Artist: Roc Marciano
Record Label: Decon Records
Genre: hip hop
Roc Marciano manages to blow up several rules of underground hip-hop: with hardly any fat beats, designing a dreamy, surreal mood, and achieving a narcotic effect, the New York rapper delivers a spectacular album on which he tells us the secrets of his success.
Read More »
Artist: The Weeknd
Record Label: Universal
Universal reissues The Weeknd’s three famed mixtapes, adding only three new songs and Drake’s collaboration on one cut. Nothing else is needed to make one of the future’s most fascinating music collections official.
Read More »
Artist: Crystal Castles
Record Label: Universal
After several delays, the Crystal Castles' awaited third album is finally coming out. They don't disappoint, and show they still have great things to say for years to come.
Read More »
Artist: Lee Gamble
Record Label: PAN
Genre: ambient, hauntology
Lee Gamble delivers a fascinating mini LP full of phantasmagoric ambient, built from heavily manipulated intros and interludes from old drum'n'bass anthems from 1994-1996. Top-notch hauntology.
Read More »
Artist: Monoton
Record Label: Desire Records
Genre: experimental, minimal
The definitive release of one of the most influential, and at the same time unknown, electronic records in history is finally here: repetitive sequences and rhythmic monotony, the most primitive origin of minimal techno, now available again on double vinyl.
Read More »
Artist: Kendrick Lamar
Record Label: Interscope, Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath
Genre: hip hop...
Kendrick Lamar’s debut shines: the diary of a good boy who samples the pleasures of the dangerous life in the big city, it is a wonderful treatise of young, modern rap, lyrical and contemplative, supported by today’s best producers.
Read More »
Artist: Andy Stott
Record Label: Modern Love
Genre: Techno, experimental, dub
Andy Stott delivers his first album after his 2011 slowed-down techno diptych, and manages to close a trilogy in which he found new ways of expression for experimental dance music. This time with piano and voice, looking for an exit towards the light.
Read More »
Artist: Kreng
Record Label: miasmah
Genre: ambient, Drone, Modern Classical, Soundtrack
Expressionist Kreng compiles four tremendous soundtracks written for Belgian theatre group Abattoir Fermé in a luxurious box set. Oppressive sounds, drones and dramatic strings: it hurts.
Read More »
Artist: Laurie Spiegel
Record Label: Unseen Worlds
Genre: experimental, ambient, computer music
Originally released in 1980, “The Expanding Universe” is a forgotten classic of computer music. Today, it has reappeared, extended to two and a half hours, in a cosmic tour de force that allows one to travel to other worlds.
Read More »
Artist: Bat For Lashes
Record Label: Parlophone
Ambitious, mature and majestic, with her third album Bat For Lashes confirms herself as the main diva of eccentric pop, taking over from Björk, who left her creative peak over ten years ago.
Read More »
Artist: Vessel
Record Label: Tri Angle Records
Vessel, one of the most interesting producers from the latest Bristol generation, is releasing his first full-length on Tri Angle, finding a place on the intersection of Burial, Actress and experimental dub, both cold and melancholic.
Read More »
Artist: L A N D
Record Label: Important Records
Genre: experimental, post-rock, ambient, Drone
L A N D is a project directed by two English artists who don’t participate directly in the creation of the music, but rather give orders to a constellation of stars of the experimental underground (David Sylvian included), to put out a dark album on the outskirts of dark post-rock and ambient-jazz.
Read More »
Artist: Juju & Jordash
Record Label: Dekmantel
Genre: Techno, experimental, dub
Scuba-diving willy-nilly in the industrial dub tradition of the 70s, analogue proto-techno, electro-acoustic music, and the origins of Detroit, Israeli-Dutch duo Juju & Jordash have shaped a slippery, novel sound that will set a new example for techno in 2012.
Read More »
Artist: Daphni
Record Label: Jiaolong
With “Jiaolong”, Daphni’s first long work, Dan Snaith crystallises his fruitful vision of dance music, releasing a magnificent argument for the expressive richness of music made for clubs.
Read More »
Artist: Tame Impala
Record Label: Modular Recordings
Genre: rock, pop, psychedelia
Kevin Parker returns to the Tame Impala project to give 21st-century psychedelic pop a new consistency, warmer and with ample pop openings. Somewhere between the Beatles and Flaming Lips, between boundless pleasure and hypnosis. An album to lose yourself in.
Read More »
Artist: Death Grips
Record Label: Self-released
Death Grips have put out the second album they were supposed to release this year for free, after their label decided to keep it on the shelves until sometime in 2013. There are no surprises in the sound, but it's highly vital at a moment when we need exciting music.
Read More »
Artist: Zodiac
Record Label: Vase
Zodiac, The Weeknd's first producer, makes his solo debut with a sound in the vein of the Tri Angle label: a spectral mix of house beats, muffled bass lines, high-pitched voices and languid textures. Lovely.
Read More »
Artist: Jeremih
Record Label: Mixtape
Genre: R&B
Without artistic impositions or sales expectations, Jeremih invites us to spend the night frolicking with him. “Late Nights With Jeremih” is an almost perfect R&B mixtape, on which the genre recovers timelessness, and on which the young Chicago artist challenges The-Dream for the title of record of the year.
Read More »
Artist: Loscil
Record Label: Kranky
True to his style, Loscil once again shows he's one of the most solid artists in modern ambient. His new album, born from the contemplation of ships in a harbour, recovers the beat and sculpts brittle textures full of autumn melancholy.
Read More »
Artist: How To Dress Well
Record Label: Acéphale Records
Tom Krell reinforces the voice, disperses the broken beats of his first album and comes up with a follow-up set of songs on which his aesthetic mission is clearer: to renovate R&B through ghostly production and deeply emotional poetry.
Read More »
Artist: Grizzly Bear
Record Label: Warp
Genre: art-pop
It's not as sumptuous and complex as “Veckatimest”, but it does sound like an evolved and fascinating version of “Yellow House”, possibly the perfect fusion of modern psychedelia and the avant-garde rock of Radiohead. Grizzly Bear nailed it again.
Read More »
Artist: The XX
Record Label: Young Turks
Genre: pop, minimal pop
The xx's second album follows the path set out on their debut. Seeing as reinvention was impossible, with a sound as iconic and singular as theirs, they chose to fine-tune their technique, going for minimalism and occasional stabs of electronica.
Read More »
Artist: Cat Power
Record Label: Matador Records, Popstock-Everlasting
We were eager to hear new work by Chan Marshall, after four years of silence: with “Sun”, the artist makes an unexpected U-turn and surprises us with a record that sounds much brighter than its predecessors.
Read More »
Artist: Animal Collective
Record Label: Domino Recording Company
Genre: pop, experimental, psychedelia
Without reaching the heights of “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, the new full-length from Animal Collective maintains the group’s radical features, with an advanced attack of heavy psychedelics that plays with concepts like home, family and distance. It’s an attack aimed at the depths of the brain.
Read More »
Artist: Swans
Record Label: Young God Records
Genre: rock, experimental, Noise
The 2010 return of legendary experimental band Swans resulted in an exceptional album. “The Seer” raises the stakes, and offers an even spikier trip to the heart of noise, folk, drone and doom darkness. A record that leaves you marked and consumed.
Read More »
Artist: Mark Fell
Record Label: Editions Mego
Genre: house, experimental
Mark Fell takes up the sound of his Sensate Focus project in an entire album made up of variations and remixes of his most recent songs. This is house that is deconstructed, digital and microscopic, to take the experimental to the dance floor.
Read More »
Artist: Dan Deacon
Record Label: Domino Recording Company
Genre: pop, experimental, Noise, avantgarde
Dan Deacon lowers the degree of eccentricity in his music, shifting towards a more avant-garde language, with echoes of American minimalism, pop psychedelics and noisy electronica, to offer an exciting portrait of the United States in 2012. A work of art.
Read More »
Artist: Holy Other
Record Label: Tri Angle Records
Holy Other's debut album, a complex cocktail of ambient and R&B, cannot be listened to superficially: its 37 minutes contain a complexity of structures and poetic stimuli requiring deep and attentive listening. With sheer beauty as a reward.
Read More »
Artist: Four Tet
Record Label: Text Records
Genre: Techno, house, electronic, Broken Beat
In “Pink”, Four Tet compiles the vinyls released on his label, Text, over the last two years (to which he adds a couple of new songs) and he proves that his vision is one of the most significant on the current electronic music scene.
Read More »
Artist: Jessie Ware
Record Label: PMR Records, Island Records
After weeks of clues and announcements, Jessie Ware is finally releasing her debut LP, on which she intelligently and elegantly vindicates the adult soul of divas like Sade and Annie Lennox, with hardly any interferences from the language of modern soul.
Read More »
Artist: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Record Label: 4AD
Genre: rock, pop, lo-fi, psychedelia
Ariel Pink, Tim Koh, Kenneth Gilmore and Joe Kennedy have put out another stunning album: 60s influences, lo-fi sounds and a certain touch of psychedelics come together in what is probably the band’s best title so far.
Read More »
Artist: Teengirl Fantasy
Record Label: R&S Records
After surprising with their first album, “7AM”, the Teengirl Fantasy duo confirms itself as one of the most exciting groups in electronic music - somewhere between pop and club - with this straightforward homage to 90s ambient-house.
Read More »
Artist: Dead Can Dance
Record Label: 4AD
Genre: ambient, world music, Modern Classical
16 years after their last album, the duo Dead Can Dance come back to life with “Anastasis”. It’s a symbolic, telluric, and mystical album in their usual vein, but with a more decided look towards the mysteries of Oriental civilisation.
Read More »
Artist: Gareth Williams & Mary Currie
Record Label: Blackest Ever Black
Genre: pop, experimental, folk
A forgotten title, released on cassette almost 30 years ago, is resurfacing on vinyl, thanks to Blackest Ever Black. What it holds is experimental folk, funeral pop, field recordings, and electro-acoustic ballads. A treasure worth digging up.
Read More »
Artist: TNGHT
Hudson Mohawke and Lunice collaborate as TNGHT to forge five club bangers that start from Southern hip hop and evolve in a demented spiral, with bouncy grime bass lines and trippy sounds. This project must go on.
Read More »
Artist: Cooly G
Record Label: Hyperdub
After two years of silence, during which she dedicated herself to being a mother of two, Cooly G has the difficult task to pick up her career where she left of in 2010. She does the job with an adult bass album, bordering on pop and with a strong charge of nostalgia for the feminine side of rave culture.
Read More »
Artist: Frank Ocean
Record Label: Def Jam Recordings, Island Records
His first official album (and on a major label) is better than his 2011 mixtape on every level: more mature, more sensual, more honest, perfectly composed, lyrically rich, and exciting from start to finish. Frank Ocean is the cream of present R&B.
Read More »
Artist: Dirty Projectors
Record Label: Domino Recording Company
After a baroque pop masterpiece, the marvellous “Bitte Orca”, Dirty Projectors come back with a new album that is equally inspired, but ridden of layers and complexities. Arty pop, yes, but freer, tastier, with no strings attached.
Read More »
Artist: Sterac aka Steve Rachmad
Record Label: 100% Pure
Genre: Techno
100% Pure reissues Steve Rachmad's debut album, a masterpiece of emotional techno, and probably the best Detroit record ever made in Europe. In spite of some minor objections, it's the techno reissue of the year.
Read More »
Artist: Voices From The Lake feat. Donato Dozzy & Neel
Record Label: Prologue
Donato Dozzy and Neel are Voices From The Lake, and on this album they manage to create a state of hypnosis with watery textures and orbital rhythms. One of the most sublime techno albums of this year.
Read More »
Artist: Disclosure
Record Label: Greco-Roman
We knew them when they were still promising teenage dubsteppers and now we come across them again, with their recently released debut 12”, masterfully dominating the language of deep house. Disclosure marks the present of the London underground.
Read More »
Artist: VV AA
Record Label: Monkeytown Records
Modeselektor connect the dots between different scenes (bass, juke, techno) on their own label come laboratory, where the experimental club music of the future is being made. This compilation gives us some clues.
Read More »
Artist: Peaking Lights
Record Label: Weird World
Genre: pop, dub, easy listening
Songs led by the weight of dub bass lines, but with more clarity, transparency, and a halo of easy listening: that's how Peaking Lights sound now, one of the most outstanding bands of 2011, continuing their popular growth with the notable “Lucifer”.
Read More »
Artist: Christian Fennesz
Record Label: Ash International
Genre: experimental, ambient
“AUN” holds the fragments composed by Fennesz for the latest documentary by Edgar Hontschläger, which reflects on progress and nature, and the divine role of humanity. The music, naturally, is floating and evocative.
Read More »
Artist: Howse
Record Label: Tri Angle Records
Nocturnal passages with moonlight and a wolf howling in the distance. Dense layers of ambient and poisoned nostalgia, with footwork rhythms underneath: Howse’s sound brings together different underground influences and harmonises them in a first-class debut EP.
Read More »
Artist: Kuedo
Record Label: Planet Mu
Kuedo breaks eight months of silence with a new track, highly cosmic sounding and influenced by footwork, as good as his visionary album of 2011. The track is accompanied by remixes by Laurel Halo and Claude Speed.
Read More »
Artist: Sensate Focus
Record Label: Sensate Focus
Genre: house, experimental
Mark Fell brings us the second volume in his accessible, luminous series, Sensate Focus. Here he lets loose with the house influences that showed through in his previous works, coming closer and closer to the dance floor.
Read More »
Artist: Pariah
Record Label: R&S Records
Genre: Bass, post-dubstep
After a year and a half of silence, Pariah is back with three new bass explorations that show he hasn't lost his touch. However, he has lowered the intensity, delivering some slow pieces with a broad sound, sacrificing the beat.
Read More »
Artist: Can
Record Label: Mute Records
Finally, the much anticipated re-mastering and release of all the material discovered in the old Can studios, presented by Mute in a deluxe box set. Three CDs worth of discarded tracks, Kraut-rock improvisation and rarities, adding to the legend of the Cologne band.
Read More »
Artist: iamamiwhoami
Record Label: Cooperative Music, To whom it may concern
With the mystery of iamamiwhoami solved months ago, the project led by Jonna Lee brings together her latest creations on a first LP that gives meaning once again to made-in-Sweden synthetic pop.
Read More »
Artist: Allo Darlin
Record Label: Fortuna Pop!
A sincere declaration of love to pop, recovering the sweet harmonies of twee pop of the early nineties and the best moments of labels like Sarah Records. Naïve pop executed masterfully and brightly. That's Allo Darlin’s second album.
Read More »
Artist: Drexciya
Record Label: Clone Classic Cuts
Artist: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Record Label: Polydor
He has the name of an extinct animal and practices an eclectic brand of house drenched in warm melodies. He could have remained an outsider on both the clubbing and the pop circuits, because of the oddness of his sound, but that's exactly where his strength lies: in occupying a memorable territory between those two worlds.
Read More »
Artist: Liars
Record Label: Mute Records
Genre: rock, pop, experimental, electronic
Liars shed their skin once more: the trio breaks a two-year silence with “Wixiw”, an album produced by Mute founder Daniel Miller, on which they turn towards electronica.
Read More »
Artist: Japandroids
Record Label: Polyvinyl Record Company
Genre: garage rock, punk, noise-rock
The second album by Canadian duo Japandroids, conceived with their live show in mind, does the job of channelling the energy and emotion of their concerts into eight effective, visceral and care-free tracks. It must be one of the best rock orgies of recent times.
Read More »
Artist: The Walkmen
Record Label: Fat Possum Records
Genre: rock
The Walkmen continue on their exquisite track: delivering sombre records with sad and breath-taking songs founded on rock and country. They appeal to the deepest of emotions, sounding like the most contemporary among all the classically styled bands.
Read More »
Artist: Sigur Rós
Record Label: XL Recordings
The pop songs have vanished, the euphoria gone up in smoke: on their new LP, Sigur Rós (partly) return to their roots and deliver their most contained, ambient and sad album. A reflection of the state of Europe? Possibly, or maybe it's much more than that.
Read More »
Artist: Luke Abbott
Record Label: Notown
Genre: IDM
Luke Abbott temporarily switches over from Border Community to Notown, but he doesn’t trade in any of his aesthetic traits — colourful IDM and vintage analogue textures — or his moment of grace. He is at the forefront of current British electronica.
Read More »
Artist: El-P
Record Label: Fat Possum Records
Genre: hip-hop
El-P has a unique sound he continues to refine and polish on this album, achieving the level of darkness and menace he's always been after. “Cancer For Cure” does not disappoint: it's another sonic blow to the stomach.
Read More »
Artist: DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell
Record Label: Comatonse
Genre: house
Two experimental activists team up for a house project based on the music of New York in the early 90s, but with a promising modern sound. There's good chemistry between DJ Sprinkles and Mark Fell. When will the album come out?
Read More »
Artist: Laurel Halo
Record Label: Hyperdub
Getting rid of most of the dream-pop traces and dance beats of her early EPs, Laurel Halo delivers an asphyxiating debut album, reflecting on the lack of communication and solitude of modern times.
Read More »
Artist: Saint Etienne
Record Label: Universal Music, Heavenly Records
Genre: pop...
Saint Etienne has come back through the front door, with their best album since the distant “Tiger Bay”. Their secret? Loving pop (alongside a wide range of music) as a way of life, having a good time, choosing intelligence, and building an adorable collection of songs that will always keep us company.
Read More »
Artist: Sistema
Record Label: Natura Sonoris
In his debut album, experienced Barcelona producer Sistema winds his way through an overview of his musical vision; resulting in one of the most absorbing, inspired works that has come out of electronic music in Spain.
Read More »
Artist: Killer Mike
Record Label: Williams Street
Atlanta rapper Killer Mike's new album isn't political, but it is a highly emotional and conceptual social commentary. A record about family and life in the United States, produced by El-P. Solid as a rock.
Read More »
Artist: Stay+
Record Label: Ramp Recordings
“Arem” is the first EP with all new material by Stay+, and it's also the one on which they most combine their rave sounds with pop, without renouncing the mystery of their early releases.
Read More »
Artist: Beach House
Record Label: Bella Union
Between luxurious psychedelics, half-awake dream-pop, and translucent shoegaze - “Bloom” gains in impact, liveliness and sensitivity with respect to its already-exultant predecessor. If the Baltimore duo’s songs were planets in “Teen Dream”, in “Bloom” they are true galaxies. Without a doubt, a masterpiece.
Read More »
Artist: Squarepusher
Record Label: Warp
Genre: IDM, Drum'n'bass, braindance
Squarepusher is back, and he's back good: no jazz, no easy tempos, no annoying bass solos, just hi-octane IDM, complex and schizoid rhythms, toy melodies and absurd speeds. Just what we wanted.
Read More »
Artist: CFCF
Record Label: Paper Bag Records
Genre: pop, Modern Classical
CFCF has slowed down his music and sought out a wider space. “Exercises” is his most exciting, personal work so far; based on the use of the piano and a singular approach to pop, new age and Impressionism.
Read More »
Artist: KA
Record Label: Iron Works Records
New York is once again a violent, dirty, dangerous city in the raw, realistic rhymes of rapper KA. Furthermore, the beats are slow, harsh, solid rhythms that back up a lyrical trip through hell. Best hip hop album of the year? It looks to be.
Read More »
Artist: Traxman
Record Label: Planet Mu
Cornelius Ferguson, a veteran of the Dance Mania era, releases an LP as Traxman on which juke house comes to maturity. Forget the cliché of hammering phrases and runaway beats: there's quite a bit more to it here.
Read More »
Artist: My Bloody Valentine
Record Label: Sony Music Entertainment
Genre: shoegaze, indie-rock
While we're waiting for that new album that never seems to come, Kevin Shields is re-mastering and reissuing the key works of My Bloody Valentine, on a particularly stellar volume featuring the EPs from the Creation era, plus a fistful of rarities and unreleased tracks.
Read More »
Artist: Shackleton
Record Label: Woe To The Septic Heart
Genre: ambient, post-dubstep
A spectacular exhibition of quality by Shackleton at his peak. This double album consists of a rhythmic part connecting post-dubstep with drum'n'bass and house, and a second part that is both ambient and toxic.
Read More »
Artist: Daughn Gibson
Record Label: White Denim
Daughn Gibson’s surprising first album is like a cross between Nick Drake and Burial, in the heartlands of modern America. A loop loving former truck driver who unexpectedly combines the ghosts of ambient and folk.
Read More »
Artist: Lone
Record Label: R&S Records
A subtle, but decisive twist in Lone’s old-school language: travelling techno, nostalgia for the best days of the rave explosion, trotting pianos, baroque melodies, happiness, ecstasy. It’s not an album, it’s a future world: remote and improved.
Read More »
Artist: Beaumont
Record Label: Hotflush Recordings
Beaumont disembarks on Hotflush with an EP that confirms the greatness suggested by his debut, reinforcing the dialogue between his beloved 80s and certain dynamics of contemporary bass music.
Read More »
Artist: Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland
Record Label: Hyperdub
Genre: experimental, dub, psychedelia
Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland make up the duo previously known as Hype Williams, who are now debuting for Hyperdub with a solid album in which one hears echoes of dub, psychedelic and hip hop - giving shape to a very 21st-century vision of urban folk.
Read More »
Artist: Sensate Focus
Record Label: Sensate Focus
Genre: house, experimental
Sensate Focus, Editions Mego's new house sub-label, kicks off with a four-track vinyl, seemingly produced by Mark Fell, full of crystal harmonies and abstract rhythms. Art vinyl of the month.
Read More »
Artist: LHF
Record Label: Keysound Recordings
Genre: dubstep
“Keepers Of The Light” is a fitting title to LHF’s debut: the collective continues to keep the genre’s original fire burning, refining their craft enough to deliver over two hours of dubstep that quite literally go everywhere and back again without ever losing sight of what it’s supposed to be.
Read More »
Artist: Photek
Record Label: Studio !K7
Never underestimate an old Samurai: Photek is back with a vengeance, a triumphant return to the breaks and bass underground, with a mix CD that tastes like night and smells of neon. It’s nostalgic trip to the best (party) nights of our lives.
Read More »
Artist: Lotus Plaza
Record Label: Kranky
Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt returns with a second solo album that is more direct and pop than his dispersed debut. Without too many embellishments, with plenty of talent and much subtlety, Lotus Plaza, makes us forget about his main band for 45 minutes.
Read More »
Artist: Petar Dundov
Record Label: Music Man
Techno, trance and cosmic music united in sweet harmony on an album that will take you right up there. Croatian Petar Dundov honours his reputation as a top-notch producer and delivers his most complete effort to date.
Read More »
Artist: The Burrell Brothers
Record Label: Rush Hour
Genre: house, deep house, garage
Rush Hour honours the legacy of The Burrell Brothers by offering us a compilation of their work for Nu Groove. It testifies to the profound influence that the duo’s sound had on the gestation of deep-house.
Read More »
Artist: Chromatics
Record Label: Italians Do It Better
After weeks of speculation and advances with videos, the long-awaited Chromatics album, “Kill For Love”, is finally here. It boasts 17 songs that are destined to become the soundtrack to more than one cold night.
Read More »
