Loma

Loma, the new project comprised of Jonathan Meiburg, best known as the singer of Shearwater, and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski of Cross Record. This sense of discovery extends to the listener; at times, Loma almost seems to be listening to you. Check this out.

Joel Graham

"An obscure tape release discovery by Red Light Radio founder and close friend of the label, Orpheu de Jong, led to Music From Memory’s latest release. This two track 12” highlights the work of electronic music pioneer Joel Graham, a San Francisco based artist who self released two cassettes in 1984/85.
Originally recorded and performed live on pre-MIDI analogue equipment in 1982 as an outline for a live performance, these visionary tracks provoke much of the same sensibilities found in both contemporary dance music as well as in works of more established vanguard artists of the time. Slowly unravelling and deeply hypnotic, Joel Graham’s music seems to manifest a doorway to a profound new world and can be seen as a forerunner of what was to come in electronic music."

Sigmataf

Starting out with Prohja hip hop group, he continued as a lyricist and performer with Babylon under the stage name Koraki, and since 2010 has been releasing his albums as Sigmataf. You listen electronic sounds, heavy basslines and strong beats but you feel the cynicism and a sarcasm vibe. Trully a nice project.

 

Fidlar

Fidlar, is a punk rock band from Los Angeles, California. The band's name is an acronym for Fuck It Dog, Life's a Risk, a skate mantra gleaned from singer Zac Carper's former roommates. Originally, Fidlar went under the name 'Fuck The Clock', as referenced in their song 'Cheap Beer'.


 

Balothizer

Balothizer is an electric power trio founded in London at the late 2016 from bass player and vocalist Pavlos Mavromatakis and lute player Nikos Ziarkas, later the line up was completed with drummer Steve Bongo. The concept was captured due to their shared passion of Cretan music and their need to create something else through this Greek tradition.

Broadcast

Formed in Birmingham, England in 1995 by James Cargill and Trish Keenan, Broadcast were a band that fused the worlds of pop songcraft and experimentally-minded electronic music into a contemporary blend of psychedelia that resonated deeply with listeners, effectively expanding the conventions of what could be considered psychedelic.

 

Gold Zebra

The first clue as to what Gold Zebra sounds like is to notice that they are signed to Visage Musique – a label out of Montreal that specialized in the darkest, smoothest, most arpeggiated electronic pop. This is a seriously wonderful label, so their endorsement of a band speaks volumes to their quality.

AOTY #1. Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Chelsea Wolfe continues her personal and artistic evolution developed in all her records, and proves how sincere and imposing her music is. Expanded in sound and in a passion that liberates, “Hiss Spun” is the record of the year.

AOTY #2. Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Ulver, yes the same Ulver that released some of the most sharp and commanding black metal music of the genre’s 90s heyday, and who later became art rock mainstays through their adaption of more ambient styles, just released a pop album. Now here’s the weird part: it actually works.

AOTY #3. EMA - Exile In The Outer Ring

I want to explain to outsiders that the people where I come from arent beyond hope and reason , says EMA, I want this record to bridge a divide. The album is unique in its mingling of gender politics with American working-class anxiety. The voices we hear in these songs druggy, surly societal outcasts; Byronic nihilists bringing down fire speak to a kind of rebellion that s typically reserved for men, and the archetype of the dirtbag teenage boy dominates the album. Yet EMA claims some of that same dirtbag alienation for women a woman who swallowed a scumbag teen boy whole, as EMA puts it and uses it to interrogate both her own vulnerability and how male violence shapes the world, as on the anthemic Aryan Nation. The result is a deeply personal, confrontational, but ultimately redemptive album from a quintessentially American artist at the peak of her form. A Magnum Opus!

AOTY #4. Fever Ray - Plunge

‘Plunge’ is an album that was worth waiting for. It’s a bold and exciting body of work that pushes and pulls and confuses and delights in equal measure. Maybe it will be another 7 or 8 years before the next release by FEVER RAY, but one thing is for certain. Cool is still intact.

AOTY #5. Code Orange - Forever

Forever is indeed a hardcore record, but without sacrificing the aggression, brutish intensity and passionate vehemence that makes it so, its tropes and conventions are toyed with at every turn, either accentuated or subverted completely. The first listen is an absolute thrill ride, the listener quite simply strapped in, tossed around in wild different directions and told to deal with it. The joy of further listens comes not only in that maintained visceral high but getting inside those twists and turns and becoming part of the mayhem.

AOTY #6. LCD Soundsystem - american dream

American Dream represents a high point for Murphy, not only as a songwriter, but also as a meticulous sonic architect and an exuberant performer. He’s constructed and executed most of these songs on his own. Sometimes they’re mind-bendingly knotty, but they’re always immensely satisfying. As the album progresses, a slow burn early on, synth flourishes, drum beats, and guitar riffs build to tantric levels of foreplay without obvious climaxes.

ΑΟΤΥ #7. Zola Jesus - Okovi

This record...Such a statement! Such a nice/bad vibe to get and feel to the fullest her emptiness at the highest level with a small dose of positiveness. Zola Jesus magnum opus is here to stay and me to love her. Literally, great evolution into her sound.

AOTY #8. Feist - Pleasure

So this is what we get after six years away. Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist’s long-awaited fifth LP Pleasure continues the trend of 2011’s Metals, heading in an even more esoteric direction than her smash hit record The Reminder. Mostly recorded live in studio, this latest offering is a cagey and defiant record that is admirable for its obstinacy. Pleasure is easily Feist’s most difficult album, far from the immediate accessibility of The Reminder, but she's a captivating performer and it may well be her richest statement. Feist has no need to impress anymore, having long earned the right to live however she likes. By the sounds of it that satisfaction has been hard-won.

AOTY #9. Ghostpoet - Dark Days + Canapes

Twice the Mercury Prize bridesmaid and never the bride (he was nominated for his 2011 debut Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam and 2015’s Shedding Skin), could the fourth album from Obaro Ejimiwe aka Ghostpoet finally see him take the prestigious award?
“The glitchy electro of his early work has now evolved into something more organic as guitar, bass and drums amalgamate with his DIY sound.” – Steve Harnell

AOTY #10. Timber timbre - Sincerely, Future Pollution

Written as the nadir of 2016 was coming into focus, it paints a somewhat dystopian vision of a society out of control and typifies the record’s tone of, in his own words, “utter chaos and confusion.” This is a good thing for ‘Sincerely, Future Pollution’, whose nine tracks have a deliciously inky, retro feel, like Nick Cave fronting a bitter ’80s Vegas house band. So what if it’s a little strange? Given the world we live in, we could do with more art that reflects such abnormal territory.