5. Winter: James Blake, s/t What I remember most vividly of last winter: turning 30, my father's unexpected bypass surgery, and my grandmother dying. Throughout, there was the James Blake full-length. I should say: the timeline for this whole list is gonna be out of whack. Seasonally-themed free association bends the very space-time continuum, mmmmkay? So, however difficult it is for me to sequence music in order of preference, I can easily list the discs I have the most enduring memories of listening to. And I listened to James Blake more than anything else (see: Adam's iTunes). "James Blake" became the soundtrack to the hospital waiting room, recovery visits, final good-byes, yada yada. It's minimal enough to co-exist with strong emotions. Plus, it sounds great bumpin' on the stereo. Achingly tender when I needed that sort of thing.

4. Spring: Kurt Vile, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Panda Bear These all came out in that short window when the VT winter enters magic hour and spring teases the shit out of us. Good tunes for cracking the car window for the first warm-ish breeze of the year. "Smoke Ring for My Halo" is disarmingly innocuous - as are "Belong" and "Tomboy" I suppose too. But the slouchy Americana of the former hit my pleasure button as thoroughly as the recreated 90's guitar heaviness and tinny skank of the latter two.

3. Summer: ARAABMUSIK, Clams Casino, The Weeknd I spend (read: piss away) money via iTunes. There, I said it. If I didn't hit up Pure Pop with the other 99% of my disposable income, I'd feel even shittier. Worst confession: I will buy the CD of an album I've already downloaded if I like it enough. Kinda like a respect thing. In the case of these three summer jamz, I LOVE LOVE LOVED being able to download them for free - with only a quick google search beforehand to boot. Without launching further into a messy attempt to connect Capitalism, pop consumption and our capacity to engage with a piece of music, I'll just say that I'm a sucker for thick low-end, atmospherics, and mid-tempo BPMs. Especially in the Summer. When I finally got around to getting a new car this past July, these three got major air time. Seasonal update: windows fully down, still sweating, FUCK air conditioning.

2. Fall: Zola Jesus, M83, Fucked Up Ahhhhh, Fall. What a pleasant autumn we had, am I right?? Good temperatures and none of that insufferable pressure from Summer to go outside and do shit. Forget that "David Comes to Life" came out in the Summer. I didn't get around to appreciating the grandeur of its riffage until Fall. I almost made a mix CD of every track in a different order but it's too damn long! The M83 on the other hand could be cut in two and still deliver the synth-riffage. I get the hi-highs and lo-lows critique on this one. But for me the whole thing is above sea level - with upper atmospheric highs. Hi there. Last year enough of my music friends raised my awareness of Zola Jesus that I wish I could put her eps on this list. The full length really works for me too, but I prefer the production of the eps. She could sing over an outtake from a "Stomp" rehearsal and I'd still dig it. #dontputyourmoneywhereyourmouthis

1. Winter again: The War on Drugs, Drake, Jamie xx Remember, in some cases my picks have to do with the release date more so than the way the album speaks for the season. Happy coincidences - absolute contingency. In other cases, I didn't get around to the album for a while. "Slave Ambient" falls into this category. It finally clicked on my recent visit to see my parents in Florida. Perfect for a flat stretch of southern highway, traversing the sprawl en route to the next cultural oasis. In Floriduh, it's a good thing the speed limit is 75. I wanted to make a snarky but defensive comment about how maybesortakinda they sound like Tom Petty. Then I remembered he's from Florida and I like him no matter. Boom! Free association. I hope I've not led anyone to believe I resent Winter. If that's the case and you live here, you've just won the Why-don't-you-do-something-about-it-and-MOVE-? award. Congrats! ;) Winter is for whiskey and "Take Care" goes well with whiskey. Insert wordplay using "smooth" as an apt descriptor here: _____. Still true. Further, I got nothing but love for someone who can nail his delivery with a mostly live band (maybe 50/50) on SNL without sounding like a live hip-hop act/the Roots on SNL. I tend to finish weakly so here: Jamie xx does great remixes and his solo ep is agile as fuck. Really looking forward to a full length if that's in the cards.

Hey, the calendar year begins and ends in the Wintertime. Sue me if I went a bit overboard with the seasonal approach. I’m a “right music for the present situation” type of guy. I like to dj in the car on trips (who doesn’t?) and pass music to my parents I think/hope they’ll enjoy. I still make mix CDs for driving around. I ended up running the sound for my sister’s wedding this Fall and snuck a Kurt Vile song into the playlist. Subtle. And when my fiancee completed the entire marathon, it was with the playlist I made for her shuffle. Inspirational.

That said, this year marked an odd migration to Florida by most of my family. Visiting there, as a native Vermonter, tends to highlight how synced I feel with regular seasonal change – change with a 90 degree swing, not the trifling matter of 90 and sunny versus 70 and sunny (possible exception: hurricanes – oh wait…) So for my first ever YearEnder List I went concept-heavy. There were other songs and albums I would rate as more innovative, challenging and provocative. I make no claims of originality with these choices – especially for my demographic. Nor do I have the time/will to mine for the hidden gems not yet trumpeted by the cool-hunters. Quite simply: these were the ones I’ve timestamped 2011.

5. Raspberry Bulbs – Nature Tries Again (Hospital Productions) One half of the legendary Bone Awl. Primitive metal/thrash/punk geared for bumming out mellows on the car ride to church.

4. Nâ Hawa Doumbia - La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3 (Awesome Tapes from Africa) Awesome Tapes from Africa’s 1st official release presents the gut busting voice of Southern Mali’s Na Hawa Doumbia. Recorded in 1982 with simple compositions and vocals that would make Sister Rosetta Tharpe swoon.

3. Co La – Daydream Repeater (NNA Tapes) HXC champagne and pixi stix cocktail for the ears. It’s like an audible Ferran Adrià dish with splashes of Phil Spector, Jamaican rocksteady and vintage porn that hits the senses from all angles. Pleasure.

2. Stare Case – Lose Today (De Stijl) John Olson and Nate Young (Wolf Eye’s Duh) slowly creep their bass grooves and drugged primitive blues through your noodle like a water, maple syrup, cayenne pepper body cleanse. Somehow, I hear lots of reggae in these recordings. Young keeps it locked down/Olson keeps it subtly spastic. Long form and infinitely unfolding.

1. James Ferraro – Far Side Virtual (Hippos In Tanks) “If you really want to understand Far Side, first off, listen to [Claude] Debussy, and secondly, go into a frozen yogurt shop. Afterwards, go into an Apple store and just fool around, hang out in there. Afterwards, go to Starbucks and get a gift card. They have a book there on the history of Starbucks-- buy this book and go home. If you do all these things you’ll understand what Far Side Virtual is-- because people kind of live in it already.” –James Ferraro

A list of other, more off beat obsessions are available here
& image dig here:
http://oblongorigami.tumblr.com/
FOOD & FREEDOM!

5. The Real Tuesday Weld - The Last Werewolf I was excited to here that Stephen Coates's grand "antique-beat" experiment, his caberet inspired, cocktail slathered electro-jazz band was releasing a new album in 2011. When I had first listened to "The Last Werewolf," I could see a chaotic episodic tale playing out in my head. The work is a concept album based off of Coates's close friend Glen Duncan's book bearing the same title. I was most pleased with the variety on this album. Cheers to such an innovative group.

4. Washed Out - Within and Without It's beautiful, incantatory, sexy, and yielding. Yes to this album.

3. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy The third release from Annie Clark has proved itself as promising as the previous. Strange Mercy, while not as chilling as some of St. Vincent's other work, is a well produced, well thought out, and all around well written album. Each track is very cohesive with one another. Another great endeavor.

2. Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts I can not quite get over NPR's comment on this album, "[it] unfolds like a graceful prayer," only because it really does. While we can mourn the death of Sonic Youth, I can definitely celebrate Moore's latest work for its lush sounds and transcendent melodies.

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver It's just a good album. Listen to it.

Honorable mentions for 2011 include:

Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
Future Islands – On the Water
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
My Morning Jacket – Circuital
Miracle Fortress – Was I the Wave?
Wye Oak – Civilian

I am a history and secondary education major at St. Michael’s College and I love to get my music fix at Pure Pop. Thank you all for your magnificent service and for pumping out such great works to the public this year.

5. Anthony Paul Kerby & Tomas Weiss - Distant Shadows I've spent the year wading through a sea of crappy drone albums and happened to stumble upon this one along the way. It seems that when it comes to ambient and drone lately, it's either the glut of amateurish albums that get slapped together quickly, or the overly academic stuff that's like, "Ohhh, listen to what I can do with this one tone for 25 minutes, and just you wait until I throw this other tone on top of it," which I stopped pretending to like years ago. But this one's different. These two guys have been in the game for quite awhile now, and they know how to bury a beautiful melody deep in the mix, use rich, ever-changing textures in the foreground, drop tasteful field recordings in the just the right places, and make choirs sound like they're serenading you miles away from a coastline. These are exactly the types of sounds that keep me coming back, and if you've found yourself similarly disappointed with the lack of great ambient/drone albums this year, wrap yourself up in this one and get lost for awhile.

4. Andy Stott - We Stay Together If, like me, you’ve ever fantasized about what kind of warped results would come of Philip Jeck deciding to make a techno album, come hither. A whole lot of Jeck’s hallmarks are here—the dusty vinyl, the broken-down machinery, the narcotic loops upon loops, the twisted, distant wails. What Stott does with these ingredients over the course of a half an hour, though, is approximate the sound of a locomotive lurching its way through a cyclone. This isn’t necessarily stuff you’re going to cue up at your next dance party, cause it’s slow and low. But once you glide through the gorgeous ambient opener, and that boulder bash of a kick drum comes in at the 1:13 mark of “Posers” and delivers a roundhouse to your dome, you will be nodding like it’s your job until the last seconds of “Cracked” fade out.

3. Machinedrum - Room(s) This is one of those that took awhile for me to warm up to, since it tends to get a bit crazy with the BPMs. I'd spin it once a month or so, think "whoa, that's pretty insane," and shelve it for awhile. But with some prodding from my musical cohort, Will, and the realization that this guy is one half of Sepalcure, I decided to hit it hard and it thwacked me back way harder. I've listened to it pretty incessantly, and much like a 5-hour Energy shot, it gets you all hopped up and then brings you down all nice and slow-like. For me, the album reaches its pinnacle halfway through with "Come1," on which he mixes a bouncy house piano melody with the type of drum tracks you'd hear on a DJ Shadow or Caribou album. The songs that lead up to and follow it are right on par, and he doesn't let up until that comedown I was telling you about, the sedated and stunning "Where Did We Go Wrong?," which rivals the best ambient pieces on Untrue.

2. Kangding Ray - Or I feel the best way to show my undying love for this beast is to direct you to the gchat between Will Ryan and myself, which has us geeking out and losing our shit while synched up on the album in realtime. This is a link to our new electronic music blog, and you'll find the discussion at the top... http://neighborhoodkill.tumblr.com/

1. Katy B - On a Mission Lately I've had a few friends ask me what my top album of the year is going to be, and I almost feel like i have to defend my pick, as if it were some guilty pleasure, when I invariably get "bwwwwahhh?!" for a response. But you see, I frankly don't give a shit because Katy B makes perfect pop music with ridiculously catchy hooks, relatively complex beats rooted in everything from dubstep to techno to throwback jungle, and a voice that packs one helluva punch. I think what really puts "On a Mission" over the top for me, though, is the undercurrent of melancholy that flows through most of the tracks. Much like Robyn, she tends to fluctuate between fervent swagger ("Katy On a Mission," "Lights On") and vulnerable despair ("Go Away," "Broken Record"), all while keeping the vibe focused squarely on the dancefloor. I can't count the number of times I cued "On a Mission" up on my back porch this summer, and got into impromptu dance parties with my daughters and whoever else happened to be around. Again, like Robyn, in a perfect world Katy B would be huge in the States, but I'll settle for her being huge in my backyard while the great unwashed keep Katy Perry at the top of the charts instead.

Hi, I’m Josh, and I’m easily the most boring person to post a year-ender on this blog. I live up in St. Albans in a house with my wife, two kids, and a super old, super fat pekingese that looks like a chicken nugget. I work in a cube all day, which obviously sucks, but one of the perks is that I don’t have to talk to anyone and can keep my headphones on all day. So I listen to a lot of music. Oh, and I worked at Pure Pop a few years back. I decided to do a top five electronic albums list for the year, since that’s what I listen to 95% of the time. I’m going to post another five to round out a top ten on Will Ryan’s and my new blog, http://neighborhoodkill.tumblr.com/. Check it out in a few days and it should be on there. Thanks for reading!

My Top 5 non-electronic albums

1. War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
2. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
3. Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong
4. Snowman – Absence
5. Cults – Cults

5. Machinedrum - Room(s) This was the only dance record this year that absolutely floored me (heh). Travis Stewart (also half of Sepalcure) goes the way of UK bass and Chicago footwork to create an incredibly aggressive record full of chopped up and momentous vocal samples, minimal tech's knack for detail, furious drum programming, layers and layers of melodic synths, and bombastic rivers of depth-defying subterranean bass. Despite its frantic pace it manages to be lush and beautiful as well. The unconscious auto-tuned R&B lullaby "Lay Me Down" is one of the best bass tracks ever crafted. And then there's the apocalyptic "Where Did We Go Wrong," it's tear-stained vocal sample like an effigy for a collapsing world emanating from busted radio speakers.

4. The Weeknd - House of Balloons / Thursday The Weeknd totally abducted all of my attention this year. Abel Tesfay's glassy voice is simply incredible in its dexterity and grace and the places he manages to go vocally on each of the songs on both of these mixtapes would seem utilitarian if not all of it was gorgeous. The Weeknd was probably my most-played artist this year, so I've had a lot of time to pick apart each of the tracks on both releases. The production is incredibly intricate and left-field. House Of Balloons is superior to Thursday, but both manage to be incredibly detailed in ways they absolutely don't need to be. Almost every second of these tapes is subjected to manipulation - digitally decaying piano samples on "The Zone," the guitar sample sucked out of a darkened pool of reverb on "The Morning," the pitch altered snares on "High For This," the borderline-indulgent spacial manipulation of a Beach House sample at the slow jam outro of "The Party & The After Party," and on and on and on.

3. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact Gang Gang Dance has been a long time favorite (specifically God's Money), but they completely knocked it out of the park with Eye Contact. Each song seems to jump effortlessly from beautifully melodic hook to hook with such surprising impact it almost seems cocky. The group's exploratory impulses seem perfectly balanced with complex cosmic synth arrangements. It's like GGD just improvised for years until these melodies and hooks just happened to come together.

2. Destroyer - Kaputt This album is like bundling myself up in my favorite blanket on a cold evening before drifting off into a sleep vivid with bodiless dreams. Kaputt has beauty and atmosphere like not much else and none of it seems content to remain still as each musical destination is effortlessly exchanged for the next. The inclusion of improvised trumpet and sax makes perfect, obvious sense, yet seems like the most inspired arrangement choice ever made. The melting major key crescendos the horns rush in and out of like smooth midnight tides are maybe the single most exciting instrumental thing on record for me this year.

1. WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain It's hard for me to explain why I love this album so much. I''m starting to realize that what I look for and seek out in music first and foremost is perhaps not what most people are searching for. That's not to say, hey, look how awesome I am in my defined taste - everyone's musical tastes, when chiseled down to things more specific than genre and instrumentation, are probably as diverse as our own individual outlooks and so on. But Go Tell Fire To The Mountain is a perfect example of where my own individual tastes feel tangible and vital where many others are willing to just shrug the same things off. What keeps me coming back to this one - what I think makes it really special - is the unbridled passion and outpouring of distorted, wordless emotion that expels itself from vocalist Ellery Roberts. Listen to where his voice goes right before the guitars erupt on songs like "Such A Sad Puppy Dog" or "Cave Song." It's the most naked and earnest and desperate sound I've ever heard in rock music. He's fearless. And that the music accompanying him manages to contrast yet compliment that emotional grandeur is jaw-dropping to me. I can't think of an album in recent memory that has a more unique and willing emotional pallet to it than Go Tell Fire To The Mountain.

I work as the media editor for One Thirty BPM (http://onethirtybpm.com) where I write album reviews and host a weekly podcast. I just started a music blog called NeighborhoodKill (http://neighborhoodkill.tumblr.com) with my buddy, and Pure Pop alum, Josh LaClair. We mostly write about records we love out of the techno, bass, house, and hip-hop music scenes. You can also find me at http://psychpunk.net and http://twitter.com/psychpunk where I have opinions about things.

5. Tombs - Path of Totality Not to be confused with the Korn album of the same name released this year (that dubstep-metal shit is most certainly not going in my list), Path of Totality is a solid example of how metal bands can crossover more genres than you can count while still sounding familiar and cohesive. Tombs will haunt your dreams and warm your soul at the same time.

4. Red Fang - Murder the Mountains Red Fang's self-titled debut was good enough to garner the attention of Relapse for a sophomore release. That should alone say a lot about how good they are (I have a bit of a crush on Relapse). Murder the Mountains is gritty and heavy yet also has a strange pop sensibility to it. It's everything that's good about bad metal combined with good metal.

3. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse In the making of this list, I went through about 25 of my favorite albums from this year and rated them on a scale from 1 to 10. Logically, the top five made it on. This was the only non-metal record to make the cut, but god damn it deserves it. Apocalypse's sobering vibes found themselves as my soundtrack to closing the store more often than other record this year. I just wish I could bottle up Bill's voice and use it to put me to sleep whenever I wanted.

2. YOB - Atma Everything Mike Scheidt touches is gold. Naturally, Atma is yet another outstanding doom album and possibly the strongest record in the YOB pantheon. Prepare the Ground takes my vote for heaviest track of the year as well. I'm surprised I don't have any brain hemorrhages from listening to it so much...

1. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage Those of you who had the pleasuring of seeing Wolves live when they came to Vermont in September already know everything that I'm about to say. For those who didn't, please listen carefully and take note. Celestial Lineage is the kind of album that evokes both earth and space, fire and water, yin and yang; it is an expertly-crafted work of art that sounds like the kind of thing a bunch of woodland critters would write after being abducted by aliens, smoked out by Pink Floyd, and brought to a Mayhem concert. This was the clear-cut number one for me. The only sadness I have about it is that there won't be a new Wolves album next year...

I suppose I’m the resident metalhead at Pure Pop. I work the Sunday afternoon/evening shift. I also do a metal show up at WRUV-FM Burlington called Native Metal. I try to help spread the word about all of the good metal that exists out there to as many people as possible. I keep an open mind, though, and you’ll often find me playing anything but metal in the store.

This year’s been pretty awesome musically. It started off great with a whole slew of albums that have stuck in my playlists throughout the year, but the Summer absolutely SUCKED (seriously, there was nothing good this year). It’s picked up in the last few months, though. Here’s a few honorable mentions:

Bjork – Biophilia
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Subrosa – No Help for the Mighty Ones
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong
Earth – Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I
Destroyer – Kaputt
Abysmal Dawn – Levelling the Plane of Existence
Xerath – II
Ocoai – The Electric Hand
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Mirror Traffic

5. M83-Hurry Up, We're Dreaming What stood out to me about Anthony Gonzalez most recent album was how easy it was to listen to in one sitting. Sometimes double albums can be hard to sit down and listen to, but "Hurry Up, We're Still Dreaming" flies by. I think this is due to the excellent mix of songs and how well they all work together. Even the filler tracks are great and work as very solid connectors between songs making this an album that really should be listened to from start to finish.

4. The Antlers-Burst Apart I picked this album up on a whim one day this summer while I was at Pure Pop and I am so glad I did. It is a well-made album that consists of ten solid songs that work well together. It was an album that I didn't really realize how much I liked it until I noticed that I had listened to it almost everyday for a week. It is a quiet album, that thrives on the many layers it contains and has moments of real, honest emotion.

3. Radiohead-The King of Limbs First of all, I am a die-hard Radiohead fan so it was inevitable that this album would end up being one of my favorites this year simply because I listened to it so many times. But seriously, this album is awesome. Sure, at first it sounds like a Thom Yorke solo album, but after listening to it a few times you realize that Phil Selway is laying down those skittery, jittery drums,Colin Greenwood is holding down the lows with some brilliant bass work and Ed and Johnny are adding their subtle touches to fill it all out. This is not an album that hit you over the head with its brilliance. Instead, it's beauty that unfolds as you spend time with it.

2. Fleet Foxes-Helplessness Blues After releasing a brilliant debut album, it was going to be hard to follow it up. I think Fleet Foxes have made a great sophomore album that kept the spirit of their music intact but also explored some new territory. The wonderful four-part harmonies are still around, but many of the songs also showcase Robin Pecknold's strong voice which I think helps to make this album distinct from its predecessor. Plus, "The Shrine/An Argument" is just plain epic. It you haven't heard it, check it out right now. (Seriously, it's awesome.)

1. Bon Iver-Bon Iver From the moment I first played this record, I was transfixed. I literally stopped in the middle of my room when the opening notes of "Perth" played and immediately after side B finished, I turned it back over to side A and listened to it again. Justin Vernon has created a record that is wonderful from start to finish and demands that it be listened to in its entirety. There were many excellent records that came out this year, but this is the only album that from my first listen ensnared my senses and took me to another world.

This was a great year in terms of new music. Some other albums I really liked this year were Smother- Wild Beasts, The Big Roar-The Joy Formidable, Dreams Come True-CANT, Gloss Drop-Battles, Dye it Blond-Smith Westerns, Circuital-My Morning Jacket, Belong-The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Nine Types of Light-TV on the Radio.

As for me, I am a life-long Vermonter and currently a student at St. Michael’s College, studying music and journalism (maybe philosophy too). I just wanted to extend a big thank you to Pure Pop for being the best damn record store I could ask for. You guys make buying music the experience it should be.

5. BOBBY/BOBBY OOOOH WEEE BOBBY is mad infectious. A pretty small release I think but a pretty huge sound. This is actually more mellow than I like my music most of the time but these folks really have something here. Melodic, orchestral, wig wearing sonic fiends! "Sore Spores" and "Ginger (Water Birth) are among the standouts.

4. Tom Waits/ Bad as Me One of my many loves. He NEVER leads me astray. And needs no explanation.

3. Ty Segall/ Goodbye Bread Ah, I remember little Ty, playing in the backyard with his dinosaur action creatures, dreaming of success....oh wait, nevermind. Homeskillet and I go way back, and with every album Ty has re-asserted his croony-distorted-garage dynamism. I thank the world for him.

2. John Maus "Hey Moon" might be the greatest song/cover of the year. Ah my heart! This man does not disappoint live either. He jumps about! He pulls at his skull! He uses every ounce of breathe in his being! He is MAN! Hold on I'll show you...

1. Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears/Scandalous After the hound-dogging release, "Tell 'Em What Your Name Is" I did not think they could do anything to top it. But OH! He's gonna take you to "Booty City" and you will love it! Horns, trumpets, guitars, booties, oh my! This is some funky stuff, be careful, take in Large doses.

I’m a workin’ girl at le Pop, and a student at UVM studying how to read (I’m coming along nicely, might I add). I’m also the music director at WRUV-FM and there’s so much snazzy music this year that my head nearly exploded…

Therefore, honorable mentions include:

Bjork/ Biophilia
Black Keys/ El Camino
My Morning Jacket/ Circuital
M83/ Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

5. K. Leimer 'Music for Land & Water' pacific north west 80s ambient music. like an underground DIY american version of brian eno / harold budd.

4. Marcus Schmickler & Thomas Lehn 'Live Double Seance' two modern masters of electronic music team up again for their 4th album. this is an unedited live recording of them at their best. schmickler with computer interjections and lehn adds noisier elements with his trademark EMS Synthi A vocabulary. improvised abstract electronic music.

3. Ben Vida 'Trading Prescriptions' ben is my brother in law. he's been making music for years and years. but in the past number of years he has been focusing on electronic music, mostly modular synthesizer. this cassette captures some of ben's best recent music and his unique soundworld. beguiling, weird, dynamic and humorous all at the same time.

2. Mark Fell 'Periodic Orbits of a Dynamic System Related to a Knot' the story goes that peter rehberg called up mark fell one day and said i have a mastering session scheduled for next week for you and im going to need a new album as soon as possible. so mark, in the process of moving, stitched together this album from bits and pieces of live recordings and outtakes and other things he had laying around on his harddrives. its the typical baffling mark fell music with disorienting rhythms and relentless minimalism. but this album provides more variety and depth than his previous releases.

1. Florian Hecker 'Speculative Solution' florian hecker is the current king of computer music in my book. i dont have much to say about this album except that it is totally amazing and it melts my mind/body/soul every time i listen to it. (be sure to listen to it on nice speakers)

my name is greg davis.
i am a musician/composer from burlington VT.
i love music.
http://www.autumnrecords.net

5. Adele/21 All grown up, the voice is just as big, and the songs are even bigger. This is Adele going for the top-and coming up with some of the greatest songs of the year. Never mind Someone Like You-the soul she expresses on the middle songs will blow you away. She's always been an intimate songwriter, but these tracks bring up straight out of heartbreak into happiness.

4. Florence and the Machine/Ceremonials Florence blends her quirky, strange indy wails with an enormous wall of pop sound. It's darker, but more joyous in places, all in all a triumphant declaration of her presence. With more restrained vocals, amazing keyboards, massive orchestration and her usual lyrical prowess, its all you expected and more.

3. Beady Eye/Different Gear, Still Speeding Oasis minus Noel Gallagher- sounds like a bad idea. It's not. Beady Eye gives Gem, Liam and Andy room to show off their writing prowess and the result is a balls-y return to rock'n'roll at its finest. The album roars in with Four Letter Word, arguably the hardest rocker since Morning Glory, and makes the usual Beatles homage with piano-driver The Roller. One of the most surprising tracks is also one of the best- Bring The Light combines Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano with some of Liam's best vocals in years. Wigwam is an epic jam that rises from a simple piano riff to a full-blown gospel awakening. The closing track The Morning Son is a spare ballad that proves that Liam can be every bit as emotional as Noel. Yes, it's Oasis minus Noel, but they're not doing so bad off the leash.

2. Miles Kane/Colour of the Trap Former Rascals frontman and honorary Artic Monkey's solo debut. He's friends with Alex Turner, Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller, and the reasons are obvious. This album features some of the most inspired writing the British rock scene's had in years, and the fact that Noel came down to do backing vocals is testament to its worth. Come Closer and Inhaler show off some of the dazzling riffs that come from one of Britain's greatest young guitarists, and the vocals Kane comes up with are a strange but amazing mix of Lennon and Ashcroft at their finest. Chock-full of 60s homages and classic rock sound.

1. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds/Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Album of the Year goes to Noel Gallagher's solo debut. After a few years away since the Oasis split, he's seen Liam go all-out with Beady Eye and settled down with his family. Seemingly quieting down, he then announces two new albums, this being the first. These are some of the best songs he's written in years. Everybody's On The Run is an epic ballad combining a killer bassline, pounding drums and full orchestra and choir. The Death of You and Me blends classic Kinks pop with New Orleans brass, as well as reaffirming Gallagher's place among the pantheon of great British songwriters. If I Had A Gun is one of the most emotional songs he's written since Wonderwall, and the disco-inspired, pounding, piano-driven AKA...What A Life! is a totally unexpected move that proves he's only getting better with age.

I’m a freshman at UVM with a massive music collection who spends most of his time playing guitar and singing. I do it because I love music with a passion and want to keep guitar music alive and thriving among all the electronic sounds that are covering the industry.