This was a strange year for me in which I found myself listening to a lot more "accessible" music than ever before. I think this was largely a result of just wanting to throw things on that I didn't need to think about in any way...this year kicked my ass in a big way and I didn't need much of my music choices to provide anymore challenges. I also think I quit trying quite so hard...for the past fifteen or so years it has been scouring tape/vinyl labels and grabbing limited run stuff, often times for no reason other than to just have a hand-painted cassette that looks rad sitting on a shelf and I don't feel that to be a necessary use of my time and energy (and money) these days.

Regardless, for me 2012 was a great year for music full of great releases from old favorites (Six Organs and Dilloway), really strange albums that hold a pop sensibility (Daughn Gibson, Grand Salvo) and rediscovering just great rock and roll that reminded me of driving around in my fully primered 1989 Ford Ranger back in 1995 listening to a crappy college radio station out of Stillwater, Oklahoma that only came in about half of the time that made me feel so damned cool to just be listening to (Cloud Nothings, Japandroids).

25. Dictaphone - Poems from a Rooftop

24. Greg Haines - Moments Eluding

23. Peter Broderick - It Starts Hear

22. Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory

21. Tame Impala - Lonerism

20. Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

19. Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It

18. Machinefabriek - Colour Tones

17. Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes

16. Grand Salvo - Slay Me In My Sleep

15. Japandroids - Celebration Rock

14. Oren Ambarchi - Raga Ooty/Audience of One

13. Daughn Gibson - All Hell

12. William Cody Watson - Bill Murray

11. Ariel Pink - Mature Themes

10. Zelienople - The World is a House on Fire

09. The Congos/Sun Araw/M. Geddes Gengras - Icon Give Thank

08. Six Organs of Admittance - Ascent

07. Grizzly Bear - Shields

06. Villages - Theories of Ageing

05. Aaron Dilloway - Modern Jester

04. Swans - The Seer

03. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

02. Mt. Eerie - Clear Moon

01. Raime - Quarter Turns Over a Living Line

Cool list. Great to see Mt. Eerie place so high. Definitely one of the best things he's ever done.

I've onyl just started listening to that Dilloway album, but it's really nice. I need to check out Raime and Daughn Gibson.

Fair amount of overlap: Mt. Eerie, Scott Walker, Swans, Grizzly Bear, others.

Kinda surprised you like Japandroids. I just couldn't really get into this one.

I liked Ocean Roar more than Clear Moon from this year's Mt Eerie output.

Swans album is great, but considering what you went through this year with health and the subsequent fight, I don't know how you had the fortitude to withstand the onslaught of this music.

Also curious if the Spiritualized inclusion was influenced by your illness?

Love that Ariel Pink. I don't know if I would be such a fan of it and Before Today if my musical education hadn't included Dr Demento at a young age as well as Frank Zappa and Ween during my late 90s/early 00s music journeys.

I've never even heard of Raime



Sounds like K and I like this record for the same reason. It gave me a similar feeling that The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America, even if thematically Celebration Rock shares more with Stay Positive by The Hold Steady. Small bit if trivia, half of Celebration Rock was written in my neighborhood. Discovered that when they told the crowd that during their Nashville your stop in late November.

I think you would really like that Raime. It's really dark stuff for sure super minimal and heavy...if there is one album that sums up my year this is it for sure, it probably isn't the "best" album I heard all year it was definitely the one that resonated most with me. (...it doesn't hurt that it is also one of my favorite album covers of the past few years)



I can't explain why I like that Japandroids so much. Just kind of a fun little record with all kinds of shout-along choruses that even my daughter gets into.

Also, just realized I completely flaked on including Om and Holly Herndon in my list...oh well.

I only picked up Ocean Roar a couple of weeks ago...given more time it would probably make the list also.

That Swans record (similar to Raime) for me was a great expression of staring down things that pissed me off that I had no control over. I had a conversation with my wife about it a few months ago actually...in spite of being shot at, blown up by IEDs, being in helicopter crashes, I have always felt in control of my own mortality...that idea of training kicking in and knowing (at the risk of sounding arrogant) I was a bad motherfucker that wasn't about to get killed by some shithead insurgent. With being sick this year I was being targeted by a different kind of coward and nothing I could do could help...knowing that made me angrier than anything else I have gone through in my life. But eventually it reached a point where I was able to accept that it happened and found a certain calm in going through treatment. Both of those albums run through that myriad of emotions (in The Seer it is done in single songs at times) and both just hit me hard at the right time and were strangely a big help in getting me to reach that point of acceptance.

I have always liked Spiritualized, but to answer your question yes, that certainly played a part. Following my treatment (as cliche as it may sound) I really think I have started to view my life differently. There is a certain joy in getting up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning to watch My Little Pony with my kiddo. Lifting and running are more about life longevity than vanity these days. Paying my mortgage is something that makes me happy as I know I have a house that will be mine someday, and I will be damned if I am not going to be around to see it be paid off. That Spiritualized tapped into those points/feelings of my year...a certain calm and blissful acceptance in the monotony/repetition that is every day life and not so much reaching for "cool" as reaching for "good".

Absolutely agree on Ariel Pink and have felt that way for years now about the guy having that same weird playfulness and wink to everything he has done that bands like Ween had. Though I don't feel like these last two records are too different from what he was doing on The Doldrums or Worn Copy, he is certainly doing it better and has benefited from having a solid backing band.

Speaking to a musician dealing with accepting "normal" life and the fact you resonated with it, I would encourage a listen to the new Cat Power.

I have seen it pop up on a few year end lists and I really like that The Greatest record she did a few years ago so definitely intend to give that one a listen.

just listened to that daughn gibson again tonight and yeah it's definitely making my list.

is there much of an orchestra presence on the new spiritualized?

tracks 4 and 7 from Let it Come Down are absolute anthems for me, yet i don't really care for much the rest of the stuff...

Great list. Lots for me to check out. Glad you listed Daughn Gibson, because that was recommended to me by Young Widows, which I promptly forgot about. Thanks for the reminder.

Only slightly puzzled by the high placement of the Six Organs record. I'm a huge fan of Chasny's, but felt like this was neither the fully realized Six Organs rock record that it could have been, and should be, nor even a shadow of a Comets On Fire record (with many of the same players).

The Rangda album is a lot better, IMO.

I like this Six Organs album better than a lot of his recent ones, though. I don't think I even bothered with the last couple.

I have heard a lot of people say the same thing, and I will certainly agree that I was hoping for a big blown out Comets record when I heard Ethan was back on this one which I didn't quite get here...but I love what they did. I think tracks like One Thousand Birds, Even If You Knew and of course Waswasa are a great bridge between what these guys were doing seven years ago and where they are now (especially Ethan's work on here). We'll probably never get that noisy as hell Comets follow-up to the BxC collaboration that I have long waited for, but on this album Chasny proved his smoked out solo pretty stuff is still as gorgeous as it was when the whole world was latched on to the "New Weird America" thing and that when the band gets back together they can still throw out some heady and absolutely tight groove and guitar jams better than just about anyone else. Plus, I have loved watching the videos of this tour...Chasny looks like he is having fun again which is what I think he needed to do following a couple of subpar releases.

I still need to spend more time with this one. I listened to it a bit after you recc'd it to me and then kind of forgot about it. It is really damn good though, as was Corsano's solo joint this year which just missed making my list.

Glad to see some love for Villages - Theories of Ageing. I've been listening to that one a lot lately.

curious about this one? did you see a stream anywhere?

Bandcamp...

http://rvng.bandcamp.com/album/frkwys-v ... give-thank

absolutely love that Raime release. i def need to check out the Machinefabriek record.