I know your favourite album isn't here. I know the formatting looks like a celebrity without make-up on. Blah blah, no one cares what I think, blah blah, I haven't heard every album from 2011, blah blah, run on sentence, blah blah blah. Here we go.
Best EP:
4. Colin Stetson - Those Who Didn't Run
Pulsating, swirling, psychedelic saxophone.
3. Samaritan - Don't Try Love
She's playing mind-games, with synthesizers made on dreamstuff.
2. Bongripper - Sex Tape/Snuff Film
A mature headbanger's sexy tunes.
1. How to Dress Well - Just Once
Sounds like the final thoughts before a suicide. Cautious, slow, fragile. Melancholic.
Best ambient:
7. Golden Retriever - Light Cones
Mayan Fripp & Eno.
6. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
A little slow t'night, innit Lloyd?
5. Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Luminaries & Synastry
Sex on shrooms.
4. Myrmyr - Fire Star
The world is burning, and everything is alright.
3. SUNN 0))) Meets Nurse With Wound - The Iron Soul of Nothing
Evil, and empty.
2. Asva - Presense of Absences
Abrasive, evil, and serene.
1. Grouper - A I A
Guitar chords and amped reverb, turns to arhythmic atonal drone, which turns to Heaven.
Best classical:
6. Nico Muhly - Seeing is Believing
The voices of the universe doing math.
5. Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason - SÓLARIS
The soundtrack to a movie I desperately want to see.
4. Steve Reich - WTC 9/11
Just as powerful as it promises to be. Needs 2 listens. Nay, 3.
3. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - S/T
The first song is awe-inspiring. Makes you feel...buoyant. Wading through clouds, over rural Nepal.
2. Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Miners' Hymns
Communism meets minimalism. Ligeti meets Brian Eno. You can hear the tyrants toil; serfs suffer.
1. NOW Ensemble - Awake
Up and down, both at once, and then alternating. Rhythm, is, mis, leading. Really open space. You can swim in it. It goes on forever; always changing.
Best rock/pop/metal:
13. Esben and the Witch - Violent Cries
It's girl music. No apologies. Great voice.
12. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Carnivalesque hipster shit, and I love it.
11. Battles - Gloss Drop
Plastic funk, electronic math-rock. Rhythmically challenging. Check out "Wall Street".
10. Disma - Towards The Megalith
Ancient evil beneath the earth. Doomy death metal.
9. Hella - Trippy
Bring an extra pair of sticks. Face-melting and hella trippy.
8. Boris - Heavy Rocks (2011)
Fuzzy hair headbanging. Either too Japanese, or not Japanese enough.
7. Cat's Eyes - S/t
Involuntary smiling is guaranteed. Big smiles.
6. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare
The real sexy sax man.
5. The Wounded Kings - In the Chapel of the Black Hand
Slowly dying, Satan calling. Soon to cross the Styx. Virgil is near, the 9 circles await.
4. Washed Out - Within and Without
Music to have sex to.
3. Earth - Angels of Light, Demons of Darkness Vol. 1
Neil Young in slow motion. On LSD. And no singing.
2. Barn Owl - Lost in the Glare
Divine desert-wandering music. Mellow acoustic jams, ambient droning murmuring. Dehydration miracles.
1. YOB - Atma
Wake your mom up at 2 am, and don't even care. Just turn it up. Slick doom metal with Alan Watts lyrics. Eugh, yeah. Louder.
Other highlights that somehow didn't make it on any of the other lists:
Tank 86 - Rise
Bjork - Biophilia
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
The Gates of Slumber - The Wretch
Autopsy - Macabre Eternal
Boris - New Album
Omega Massif - Karpatia
Samsara Blues Experiment - Revelation and Mystery
Zoom-on-a-Kill - ‡L∆‡Lol₡ᴓ
P.S., mediafire links available upon request.
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