Last but not least is is Julia Holter's Tragedy which is apparently a concept LP but don't hold that against it, it's got songs and weird atmospheric interludes or is that weird atmospheres with song interludes. Anything which has a track that sounds like its a sacrificial cult chanting is fine by me ( ie. track 2). Tragedy is fairly unclassifiable, having said that Ivo Watts Russel  would probably dig it. Pop, Classical, Goth, Minimalism, Ambient, Psych Folk, Field Recording, Electro are genres it might be tinged with but really this is a work of its own and an incredibly accomplished/cohesive one at that. Outstanding.