Modern life is nothing but trouble. How does one hack a new path for oneself through the densely overgrown thicket of digital media? How does one machete chop a snicket or twitchel through the motherfucking sense melting, constant mither and yammering blizz-blazz of omni-thrusting ‘information’? Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t look so fucking haggard and on the verge of tears all the time if I had the answer. (Constantly supping hot drinks made from fresh ginger is my current strategy but it seems to be doing nothing so far.)
If media saturation is a serious problem – and I do think it is – you won’t hear me complaining about the comic sub-plot; i.e. how much music there is to listen to. All those CDrs, the neatly stacked blocks of cassettes, all of those bookmarked Mixclouds, all of that bank account disrespecting 180g vinyl, all of those picture discs, the piles of coloured wax, the mini towers of compact discs, the internet radio shows, the podcasts, the FM broadcasts, the soundclouds, Spotify, YouTube, the memory sticks full of MP3s and WAVS, all of those other things that I can’t work out how to use or pronounce… it’s no wonder I never have time to do anything else these days. Of course, it’s not a problem at all, or at least it’s a problem that I really enjoy having.
It’s probably true that even when we have the utter, utter luxury of being able to dedicate approximately 16 hours a day to listening to music, all we can really do is have a valiant attempt at listening to as much of it as possible. And then it’s necessary to have the constant galling reminder, ‘You’re probably only skimming the surface’. But as long as we’re actually doing some of the footwork ourselves, visiting the international stores, making firm friends in countries outside of Western Europe and North America, searching online, buying music from shows, looking through Bandcamp, frequenting specialist blogs, LISTENING TO RECOMMENDATIONS FROM OUR SAINTED READERS, sifting through message boards and not just waiting for that PR email, how can we fail really? (Big Xmas shout out to the great PRs we love though: have a great holiday, we couldn’t do this without you.) There is so much good stuff out there at the moment after all. (I’m sure not everyone agrees that our list reflects this – please leave your own suggestions in the comments section below. As always, I’m custom bound to point out, that we’re more likely to listen to something you suggest when we’re not being labelled drooling imbeciles.) So what I’m trying to say is this – when it comes to this chart, which draws together DJ mixes, anthologies, reissues, best-ofs, live albums, soundtracks and the like – it simply can’t be an objective, comprehensive statement; rather it’s a tasting menu of what we’ve really loved this year. This is the gear that causes us the most joy and we want to share it with you. So please bear that in mind when you’re calling me a tubby, taste-deprived bastard who looks like Martin Clunes on Jaffa Cakes and Oxfam.
The chart is compiled in the office by votes from Luke Turner, Laurie Tuffrey, Sophie Coletta and myself and is based, roughly on what we’ve listened to the most during the year. I’m really pleased with this chart but when combined with the Albums Of The Year list and next week’s genre round ups (including R&B, metal and hip hop), I think it provides a really solid overview of what we’re about, should you need one.
And at the risk of repeating myself, here’s what I said in the AOTY list:
However the first thing that struck me about this list when I compiled it last week was something negative and rather than taking my normal course of action (stressing out about it in private to Luke until I have a panic attack) I thought I’d mention it here. Run your eye down the list of all the bylines with the capsule reviews under each of the hundred choices… it’s a right sausage fest isn’t it?
We do have plenty of excellent female writers but they tend to favour feature writing over reviewing for the most part. So if you’re a woman and reading this and you’d always fancied writing about music please drop us a line – we’d love to hear from you. (Write to Sophie@theQuietus.com and John@theQuietus.com and one of us will get back to you.) Tell us a bit about yourself, send an example of your writing – doesn’t need to have been published anywhere; we’re more interested in your chops than your experience – and then we’ll explain the woeful pay situation. (No one gets a living wage from The Quietus – a fully independent publication with no financial backing – not even Luke and I but we did pay for a sizeable percentage of copy we ran in the second half of this year and our ultimate goal is to be paying for absolutely everything in the next few years.) The only time we’ve ever seen a readership analysis, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that there’s a near 50/50 male/female distribution among our readers and I’m pretty sure few other music titles can boast that. An obvious way for us to try and maintain this balance is not just to write about more female artists but ensure there are more female voices on the site full stop.
It applied last week and it applies now. Thanks to all the people who’ve gotten in touch with us, we’ve had conversations with approximately 80% of you now and that will be everyone by next week. We’re looking forward to working with some or all of you.
Oh, and, let me point out again that tqpc is short for The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, which is an independent record label run by Luke and I to put out music that we want to see reach a larger audience. One of our projects, Minor Characters a free to download EP featuring the likes of East India Youth, Forest Swords and The Lone Taxidermist, is in this chart. This is not something we will be earning any money from and has been done purely with the interest of helping bands (who are mainly unsigned) achieve higher profile. But please do compare me to Rupert Murdoch again if you like. Really I’m just a giant happy sponge full of sunshine that soaks up spiteful name calling with no ill-effects done to my psyche at all.
I’d like to thanks our pals at Norman Records, the fine vinyl and CD procurement emporium for sponsoring this list. They’re a great independent record shop and we’ve included links from some of these entries straight to their website, should you feel like splashing out on some black wax.
And that’s that. I hope this list throws up at least one recording that brings happiness into your life. Have a peaceful and joy filled winter break.
John Doran
100. Various Artists – Oriental-Trap Mix
(Norient)
99. Mark Lanegan – Has God Seen My Shadow? An Anthology 1989-2011
(Light in the Attic)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“In sampling the prolific career of one of the most distinctive and powerful voices in American music, Has God Seen My Shadow? does not offer itself as a comprehensive overview. Nor does it pretend to be a variety showcase. Instead it aims for the consistent, narrowing its focus on the quintessential character of Lanegan’s music: the deep-voiced, muscular presence behind those dark dirges of melancholy and despair.” Cian Traynor
Read our review of Has God Seen My Shadow? here
98. Ralph Jones – The Slumber Party Massacre
(Death Waltz)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“All of the music for the film was produced with a Casiotone MT-30, crystal glasses and cymbals: three basic elements which are used to startling effect. This particular synthesizer was a relatively popular, high street store model out at the start of the 80s and one of the first of Casio’s products to feature polyphony. It used so-called vowel consonant synthesis to mimic other instruments – often quite poorly. The sounds that you could get out of it were often similar to the tones you’d hear on home computers such as the Commodore 64 or the Atari XL and bore little resemblance to the instruments they were named after. So it’s quite surprising that such a relatively sophisticated soundtrack, full of sepulchral drones, sinister arpeggios and harshly synthesized stabs, was recorded using it to be honest.” John Doran
Read our review of The Slumber Party Massacre here
97. Simian Mobile Disco – Whorl
(ANTI-)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Daniel Avery may have roused popular interest for more acidic shades of house and techno, but on Whorl Simian Mobile Disco have gone the whole hog, grafting full-blown kosmische onto cranky electronic beats. Over the album’s twelve tracks they try to cover everything this entails, from ear-caressing analogue tone poems to sleek kinetic bangers and growling slow-builders. When it’s good, it’s really good – the sheer textural variation, the deft juxtaposition of soft and hard and the playful manipulation of machinery on the album’s better tracks are a sheer joy to listen to.” Danny Riley
Listen to Whorl here on Spotify
96. Various Artists – Folk Music Of The Sahel: Niger
(Sublime Frequencies)
95. Grace Jones – Nightclubbing
(Island)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Incredible 33-years-ago. Incredible now – perhaps even more so. Nightclubbing made Grace Jones Grace Jones – the Harty-beating, Conan-starring, James Bond baddie, car-swallowing creature that followed. She could quite simply do whatever she liked after this, and did. It demands a place in everybody’s record collection whatever their allegiance, and you’ll never really want for anything more than this exhaustive and vital package. What was perfection has become even more perfect.” Ian Wade
Read our review of Nightclubbing here
Listen to Nightclubbing here on Spotify
94. Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Spirits Up Above: The Anthology
(Rhino)
93. Ariel Kalma – An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings 1972-1979)
(RVNG INTL.)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“An Evolutionary Music is a beautiful, beguiling volume of timeless pieces that resound from a solitary path emerging just beyond the crossroads of free jazz, psychedelic rock, West Coast minimalism and European electro-acoustic composition. Indeed, many of its tracks are hypnotic enough to induce states outside time with their combination of looping saxophones, spiralling electronic rhythms and mesmeric synth lines. For many (myself included), this release, which covers original recordings made between 1972 and 1979, will be a first encounter with Ariel Kalma’s rich blends and bold experimentations – perhaps a symptom of his defiantly individualistic attitude that so informs his unique sound.” Russell Cuzner
Read our interview with Ariel Kalma here
92. Baader Meinhof – Baader Meinhof
(3 Loop Music)
“Baader Meinhof – released in 1996 under the same name – was, and it’s hard to write this with a straight face, a psych rock-cum-white funk retelling of the story of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction), the radically left-wing German terrorist group who launched a quixotic, but bloody, insurrection against the European bourgeoisie throughout the decade. More so than The Auteurs at their very best, more so even than the gorgeous first two Black Box Recorder albums, Baader Meinhof has a strong claim to being the best thing Haines has ever put his name to.” Joe Kennedy
Read our review of Baader Meinhof here
Listen to Baader Meinhof here on Spotify
91. The Residents – Santa Dog
(Superior Viaduct)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Santa Dog epitomised a founding philosophy of the band that they called The Theory of Obscurity. In practise it meant cultivating mystery to ensure artistic integrity. This record was therefore originally billed as four songs by four different bands: ‘Fire’ by Ivory & The Braineaters; ‘Explosion’ by The College Walkers; ‘Lightning’ by Delta Nudes and ‘Aircraft Damage’ by Arf & Omega Featuring The Singing Lawnchairs. Originally the optimum listening order took conscious effort as the discs paired sides one and four and two and three together. This posing as a label sampler spelled the beginning of countless musical manifestos by the band, some deliberately muddling, but mostly infinitely rewarding. The legend in this instance has it that Richard Nixon was sent a copy of Santa Dog, but sent it back. Presumably it hadn’t been listened to or else the band may have been investigated by the FBI, for such is the mind warping potential of The Residents’ debut.” Nick Hutchings
Read our review of Santa Dog here
90. Christie Azumah & The Uppers International – Din Ya Sugri (Voodoo Funk)
89. Gigi Masin – Talk To The Sea
(Music From Memory)
88. Robert Wyatt – Different Every Time
(Domino)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Any compilation record fulfills two purposes: it provides a listening experience, and it makes an argument. At some basic level, the first is, as with any music, the most important, but it’s the second that makes for the livelier discussion. Domino’s Robert Wyatt anthology, entitled Different Every Time and split into two double-records, slaughters its opposition as a listening experience. As an argument about the substance of (rarefied language is in this case entirely appropriate) one of the genuinely great, if cruelly under-known, musicians of the past fifty years, there is a counter-argument to be made.” Bill Foreman
Read our review of Different Every Time
Listen to Different Every Time here on Spotify
87. Ingram Marshall – Fog Tropes/Gradual Requiem
(Arc Light Editions)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Ingram Marshall distills a form of minimalism that eschews the austere formalism of the genre’s early landmarks (by the likes of LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad and Pauline Oliveros), instead focusing on using the barest of means to conjure music that is deep in atmosphere and emotional potency. Fog Tropes is based on samples of fog horns recorded in San Francisco bay, but wrenched from any locational context by the injection of a ghostly voice lamenting sadly behind the distant sounds of intermittent brass interjections, birdsong and wind. In such a melancholic context San Francisco could not feel further away and we are pitched straight off the bat onto that shadowy landscape of barren moorland and fog-wreathed dolmens. The piece gradually unfolds with dramatic timing, the voice multiplied, the brass becoming more and more insistent, laden with dolorous portent.” Joseph Burnett
Read our review of Fog Tropes here
Listen to Fog Tropes/Gradual Requiem here on Spotify
86. Various Artists – Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik: German Home Recording Tape Music Of The 1980s
(Finders Keepers)
Listen to Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik here on Spotify
85. Suede – Dog Man Star Box Set
(Demon)
“That record will be called Dog Man Star. It’s a title that reshuffles the name for Stan Brakhage’s short films, Dog Star Man. The alteration is important. Dog Man Star rolls off the tongue with ease, suggesting a trick, a spell, the wave of a wand. It has the upward sweep of Anderson’s ascent, dragging himself from council home to stage. It will be a record about ambition. But it will be a record all about falling apart too.” Matthew Lindsay
Read our feature on Dog Man Star’s 20th anniversary here
Listen to Dog Man Star here on Spotify
84. William Basinski – Melancholia
(Temporary Residence)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Setting his two reel-to-reel tape decks in motion is a delicate and intricate process that completely passed me by a week ago. First left, then right, are set off. The mix is pushed up imperceptibly. A smothered, slow orchestral score sits towards the back, punctuated by what sounds like the occasional blows of rock-on-rock in a cavernous yet insular space. Discarding the left loop, Basinski places it in a glass jar before extracting another from a small metal tin. Digitally looping the initial tape then allows him to proceed with layering up the sounds. They collapse in on one another, each variously cutting across, complementing and accentuating its predecessor. Finally, he reins the mix in, reducing it to near silence, letting it hang almost inaudibly. Holding the tin aloft, he indicates the importance of his disintegrated objects.” Patrick Smith
Read our interview with William Basinski here
Listen to Melancholia here on Spotify
83. Various Artists – The Sound Of Siam 2
(Soundway)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“As decisive a summation as the first volume of Soundway’s Sound Of Siam series seemed to be, this second volume offers essential deeper insight into what, with hindsight, seems to have been Southeast Asia’s most fervent and original music-making nation during the 20th century. Having gauged reactions to volume one, The Sound Of Siam Volume 2: Molam & Luk Thung Isan From North-East Thailand 1970-1982 hones in and focuses almost exclusively on Molam and Luk Thung music originating from the Isan region in Northeast Thailand. That region shares extensive borders with both Laos and Cambodia, and is resultantly one of the country’s most culturally diverse regions. Most in the region speak the Isan language (which is in fact a Laotian dialect), with large numbers speaking Khmer dialects from Cambodia, and almost everybody able to speak standard Thai too. Isan’s Molam style – consisting of what is essentially melodically free-form poetry (often compared to contemporary American rap) performed over repetitive droning backdrops – derives from Laos, while Luk Thung (literally, “children of the countryside”) is a less traditional, and specifically more Thai (albeit staunchly rural) style, often seen as playing a similar role to that of good ol’ country music in the States.” Tristan Bath
Read our review of The Sound Of Siam 2 here
Listen to The Sound Of Siam 2 here on Spotify
82. Clouds – Up North (ATTTKLFCO)
(Bloc Soundcloud)
81. AnD – RA.398 AnD
(Resident Advisor)
80. Helena Hauff & Daniele Cosmo – Lux Rec at Dampfzentrale
(Lux Rec Soundcloud)
79. Lunice – RA.432 Lunice
(Resident Advisor)
“Most people might think that I’ve come from a musical background, but nobody in my family was in any kind of band or played anything. I just picked up music from breakdancing really, that’s what got me to listen to music, and in general I was just a creative guy – I just like to draw, I used to do photography, I used to do video art. I used to do a lot of intermedia stuff, that’s my shit! [laughs] I guess that’s what makes it like I’m someone that’s traditionally trained. I’ve got this method, where I don’t know if this is a chord or not, but it sounds right to my ears – that kind of vibe. I play with that.” Lunice
Read our Lunice interview here
78. Kahn, Neek, Hi5 Ghost and Boofy – The Lab
(Mixmag)
77. Sunroof! – Rock Power
(Nashazphone)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
76. Various Artists – Gipsy Rhumba
(Soul Jazz)
75. Craig Leon – Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1: Nommos / Visiting
(RVNGIntl.)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
74. Caustic Window – Caustic Window
(Rephlex)
73. Evian Christ – RA.404 Evian Christ
(Resident Advisor)
“It’s difficult, ’cause this is new to me just as a job or whatever. It’s hard having your work, your job, critiqued in public. I was teaching before I did this, and you’re critiqued by a lot of people: the parents, the kids, the staff, the headteacher. But my audience and people who ultimately decide whether they like my record or not, I have no idea who they are. I’ve never met them. There’s something inherently strange about that. And this is my first proper release, so I’m having to deal with it. I guess normally people do smaller releases and gradually bigger, and they can just do it step by step. I’ve kind of accelerated.” Daniel Cohen
Read our interview with Evian Christ here
72. PYE Corner Audio – Black Mill Tapes 3 & 4
(Type)
“Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1-4 is a compilation of Themes, Transmissions and Electronic Rhythms (as many of the songs are labelled) that Pye Corner Audio has variously released over the past few years. Purporting to be transfers from a collection of 1/4″ and cassette tapes unearthed by a figure known as the Head Technician, Martin Jenkins (the man behind Pye Corner Audio) has described this framing device as “a way of abdicating responsibility for the music”. Whether you interpret this as becoming an open channel for the echoes of the past or just an intellectual conceit, I’m frankly a complete sucker for this kind of stuff and happy to play along…” Joe Banks
Read our review of Black Mill Tapes here
71. Oneman, Kode9, Ikonika, Addison Groove – A Tribute to DJ Rashad
(Boiler Room)
“I guess some of my sample choices are kind of emotional. They say ‘Rollin’ is kind of – maybe not emotional, but you can kind of feel the sample talking to you, or you can relate to it… It’s touching.” DJ Rashad
Read our DJ Rashad interview here
70. Cosmin TRG – Mix 136
(Secret Thirteen)
69. Hailu Mergia And The Walias – Tche Belew (Awesome Tapes From Africa)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Tche Belew here on Spotify
68. Various Artists – A NoCorner Collection: From The Reels
(NoCorner)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to A NoCorner Collection here on Spotify
67. Various Artists – Disco: A Fine Selection Of Independent Disco, Modern Soul And Boogie 1978 – 82
(Soul Jazz)
66. Powell – Boiler Room London DJ Set
(Boiler Room)
“What I’ve learned from listening to so much different music growing up and over the last ten years, and recently hanging out with Russell [Haswell] and him exposing me to all sorts of music, and briefly flirting with noise, is the idea of reaction – how can you get a reaction out of a crowd? Russell’s been hugely influential in making me more unpredictable and braver with music, when you realise you can do anything you want. Constructing music for dancefloors, [thinking about] how you can shock people or use extreme things to surprise people on a dancefloor. Rather than everything being ‘I know exactly what’s going to happen next, here comes the drop, it’s another sixteen bars and a hi-hat’s going to come in’, I find it much more interesting thinking ‘What the fuck is going to happen next?'” Powell
Read our interview with Powell here
65. Various Artists – The World Is Yours
(Bandcamp)
64. Various artists – UP#22 This Dream Gave Me A Diagonal
(Diagonal Records)
63. Koudede – Guitars From Agadez Vol. 7
(Sublime Frequencies)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
62. Karen Gwyer – St. John’s Sessions x Boiler Room Live Set
(Boiler Room)
“My voice is just an instrument, but people don’t view it as an instrument, they focus on it as the glue around which everything else is sticking. That was never the case, ever. I may come back to it, but the last time I tried to do vocals that were like that, I got laryngitis! It was on the Opal Tapes tour and I was like [makes strangulated noise] and I had to give up the vocals after two nights, but that was great, because then I ended up improvising my way around it and then after that, I was like, “Well, one really good reason not to do vocals again is that you can get laryngitis.” I don’t want to have to worry that I’m going to be like [strangulated noise] into a microphone when I mean to make it sound suitable.” Karen Gwyer
Read our Karen Gwyer interview here
61. Various Artists – Minor Characters Project (tQPC) [NB. tQPC is an independent record label run by this site, the Quietus]
A collaboration between the Quietus Phonographic Corporation, Liverpool International Music Festival and music biz fixer Chris Bye, this project saw East India Youth, Luke Abbott, Forest Swords, The Lone Taxidermist, English Heretic and Ten Mouth Electron writing original compositions based around the imagined lives of film and literature’s lesser known cast. Says Chris Bye: “People have been singing stories about characters since year dot. I have always loved that they take me on a journey through some sort of narrative. At the same time I’ve always been fascinated by eccentrics and those on the periphery. The sort of people who inhabit John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, or a Tom Waits number. I’m not saying it’s some original breakthrough, I just wanted to kind of expand on it a little and see where it took people.”
60. GNOD – The Somnambulist’s Tale
(Aguirre)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“There’s a real whiff of rural menace emanating from Gnod. But that isn’t to say the band are rooted, or even earthbound, in any sense of those words. Although operating out of Islington Mill in Salford, everything about the music the band make seems in permanent flux, in search of extreme moments of joy or abasement, whichever comes first. Is it the lost knowledge of the Gnostics, the magic of the ancient world, expelled from the human mind but now seeping back into consciousness through the primal and feral frequencies employed by the band? Or are they simply a devastating calibration of good ale, savage drugs and a brutal sound system?” Colm McAuliffe
Read our review of The Somnambulist’s Tale here
Listen to The Somnambulist’s Tale here
59. Bruno Nicolai – All The Colours Of The Dark
(Finders Keepers)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
58. Cabaret Voltaire – #7885 (Electropunk To Technopop 1978-1985)
(Mute)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“The stylistic changes of Cabaret Voltaire charted by this compilation have been the subject of widespread critical discussion over the years. In moving beyond their avant-garde origins, the ‘technopop’ which comprises the latter half of this compilation has often been viewed as a descent into the lightweight, and a commercial sell-out. On the contrary, #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978 – 1985) proves a mastery of superficially conflicting musical spaces.” Eugene Brennan
Listen to Electropunk To Technopop here on Spotify
57. Cardiacs – Sing To God
(Alphabet Business Concern)
“Held in high esteem by the fans themselves, as well as being considered to be the best point of entry for beginners, Sing To God represents the pinnacle of Tim Smith’s studio mastery and exhibits elements of the gentler side of his Sea Nymphs project alongside the full-on helter skelter, breakneck velocity more usually associated with the band. It is also, despite the richness of its orchestration and more experimental tendencies, decidedly a pop record – one as quintessentially English sounding as Pink Floyd’s seminal Piper At The Gates Of Dawn or XTC’s classic English Settlement.” Sean Kitching
56. Cairo Liberation Front – Church Of The CLF
(CLF Soundcloud)
“People are milling about, sipping politely on drinks. An abandoned air raid siren sits on the floor at the front; a lone bottle of vodka stands ominously on the table set up, seemingly the only needed instrument for the performance ahead. It’s a crank of the former that signals the beginning of Dutch DJ duo Cairo Liberation Front’s chaotic set, deliberately churned out before Yannick Verhoeven’s right finger stabs down onto his handheld MIDI controller and the room erupts into a set of wall-to-wall auto-tuned Electro Chaabi anthems, brought from the Egyptian underground and into Europe via various tunneled channels of the internet.” Sophie Coletta
55. Various Artists – Cambiare
(Opal Tapes)
54. Mastodon – Call Of The Mastodon
(Relapse)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to the Call Of The Mastodon here on Spotify
53. Robert Hood – M Print: 20 Years Of M Plant Music
(M Plant)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Detroit was such a brilliant creative city, full of life and full of ideas. I felt a sadness that some of these ideas from young people would never see the light of day, but I also felt hope that there would be a rebirth and some would eventually surface.” Robert Hood
Read our Strange World Of Robert Hood feature here
Listen to M Print here on Spotify
52. William Onyeabor – Vinyl box sets
(Luka Bop)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Who Is William Onyeabor here on Spotify
51. Sleater-Kinney – Start Together Box Set
(Sub Pop)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
50. Circle – Hollywood
(Ektro)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Circle’s Hollywood was as ‘commercial’ as The Residents’ awesome The Commercial Album in its day. We’re artists and we despise commercialism, though we wallow in the same pond with culture industry’s ‘products’.” Jussi Lehtisalo
Read our Strange World Of Circle here
Listen to Hollywood here on Spotify
49. The The – Soul Mining Box Set
(Sony)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Johnson staggers through the terrain of this album like a new face in Hell; as if a feverish stranger introduced to his own inner topography for the first time, anguished at what he’s found. He would go on to be a great political songwriter, with the emphasis on the personal as political. However to go down this route, first he had to get to know himself, and Soul Mining is the exquisite result of this exploration. But above all else it is an immensely enjoyable album to listen to; romantic, exciting, cinematic, unique.” John Doran
Read our interview with Matt Johnson here
48. Objekt – Live At Freerotation
(Objekt Soundcloud)
” I got into techno at the point [in my life] where I realised that actually there’s more depth to dance music than stupid banging loud noises in clubs. It was the same thing that attracted me as would probably attract others to jungle or drum & bass, but it just so happened that [with me it was techno]. The mix that got me into it was the one Surgeon did on Warp, This Is For You Shits, which is amazing. It pushed the same button in me that Autechre had a long time before that – when I was 14, or something like that – this inherent sexiness in the machine. Part of what attracted me to techno in the first place was the aesthetic of machinery. That’s certainly not something that’s common to all techno, but as my first exposure to techno, This Is For You Shits was like a piece of factory machinery punching me in the face. I felt like that – [it was] quite a big impact.” Objekt
Read our interview with Objekt here
47. Death – Spiritual Healing
(Relapse)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Spiritual Healing here on Spotify
46. Mogwai – Come On Die Young
(Chemikal Underground)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Watch our filmed interview with Mogwai here
Listen to Come On Die Young here on Spotify
45. COUM Transmissions & John Lacey – Music For Stocking Top Swing and Staircase
(Other Ideas)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
44. Koen Holtkamp – Motion: Connected Works
(Thrill Jockey)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Motion here on Spotify
43. Various Artists – Horse Meat Disco 4
(Strut)
Listen to Horse Meat Disco 4 here
42. Various artists – Keysound Recordings Presents… Certified Connections
(Keysound Recordings)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Dusk, aka Dan Frampton, and Blackdown, aka Martin Clark, inhabit multiple roles within the realm of pirate radio-rooted UK dance music. On the one hand, there’s more than a hint of the curator to their approach. Clark has spent the past few years running the Blackdown blog which has tracked mutations in grime, dubstep and funky, and until recently wrote Pitchfork’s ‘The Month In Grime & Dubstep’ column, which was responsible for drawing a great many listeners’ attention to those genres in their earlier days. Equally, the duo run a label – Keysound Recordings – and host a monthly show on Rinse FM that draws together and forms links between interrelated sounds. As a result of the great changes that have taken place in London dance music over the past few years – dubstep and grime to funky, ‘bass music’, drum machine tracks and all manner of in-between hybrid forms – both label and radio show have been in a constant state of evolution.” Rory Gibb
Read our interview with Dusk and Blackdown here
Listen to Certified Connections here on Spotify
41. Alexander Tucker – Alexander Tucker
(Thrill Jockey)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“The first solo recordings I made onto Dictaphone soon moved onto the newly introduced MiniDisc recorder into which I recorded guitar noise improvisations and field recordings. It wasn’t until 2001 that I got hold of my own eight-track machine. Initially I wanted to make a Faust Tapes-inspired collage of the MiniDisc improvisations spliced together with the field recordings, this was until I started processing the material through effects and loop pedals to create cut-up assemblages. Around this time I had been on a steady diet of 60’s psychedelia, Krautrock, Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music, Bardo Pond, Dead C, Oval, John Fahey, Alexander Spence, Charalambides and Jandek. These influences began to merge to form the basis for my first self-titled collection of songs and sound-worlds. I liked the idea of primitive guitar work next to rudimentary electronics and combining these elements within the same place.” Alexander Tucker
Listen to Alexander Tucker here on Spotify
40. Imaginary Forces – June 2014 Mix
(Entr’acte Mixes)
“”Imaginary Forces deals in things that never quite seem to be there,” wrote the Quietus’ Mat Colegate recently about Anthoney J. Hart’s music. It’s hard to imagine a better summary of his work, which brims with textural detail around the edges of perception. Like catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure out of the corner of your eye, or the way a simultaneous collection of environmental sounds can suddenly and unexpectedly take on the qualities of human speech, his music has a delightfully paranoid quality, speaking of heightened sensory experiences and addled mind states.” Rory Gibb
Read our interview with Imaginary Forces here
39. Wild Beasts – FACT mix 427
(FACT)
“Wild Beasts have always dealt in duality, whether through their lyrics of love and lust, the contrasting vocals of Tom Fleming and Hayden Thorpe, or their contradictory nature of using the basic tools of the British indie group to access something much, much more. This extends to the recording process of fourth album Present Tense, which took part variously underneath a dirty railway arch in South East London and a studio out in the Cotswolds countryside, with a view over fields towards a hillside carving of a horse.” Luke Turner
Read our interview with Wild Beasts here
38. These New Puritans – E-X-P-A-N-D-E-D Live at the Barbican
(Vinyl Factory)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“I really like being a custodian of songs, they’re never really finished to me.” Jack Barnett
Read our interview with These New Puritans here
Listen to E-X-P-A-N-D-E-D Live here on Spotify
37. Various Artists – Haiti Direct: Big Band, Mini Jazz & Twoubadou Sounds 1960-1978
(Strut)
“This compilation of Haitian music recorded between 1960 and 1978 plays out as a slyly parallel history of the era, filled with joy, rampant expression and explosive creativity – the everyday struggle of extreme poverty and violent oppression remain largely absent from the songs themselves, but hover ghostlike out of earshot. Like many oppressive 20th century dictatorships, the rule of Papa Doc forcibly inspired celebratory music from its population as a means of propaganda; smiles forced at gunpoint. The lives of the artists on display here were, like those of all Haitians, somewhat under the spell of the Duvaliers. Some were jailed, while others were patronised, writing lyrics in praise of the regime and Tonton Macoutes (Papa Doc’s thuggish paramilitary named after a mythological Creole child snatcher). But it was all a smokescreen.” Tristan Bath
Read our review of Haiti Direct here
Listen to Haiti Direct here on Spotify
36. Various Artists – Suburban Base Records: The History of Hardcore, Jungle, Drum & Bass: 1991-1997
(New State)
Listen to Suburban Base Records here on Spotify
35. Jon Hassell & Brian Eno – Fourth World Music Vol. 1: Possible Musics
(All Saints)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Until extraterrestrial relations are cemented, the term ‘world music’ will be lazy and meaningless. What isn’t world music? A track made from the regular pulses of neutron stars, perhaps? David Byrne, one of the first advocates of the genre, famously told the New York Times why he hated world music, describing it as a name for a bin in the record shop for stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere else. Ambient pioneer Brian Eno and trumpeter Jon Hassell’s 1980 album Fourth World Music Vol. 1: Possible Musics was a template for this belief. The origins of Talking Heads can be heard in this weirdly oppressive piece of non-conformism, reissued this month thanks to Glitterbeat Records. Just ten days after the album was recorded, Eno and Byrne met up in Los Angeles to record My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.” Clyde Macfarlane
Read our review of Fourth World Musics here
Listen to Fourth World Musics here on Spotify
34. Mumdance – Dummy Mix 205 Mahraganat Mixtape
(Dummy)
“Electro chaabi, or mahraganat, as some of the artists prefer, can quite reasonably claim to be the music of young Egypt. The style has its roots in chaabi, meaning ‘of the people’, a working class genre that originated in the 1970s and made use of ‘real life’ lyrics, in contrast with the traditional topics of abstracted love. Electro chaabi, however, was catalysed by the sudden availability of pirated music production software, which producers like Figo learnt to use by following YouTube tutorial videos. The software, they realised, enabled them to produce an entirely new iteration of this street music, fusing Egypt’s recent traditions with Western MCing and production.” Josh Hall
Read our review of Cairo Calling here
33. Hell – Trilogy
(Pesanta Urfolk)
“Trilogy, then, is not so much a collection of the total recorded output (previously via cassette only, but now on ‘luxurious’ 4LP picture disc) of the hyper-secretive Salem, Oregon resident known only as ‘M.S.W’. It is not so much a terrifyingly lo-fi collision of doom, drone and black metal as much as it is the sound of the blood and dirt congealing in your ears as you slowly and repeatedly slam your head into the earth because it’s only going to get much, much worse…” Toby Cook
Read our review of Trilogy here
32. Francis Bebey – Psychedelic Sanza 1982 – 1984
(Born Bad)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Psychedelic Sanza here on Spotify
31. Surgeon – (Ambient Set) At Freerotation 2014
(Dynamic Tension Soundcloud)
“Child cut his teeth in Birmingham in the early ’90s. Alongside contemporaries such as O’Connor, aka Regis, and with connections to the city’s wider extreme music circles via artists like Mick Harris (Scorn, ex-Napalm Death), his early productions melded the influence of minimalist second-wave Detroit techno with the intensity and wild humour of British industrial and rave musics. He has remained a long running DJ at the city’s House Of God club night, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and was also a resident at Berlin’s famous Tresor club during the mid-to-late ’90s. His music – released through his own Dynamic Tension and Counterbalance labels, O’Connor’s label Downwards and Tresor, among others – has evolved over that time, taking in both longer-form album statements and brutally punchy club tracks on 12″ vinyl. But certain characteristics have remained present throughout: breakneck momentum and a breathtaking sense of grace and posture, thanks to the careful weighting of every element at play within his tracks.” Rory Gibb
Read our interview with Surgeon here
30. Various Artists – Hyperdub 10.1
(Hyperdub)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Hyperdub 10.1 here on Spotify
“Elephant & Castle’s Corsica Studios on a Wednesday night: perhaps not the first setting that comes to mind for a Hyperdub tenth anniversary blowout. But then, Hyperdub isn’t particularly interested in tradition. It’s a label that stands where it is today by continually spurning conventions and instead concentrating on progression and, above all, consistency. Admittedly, the label’s beginnings were relatively insular, though not to its detriment. Its origins lie as a modest, Camberwell-based webzine, set up in 2000 as an outpost for founder Steve Goodman’s, aka Kode9, interest in the influence of Jamaican soundsystem culture on electronic music. Four years later and Hyperdub, the label, was birthed, initially as a means for Goodman to share some of his own productions following the advice of Kevin Martin, otherwise known as The Bug and, later, a Hyperdub roster member himself as King Midas Sound. ‘Sine Of The Dub’ gave way to another EP with now established collaborator The Spaceape, and then in 2005, the debut release from the shadowy producer that has earned Hyperdub so much of the (sometimes crazed) veneration it enjoys today.” Christian Eede
29. Savages & Bo Ningen – Words To The Blind
(Stolen)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Gemma was reading about Dadaist history at the time. She thought that the idea would be a good way to use that tradition of simultaneous poetry and to turn it into our own thing. We speak three different languages in the two bands – Japanese, French and English – which was good because simultaneous poetry is supposed to be poetry in different languages recited at the same time. Then there was this imagining that we’d have five chapters that were based around the idea of the singular voice and the noise of the world. Would there be a battle between the two? Between the single and then the group? Or would there be suddenly a union and a harmony? That was the evolution. And then there was the chaos. So we worked on simple ideas like that – then we rehearsed with five chapter names on the board. The first was “the voice”: Taigen and I speaking in Japanese and French. The second was “the world is rising” or something like that. Then there was “the battle”. So we structured it simply like that, then we formed it over a number of days.” Jehnny Beth
Read our interview with Savages and Bo Ningen here
Listen to Words To The Blind here on Spotify
28. Various artists – Slowly Exploding: 10 Years Of Perc Trax 2004-2014
(Perc Trax)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
27. Ennio Morricone – Lizard In A Woman’s Skin
(Death Waltz)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
26. Elijah & Skilliam – Fabriclive 75
(Fabric Worldwide)
“[On being asked to do the Fabriclive mix: Honestly? We get tied up in so much opinion. Of what people think the label is, what our radio show is, what our club night is, even what I’ve been writing on the internet. It’s been hard to pin down what we actually do as DJs sometimes, and the Fabriclive mix was a chance to work through that. It’s our CV – or our calling card, maybe. We got a bit existential about what we feel it is we do as DJs and thinking about where the music is at right now for us, too. At first we thought, ‘We have to represent the entire grime scene’, because grime is so small and the scene always has that pressure. ‘Oh, Logan didn’t play my single, I’m gonna kill him!’ So what, man? No other music scene has the kind of pressure that grime has. Rather than trying to represent everything, we were like, ‘Fuck it. This is a blank slate.’ The mix is about our sound, not our scene.” Elijah
Read our interview with Elijah and Skilliam here
25. Pan Sonic – Oksastus
(Kvitnu)
24. Nguzunguzu – Perfect Lullaby Vol. 2
(DISmagazine Soundcloud)
“The L.A. duo – whose name is pronounced en-goo-zoo en-goo-zoo – are a staple of the city’s Fade To Mind roster, sharing a similarly forward-thinking mindset with label mates Kingdom and Kelela (they produced a couple of cuts on the latter’s CUT 4 ME mixtape). Last year, they released their fifth EP, Skycell, a retro-futuristic concept-tinged set of electronic dance tracks, which found Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda refining their sound – fractured club music, deftly skirting the fringes of footwork, trap and house – to its finest iteration yet. As key as their original output is their DJing work – check out their two album-length mixes, The Perfect Lullaby volumes one and two – which finds them giving free rein to their globally-ranging listening habits, re-editting their twin loves of Nicki Minaj and Future’s chart hip-hop and R&B together with zouk, cumbia and kizomba to forge something awesomely fresh-sounding.” Laurie Tuffrey
23. Harry Smith – The Anthology Of American Folk Music
(Mississippi)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Volume 2: Social Music here on Spotify
22. Swans – Filth
(Mute)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Filth here on Spotify
21. Marshall Allen Presents Sun Ra And His Arkestra – In The Orbit Of Ra
(Strut Records)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Part of the difficulty in presenting Sun Ra’s music to newcomers lies in the managing of expectations given both Ra’s reputation as a purveyor of far-out sounds and the enormously wide ranging genres with which he experimented. Hence a listener expecting full-on electronic avant-garde attack, might instead find big band or even small vocal group style music, depending on which album they happened upon. It’s also a common misconception that Sun Ra’s music is “free-jazz”, when in fact discipline was his central tenet – lengthy rehearsals followed by lengthy performances, parts for individual instruments often written out. Yet Ra usually chose to deliberately throw a spanner of his own making into the proceedings by often deciding against playing the most recently rehearsed material at any given performance, changing arrangements at the last moment and also conducting freely improvised sections in between the meticulously rehearsed ‘disciplines’.” Sean Kitching
Read our review of In The Orbit Of Ra here
Listen to In The Orbit Of Ra here on Spotify
20. Nana Love – Disco Documentary: Full Of Funk
(Nestor)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Disco Documentary here on Spotify
19. Sandra Electronics – Sessions
(Minimal Wave)
Listen to Sessions here on Spotify
18. Wilco – Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rarities 1994-2014
(Nonesuch)
“As with all the discs on the 77-song box set, it offers an insight into both the band’s studio sketches and the evolved permutations of songs they roll out on tour, as well as a fine clutch of pieces that remain live one-offs. Interspersed here are ‘One True Vine’, a song that didn’t make the grade for Sky Blue Sky but instead became the title track for the second Mavis Staples Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy produced, The Thanks I Get, originally written for Solomon Burke and subsequently a live favourite, a particularly good 2008 rendering of Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’, aided by Fleet Foxes (listen out for Tweedy’s ace third verse falsetto turn) and ‘Unlikely Japan’, an early, vocoder-touting iteration of ‘Impossible Germany’.” Laurie Tuffrey
17. Omar Khorshid – Live In Australia 1981
(Sublime Frequencies)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
16. Manic Street Preachers – Holy Bible 20
“What makes The Holy Bible stand out from all those other musical testaments of pain, before and since – aside from the fact that it’s so fantastically good – is that it doesn’t wallow. What makes The Holy Bible so worthwhile (and in the end, so poignant) is its fanatical defiance, its shivering dignity, its absolute rejection of romance, the way it confronts its truths unflinchingly, as though it might somehow overcome them. The Holy Bible’s response to its own reality is not to withdraw, but to summon a huge, sustained and near-miraculous outpouring of energy.” Taylor Parkes
To read our essay on Holy Bible 20 click here
15. Joe Delia – Ms.45
(Death Waltz)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“It is undeniable that Abel Ferrara was a great diarist of the old, unreconstructed pre-Zero Tolerance, post-lapserian New York; a documenter of the sleaze, the drugs, the streets, the fashion, the depravity and the violence. And in Joe Delia he found a great sonic foil. In Ms. 45 the pre-transformation Thana is represented by stark, atonal, contrapuntal 12 tone piano sketches beefed up with Mini-Moog synth drones and ARP synthetic strings.” John Doran
To read our review of Ms.45 click here
Listen to Ms.45 here on Spotify
14. Karl Meier – Live at Aphotic Segment Detroit 8/2014
(KarlPMeier Mixcloud)
13. Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras – Catholic
(Dark Entries)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
12. The Heads – Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere box set
(Rooster)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Weed is its own guitar pedal.” Simon Price
Read our interview with The Heads here
Listen to Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere here on Spotify
11. K. Leimer – A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983)
(RVNG Intl)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“A Period Of Review, a series of recordings from the archive of Canadian-born, Seattle-based ambient music savant Kerry Leimer, spans the period 1975 – 1983, a staggeringly fertile period in electronic music production and consumption. Leimer’s output during this era – one bookended by the twin totems of Eno’s Another Green World and ‘Blue Monday’ – travails the suns and fascination of a nascent, almost naïve, enchantment with the Futurist possibilities of sonic manipulations, tape loops and wilful experimentation brought about by Leimer scouring pawnshops for cheap instrumentation and poring over the accounts of Can, Neu! And Faust in imported copies of the NME and Melody Maker.” Colm McAuliffe
To read our review of A Period Of Review click here
10. CTI – Carter Tutti Remix Chris & Cosey
(Conspiracy International)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
9. Z AKA Bernard Szajner – Visions Of Dune
(InFiné)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“Reading [Dune], I was immediately seized by images creeping up and growing in my mind, filling me with overwhelming sensations and sounds. I could almost ‘touch’ these visions. I had to find a way to ‘exorcise’ these images and sounds… It occurred at a time when I was about to start composing music and I couldn’t resist exorcising my overfilled mind by ‘translating’ the visions into music – your term ‘translate’ is quite right.” Bernard Szajner
To read our interview with Bernard Szajner click here
Listen to Visions Of Dune here on Spotify
8. Mica Levi – Under The Skin
(Milan Records)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
Listen to Under The Skin here on Spotify
7. Mdou Moctar – Anar
(Sahel Sounds)
6. Perc & Truss – Live at Soenda
(Soenda Festival Soundcloud)
5. Annette Peacock – I Belong To A World That’s Destroying Itself
(Ironic)
“This album was recorded a long time ago. I think I just wanted to be first. I wanted to make my first record and take music into the future. I think I was probably moving really fast because I thought someone was going to do it before me. HA! I had to wait so long before that even began to happen, but when you’re young you have this perception of time moving so much faster than it actually is. But that’s youth, it gives you the confidence that you can actually do it and that you have something to say that people will actually want to hear. All of those kinds of things.” Annette Peacock
To read our interview with Annette Peacock click here
4. British Murder Boys – Box Set
(Downwards)
“Karl and I have never fitted comfortably in the techno scene. It frequently holds itself up to be experimental and boundary-pushing when in reality it’s ultra conservative. Totally vanilla. It’s like people have a box with the whole of creation inside it and they just look at the picture on the box instead of looking at what’s inside. Looking at a reflection and being seduced by that.” Tony Surgeon
To read our farewell interview with British Murder Boys click here
3. Gravenhurst – Flashlight Seasons/Black Holes In The Sand/Offerings
(WARP)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“These records feature Nick Talbot’s purest and most powerful fingerstyle guitar work, shadowed by shaped noise. Here, he crafts the dark pastoralism that is never far from the surface in Gravenhurst.” Pavel Godfrey
Listen to Offerings here on Spotify
2. Cyclobe – The Visitors
(Phantomcode)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“For me the initial impetus for re-releasing The Visitors was a desire for our older records to come out on vinyl, as they were never released in that format at the time. Thirteen years sounds like a long time in a band’s career, but the record still has a lot of freshness and vitality to it, and I’m proud to say I don’t think it sounds dated. We’ve always instinctively avoided using certain kinds of sounds, beats or cultural markers, which might fix a sound to a particular time. I guess my feeling is that there’s a strata of music that hasn’t dated because the implications and possibilities have not been exhausted, and also they’ve not been taken up by ‘trend-setters’ from outside, which would tend to date things.” Stephen Thrower
To read our Strange World Of Cyclobe click here
Listen to The Visitors here on Spotify
1. Coil / NIN – Recoiled
(Cold Spring)
Buy on vinyl or CD from Norman Records
“The snarky critical narrative goes something like this: that while Coil produced work of pin drop subtlety, orchestral complexity, sexual magick and academically rigorous symbolism, NIN were responsible for steroid-pumped, arena boistin’ industrial rawk – overwrought frat boys in eyeliner. It’s a lazy reductionist reading – utter bobbins, in fact – and one that says nothing about the myriad subtleties present in the best of Reznor’s substantial catalogue, one that contains dank funk, subterranean horrors and jackhammer kicks. Coil rather liked it, too.” Harry Sword
Read our review of Recoiled here
Listen to Recoiled here on Spotify
ONE: Coil / NIN – Recoiled (Cold Spring)
TWO: Cyclobe – The Visitors (Phantomcode)
THREE: Gravenhurst – Flashlight Seasons/Black Holes In The Sand/Offerings (WARP)
FOUR: British Murder Boys – Box Set (Downwards)
FIVE: Annette Peacock – I Belong To A World That’s Destroying Itself (Ironic)
SIX: Perc & Truss – Live at Soenda (Soenda Festival Soundcloud)
SEVEN: Mdou Moctar – Anar (Sahel Sounds)
EIGHT: Mica Levi – Under The Skin (Milan Records)
NINE: Z AKA Bernard Szajner – Visions of Dune (InFiné)
TEN: CTI – Carter Tutti Remix Chris & Cosey (Conspiracy International)
ELEVEN: K. Leimer – A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983) (RVNG Intl)
TWELVE: The Heads – Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere box set (Rooster)
THIRTEEN: Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras – Catholic (Dark Entries)
FOURTEEN: Karl Meier – Live at Aphotic Segment Detroit 8/2014 (KarlPMeier Mixcloud)
FIFTEEN: Joe Delia – Ms.45 (Death Waltz)
SIXTEEN: Manic Street Preachers – Holy Bible 20 (Sony)
SEVENTEEN: Omar Khorshid – Live In Australia 1981 (Sublime Frequencies)
EIGHTEEN: Wilco – Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rarities 1994-2014 (Nonesuch)
NINETEEN: Sandra Electronics – Sessions (Minimal Wave)
TWENTY: Nana Love – Disco Documentary: Full Of Funk (Nestor)
TWENTY ONE: Sun Ra And His Arkestra – In The Orbit Of Ra (Strut Records)
TWENTY TWO: Swans – Filth (Mute)
TWENTY THREE: Harry Smith – The Anthology Of American Folk Music (Mississippi)
TWENTY FOUR: Nguzunguzu – Perfect Lullaby Vol. 2 DISmagazine Soundcloud)
TWENTY FIVE: Pan Sonic – Oksastus (Kvitnu)
TWENTY SIX: Elijah & Skilliam – Fabriclive 75 (Fabric Worldwide)
TWENTY SEVEN: Ennio Morricone – Lizard In A Woman’s Skin (Death Waltz)
TWENTY EIGHT: Various artists – Slowly Exploding: 10 Years Of Perc Trax 2004-2014 (Perc Trax)
TWENTY NINE: Savages & Bo Ningen – Words To The Blind (Stolen)
THIRTY: Various Artists – Hyperdub 10.1 (Hyperdub)THIRTY ONE: Surgeon – (Ambient Set) At Freerotation 2014 (Dynamic Tension Soundcloud)
THIRTY TWO: Francis Bebey – Psychedelic Sanza 1982 – 1984 (Born Bad)
THIRTY THREE: Hell – Trilogy (Pesanta Urfolk)
THIRTY FOUR: Mumdance – Dummy Mix 205 Mahraganat Mixtape (Dummy)
THIRTY FIVE: Fourth World Music Vol. 1: Possible Musics (All Saints)
THIRTY SIX: Various Artists – Suburban Base Records: The History of Hardcore, Jungle, Drum & Bass: 1991-1997 (New State)
THIRTY SEVEN: Various Artists – Haiti Direct: Big Band, Mini Jazz & Twoubadou Sounds 1960-1978 (Strut)
THIRTY EIGHT: These New Puritans – E-X-P-A-N-D-E-D Live at the Barbican (Vinyl Factory)
THIRTY NINE: Wild Beasts – FACT mix 427 (FACT)
FORTY: Imaginary Forces – June 2014 Mix (Entr’acte Mixes)
FORTY ONE: Alexander Tucker – Alexander Tucker (Thrill Jockey)
FORTY TWO: Various artists – Keysound Recordings Presents… Certified Connections (Keysound Recordings)
FORTY THREE: Various Artists – Horse Meat Disco 4 (Strut)
FORTY FOUR: Koen Holtkamp – Motion: Connected Works (Thrill Jockey)
FORTY FIVE: COUM Transmissions & John Lacey – Music For Stocking Top Swing and Staircase (Other Ideas)
FORTY SIX: Mogwai – Come On Die Young (Chemikal Underground)
FORTY SEVEN: Death – Spiritual Healing (Relapse)
FORTY EIGHT: Objekt – Live At Freerotation (Objekt Soundcloud)
FORTY NINE: The The – Soul Mining Box Set (Sony)
FIFTY: Circle – Hollywood (Ektro)
FIFTY ONE: Sleater-Kinney – Start Together Box Set (Sub Pop)
FIFTY TWO: William Onyeabor – Volume 2 box set (Luka Bop)
FIFTY THREE: Robert Hood – M Print: 20 Years Of M Plant Music (M Plant)
FIFTY FOUR: Mastodon – Call Of The Mastodon (Relapse)
FIFTY FIVE: Various Artists – Cambiare (Opal Tapes)
FIFTY SIX: Cairo Liberation Front – The Church Of The CLF (CLF Soundcloud)
FIFTY SEVEN: Cardiacs – Sing To God (Alphabet Business Concern)
FIFTY EIGHT: Cabaret Voltaire – #7885 (Electropunk To Technopop 1978-1985) (Mute)
FIFTY NINE: Bruno Nicolai – All The Colours Of The Dark (Finders Keepers)
SIXTY: GNOD – The Somnambulist’s Tale (Aguirre)
SIXTY ONE: V/A – Minor Characters Project (tqpc)
SIXTY TWO: Karen Gwyer – St. John’s Sessions x Boiler Room Live Set (Boiler Room)
SIXTY THREE: Koudede – Guitars From Agadez Vol. 7 (Sublime Frequencies)
SIXTY FOUR: Various artists – UP#22 This Dream Gave Me A Diagonal (Diagonal Records)
SIXTY FIVE: Various Artists – The World Is Yours (Bandcamp)
SIXTY SIX: Powell – Boiler Room London DJ Set (Boiler Room)
SIXTY SEVEN: Various Artists – Disco: A Fine Selection Of Independent Disco, Modern Soul And Boogie 1978 – 82 (Soul Jazz)
SIXTY EIGHT: Various Artists – A NoCorner Collection: From The Reels (NoCorner)
SIXTY NINE: Hailu Mergia And The Walias – Tche Belew (Awesome Tapes From Africa)
SEVENTY: Cosmin TRG – Mix 136 (Secret Thirteen)
SEVENTY ONE: Oneman, Kode9, Ikonika, Addison Groove – A Tribute to DJ Rashad (Boiler Room)
SEVENTY TWO: PYE Corner Audio – Black Mill Tapes 3 & 4 (Type)
SEVENTY THREE: Evian Christ – RA.404 Evian Christ (Resident Advisor)
SEVENTY FOUR: Caustic Window – Caustic Window LP (Rephlex)
SEVENTY FIVE: Craig Leon – Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1: Nommos / Visiting (RVNGIntl.)
SEVENTY SIX: Various Artists – Gipsy Rhumba (Soul Jazz)
SEVENTY SEVEN: Sunroof! – Rock Action (Nashazphone)
SEVENTY EIGHT: Kahn, Neek, Hi5 Ghost and Boofy – The Lab (Mixmag)
SEVENTY NINE: Lunice – RA.432 Lunice (Resident Advisor)
EIGHTY: Helena Hauff & Daniele Cosmo – Lux Rec at Dampfzentrale (Lux Rec Soundcloud)
EIGHTY ONE: AnD – RA.389 AnD (Resident Advisor)
EIGHTY TWO: Clouds – Up North (ATTTKLFCO) (Bloc)
EIGHTY THREE: Various Artists – The Sound Of Siam 2 (Sound Way)
EIGHTY FOUR: William Basinski – Melancholia (Temporary Residence)
EIGHTY FIVE: Suede – Dog Man Star box set (Demon)
EIGHTY SIX: Various Artists – Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik: German Home Recording Tape Music Of The 1980s (Finders Keepers)
EIGHTY SEVEN: Ingram Marshall – Fog Tropes/Gradual Requiem (Arc Light Editions)
EIGHTY EIGHT: Robert Wyatt – Different Every Time (Domino)
EIGHTY NINE: Gigi Masin – Talk To The Sea (Music From Memory)
NINETY: Chistie Azumah & The Uppers International – Din Ya Sugri (Voodoo Funk)
NINETY ONE: The Residents – Santa Dog (Superior Viaduct)
NINETY TWO: Baader Meinhoff – Baader Meinhoff (Cherry Red)
NINETY THREE: Ariel Kalma – An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings 1972-1979) (RVNG INTL.)
NINETY FOUR: Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Spirits Up Above: The Anthology (Rhino)
NINETY FIVE: Grace Jones – Nightclubbing (Island)
NINETY SIX: Various Artists – Folk Music Of The Sahel: Niger (Sublime Frequencies)
NINETY SEVEN: Simian Mobile Disco – Whorl (ANTI-)
NINETY EIGHT: Ralph Jones – The Slumber Party Massacre OST (Death Waltz)
NINETY NINE: Mark Lanegan – Has God Seen My Shadow? Anthology (Light in the Attic)
ONE HUNDRED: Various Artists – Oriental-Trap Mix (Norient)
