Willamette: Echo Park
One of my favorite ambient releases this year. Vinyl only. Very open, spacious, tattered. According to the label website, Willamette is the collective of the brothers Chong (aka Northern) and Joseph Edward with contributions by Danny Norbury & Ryan Navassa Boa.

Off!: The First Four EPs

Seldom do I wake up and want my ears blasted off first thing in the morning these days. But today is one of those days. This album kicks ass. Keith Morris is back. I played this the other day mixed in with some Circle Jerks stuff and it holds up just fine. The vinyl 4 pack of 7 inches has a ton of great Pettibon art too. If you like old hardcore stuff, this is a must have.

Now I'm gonna have to listen to this today!
Thanks for reminding me.

Jürgen Müller: Science of the Sea

And now to mellow the fuck out and get through another work day. This one has some convoluted back story about how it was originally recorded in 1982 by some German oceanographer and pressed onto 100 vinyl copies mostly passed out to friends and is now being rediscovered. I call bullshit on that, but it is still a nice listen and if you look at the cover and keep the back story in mind, it sounds a lot like you'd expect. I'd say fans of Eno would get into this.

Kenny Graham and his Satellites: Moondog and Suncat Suites

The most amazing thing about this is that it was recorded in 1957, yet listening right now there are long sections that seem utterly modern. The even more amazing thing is I just discovered UbuWeb, a free repository of sound, pictures, movies and such. It's all based around avant-garde leanings and is massive and not too difficult to navigate. Check it out:
http://www.ubu.com

This is making a late push for my top 10.

Gorillaz: The Singles Collection 2001-2011

New 2 CD collection covering all the singles this group released over the course of 3 albums. Tons of great stuff here from a group I have enjoyed every release from. The mixes here sound like they vary slightly from album versions and they toss in a couple remixes at the end. It's a nice summary of things for this group. No idea if they are calling it quits now or what. But, the question this thing begs is at 2 CDs long... why not just buy the 3 Gorillaz CDs? Not much of a jump really. Still, it is nice to have all the singles collected and they present 'em here chronologically so you get a good sense of the group evolving and they toss on a couple remixes at the end. Basically, a really fun listen to some great music, but you've gotta decide if you think it's entirely necessary or not, even if you are fan.

Oh, and is it sacrilegious if I say I like Gorillaz better than Blur?

np: the "new" Centro Matic. best thing they've ever done, imo.