Sub-Ed’s Albums & EPs Of The Year 2018
Here, simply, is what I consider to have been the best albums and EPs of the year – those that have stood out most from that which I’ve listened to. As usual, there’s been plenty of good-to-downright-great releases, this year seeming to be one when I’ve fully embraced the dark bosom of hipster metal: the loud, the genre-mashed, the gloomy and the out-and-out experimental. The listening wasn’t all bleak though, some lighter moments managing to shine through the clouds in places, all be them sporadic.
Particular credit this year one again goes to [sic] fixture Sacred Bones, a label that can count six entries in this list, and who’ve counted at least five on this list for each of the last seven years! A truly staggering achievement! Special mention also goes to the rejuvenated Matador imprint and to Cardinal Fuzz for each having a hand in five each too and only slightly lesser mention should also be made of another ever-present, In The Red, for not being far behind!
Other statistical analysis interestingly shows that, while I consider myself an open-minded globetrotter when it comes to music, 85% of the artists in this top 100 still entirely or partially call either the US, UK, Canada or Australia home. This is down on last year’s figure though so it remains just a question of turning over enough rocks to prove that great music abounds almost everywhere.
It must be said though that, as per every year, I have only one pair of ears, a set number of hours in the day and a bank balance that is far from inexhaustible, so there are, perhaps, certain notable omissions from the list below. In any case, who knows what may have been, but here is what definitely was (linked where reviewed – rough genre given in brackets):
1. Blacklab – Under The Strawberry Moon 2.0 (Doom Metal/Stoner-Fuzz) [New Heavy Sounds]
A party for undead hordes, it’s incredible that Blacklab is the product of two fairly unassuming Japanese goths. Comprising only Chia Shiraishi’s pounding drums and Yuko Morino’s heavily treated guitar and guttural growl, these girls slop out heavy sludge as if it were gruel, weapons-grade chug and feedback like acid. In quieter moments, Strawberry Moon variously brings Deap Vally or golden era QOTSA to mind, filthy sorcery coruscating the speakers with thrash, blackened hard-blues and doom more often still. Once heard, you can never unhear how essential this record is.
2. Svalbard – It’s Hard To Have Hope (Black Metal/Post-Rock) [Holy Roar]
Calling out a succession of societal wrongs, Svalbard’s aptly named It’s Hard To Have Hope nevertheless offers great oceans of optimism through its glistening crescendos. Achieving the impossible, this total atom-smasher of post-rock, powerful emo and black-metal is downright thrilling and in no way pretentious. It’s the kind of album that just stops you in your tracks as it consumes you entirely.
3. Uniform – The Long Walk (Thrash/Noise) [Sacred Bones]
Being able to elicit such excitement from what many would consider a limited palette proves Uniform to be a band of uncommon ability. Their excellent partnership with The Body (see below) is undoubtedly another string to their bow, but here, doing what they do, unfettered by outside influence, the duo is on absolutely destructive form, their distortion levels alone enough to level a good-sized city.
4. IDLES – Joy As An Act Of Resistance (Punk) [Partisan]
Their politics may be as subtle as a brick (heck, they are a punk band), but mercifully Idles’ witty music is much better nuanced. A winning combination of firebrand lyricism and intelligently angry guitars and drums, Joy As An Act Of Resistance is endlessly entertaining. The result is so blindingly colourful that you almost need to look away, completely incapable of doing so like rubber-necking a car crash.
5. Shame – Songs Of Praise (Post-Punk/Punk-Rock) [Dead Oceans]
Being Mercury-nominated can be a bit of a mixed blessing, but baggy post-punk band Shame probably dodged a bullet by controversially not being nominated. Songs Of Praise is a bit laddish and it robs some previous greats absolutely blind truth be told, but – goodness gracious – it’s a lot of fun. Their fans’ adoration will probably go their heads though, so do the sensible thing and enjoy them while you can.
6. The Body – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer (Power Electronics/Doom-Metal) [Thrill Jockey]
Finding beauty in the most unlikely of source material, The Body’s grotesque “pop” album placed second in this list back in 2016. Now working again at the bleaker end of the spectrum, that syntactically null scream of Chip King is juxtaposed against the operatic turn of long-time collaborator Chrissy Wolpert, blood-curdling electronics sitting just as impressively alongside blatant doom blasts.
7. Nothing – Dance On The Blacktop (Rock/Shoegaze) [Relapse Records]
A gloriously retro slice of grungy, early 90s alt-rock, Nothing have, until now, been a decent but largely unremarkable shoegaze revival band. All that was missing was the songs and here, tapping into a rich vein, they flow abundantly. Warm, fuzzy nostalgia envelops the listener, peeling feedback and monumental guitars preventing it from all becoming overly saccharine. It turns out they do still make records like they used to!
8. Lucy Dacus – Historian (Singer-Songwriter) [Matador]
Female singer-songwriting’s current queen Sharon Van Etten will be back next year with a new album, but – based on the spine-tingling Historian – her crown is under serious threat from Lucy Dacus. The soaring passion in her voice is infectious, the ability to shimmer in barely-there acoustics and bigger rock statements, often during the same song, confirming her to be a new master of the craft.
9. Gnod – Chapel Perilous (Doom/Noise/Drone) [Rocket Recordings]
You never quite know which Gnod you’re gonna get. Industrial Gnod. Techno Gnod. Our previous favourite, heavy psych Gnod. Or, as per this latest incarnation, nasty, experimental, noisy Gnod. It’s a move that suits Paddy Shine’s collective too, the lengthy run-times of Chapel Perilous’s tracks letting them get really weird and wild. A crushing exploration of sound, it’s not one for listening to just before bedtime.
10. Low – Double Negative (Slowcore/R&B) [Sub Pop]
Where on earth have Low been hiding this? As radical a departure from type as when Radiohead dropped Kid A, their signature slowcore becomes clipped and screwed, ghostly fragments of fragile R&B near obliterated by crackling fuzz. Double Negative would be just as fascinating if it were someone else’s album. That it’s Low’s just makes it that bit more astonishing. Distortion never sounded so beautiful.
11. Uniform & The Body – Mental Wounds Not Healing (Thrash/Noise/Doom) [Sacred Bones]
A union of a truly nefarious nature, ugly noise-maker The Body takes the opportunity to dredge up some mangled electronics from the depths of hell, a thousand lost souls howling into the doomed void. Partners in crime, Uniform then delight in dousing the flames with monstrous feedback, growling guitar and Berdan’s angry holler. Mental Wounds is an album to endure as much as it is one to enjoy.
12. The Soft Moon – Criminal (Darkwave/Coldwave) [Sacred Bones]
Showing no signs of letting up, The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez is digging deeper into punishing industrial darkwave as time passes, the blur of beats and compressions at his fingertips austere and unfriendly. A relentless stream of this misanthropy may be too much to stomach, so wisely Vasquez varies his delivery so that his metallic bangers stand even more totemically in these irradiated aural wastelands.
13. Bodega – Endless Scroll (Punk-Rock) [What’s Your Rupture?]
Even by Brooklyn standards, Bodega are cool. Influenced by every NY punk-rocker of note, the tumble of minimal riffs, percussion and sexy, switchable male/female drawling vocals that follows drips with glacial insouciance. Bound to be indie dancefloor staples for decades to come, Endless Scroll is an almost perfect sequence of catchy two-minute rippers. Luckily, they’ll easily withstand repeat listens.
14. Deafheaven – Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (Black Metal/Post-Rock) [Anti-]
Widely disliked in the metal community, Deafheaven are simply not conformists and their willingness to blend black-metal with other sounds continues to stand them apart. With piano melodies, post-rock grandiosity, blissful shoegaze, doomed choruses and classic-rock riffs, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is less “metal” still in parts and yet as a whole it’s arguably even more anthemic for it.
15. White Ring – Gate Of Grief (Witch House) [Rocket Girl]
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it … Witch House. Ageing better than you’d think and, despite its legacy living on through a number of strains of crepuscular industrionics, the much-maligned micro-genre was thought pretty much dead. First wave act White Ring had other ideas though and their overdue debut LP, while there isn’t many to rival it, is probably now the second-best LP of its type after SALEM’s King Night.
16. Jaye Jayle – No Trail And Other Unholy Paths (Singer-Songwriter) [Sargent House]
There’s no getting around the fact that Young Widows’ Evan Patterson’s solo project sounds like Mark Lanegan. In fact, if this were a Mark Lanegan album it’d be featuring on a lot more best-of lists than it is, such is the nature of the industry. In any case, the gravelly composition here hovers atmospherically throughout, destructive bass guitar and piano parts carrying bleak melodies like a funeral procession does a coffin.
17. Soccer Mommy – Clean (Singer-Songwriter) [Fat Possum]
Steeped in a sadness that holds up a mirror to modern society, Sophie Allison is just 20 and yet she sings with profound, real-life experience. Seemingly sprinkled with magic, the conversational Clean is consequently a mesmeric collection of hushed acoustics and soft enunciations that plugs in for fuller versions of the same sound when needed. A friend when you need one most, it’s all so simple and yet it hits so hard.
18. Mark Kozelek – Mark Kozelek (Singer-Songwriter) [Caldo Verde]
Ah, the self-titled album. A distillation of the artist’s essence. But the hyper-prolific Mark Kozelek isn’t just any artist, and he certainly isn’t predictable. While his mumbling storytelling remains fascinating, it’s his utterly unique delivery that drives him towards continual reinvention. Not perhaps one for the newcomer all the same, he toys with his audience like a kitten with a ball of string. He’ll bankrupt me yet.
19. A Place To Bury Strangers – Pinned (Noise-Rock/Post-Punk) [Dead Oceans]
An institution round these parts, Pinned is far from the best APTBS album and yet it’s still miles better than most. We’re talking such narrow margins with a band of this calibre that they can afford to ease off a couple of percent, scribble their homework on the back of the bus, cram the night before and still ace the big exam. Smug bastards the lot of ‘em and we wouldn’t have them any other way.
20. The Final Age – The Final Age (Experimental/Post-Rock/Psych-Noise) [ Cardinal Fuzz/Sunrise Ocean Bender]
Noise, post-rock, black jazz, punishing kraut, psych-punk: The Final Age are chaotic and yet darkly alluring. Vocals come either sanity-questioningly whispered or howled, field captured or warped. And, miraculously, it’ll all be more progressive, more unruly, more blown-out still live and, it’s a fair bet, never played the same twice either. Trust us when we say you won’t ever hear another record like it.
21. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – King Of Cowards (Heavy Psych/Hard Rock) [Rocket Recordings]
Always able to find another level, Geordie rabble-rousers Pigs x7 are so successful because they’re both masters of sludgy fuzz-metal AND harder rocking psych-riffs. Having the ability to vary their assault, theses sadists are quick to see your weaknesses and then exploit them with glee. It makes for an unholy listen, but one whose black charms beckon seductively from the shadows. Don’t tell your mother.
22. boygenius – boygenius EP (Singer-Songwriter) [Matador]
A super group as super as you’re ever going to find one, boygenius comprises [sic] favourites Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus (see above) and Matador have hoovered the trio up for a sparkling EP. Each singer-songwriter takes turn to complement the others, each given the centre stage and lead vocal where it simply feels right. Never likely to be a failure, an album cannot come soon enough.
23. Spiritualized – And Nothing Hurt (Neo-Psych) [Bella Union]
As soon as the needle drops, you instantly know two things: 1) this tender affair could only ever be a Spiritualized album, 2) that’s it’s another seriously classy affair. Jam-packed with calling-card, hyper-fragile moments of swooning beauty that lead to bigger plugged-in statements, And Nothing Hurt is the embodiment of the medicinal effects and vulnerable highs of being deeply, hopelessly in love. Jump in.
24. Bambara – Shadow On Everything (Rock/Noise-Punk) [Wharf Cat]
Gloriously gloomy, Brooklyn band Bambara are sporadically capable of some majestic, post-punk-indebted rock and Shadow On Everything again proves it. On an arty record, they skitter and jerk as if having a fit, wiry guitars winding themselves up against back-drops of sneering despondency, not unlike someone like Iceage. The top table surely beckons just as soon as they can iron out the consistency.
25. Haley Heynderickx – I Need To Start A Garden (Alt-Folk/Singer-Songwriter) [Mama Bird]
The calm in the storm that is this list, I Need To Start A Garden is stripped back to the point of barely being there at all. Nimble-fingered acoustics is all that Haley Heynderickx has to offer and though her intimate songs play like diary entries, she has the pin-drop authority that their recital rolls like epic poetry. And yet there’s still an air of accidental genius to it all. This may well be the debut of a major new star.
26. Shopping – The Official Body (Post-Punk) [FatCat]
There is no end to the talents of Shopping’s rhythm section. Now on their third album, they’re still consistently digging new, danceable grooves out of quite minimal resources. They’re truly the MacGyver of spindly post-punk. Just as per previous releases, it’s a scientific fact you won’t be able to keep still while giving The Official Body a listen. In a world of fake news, we all need some absolute truth now and then.
27. The Limiñanas – Shadow People (60s Psych/Psych-Rock) [Because Music]
Shadow People, an LP with as much Serge Gainsbourg in it as there is Moe Tucker, is cinematic psych-rock where the focus is very much on psych. Being French, naturally it chatters on about cigarettes as well, music for late-night, back-street holes-in-the-wall; music that’ll therefore make your eyes sting and maybe cause permanent damage to your brain, but music that’s definitely worth the risk.
28. Wooden Shjips – V. (Psych-Rock) [Thrill Jockey]
Ripley Johnson has never been the most energetic of frontmen, but even by his standards V – the band’s aptly named fifth studio album – is a blissed-out listen. Dropping most of the tempos to summertime chill, his guitar patterning follows suit, dappling the lapping repeats so they twinkle like diamonds. The resultant kaleidoscope of sound is every bit as colourful as you’d expect and just as rewarding as you’d hope.
29. GHXST – Gloom EP (Doom-Rock/Stoner Fuzz) [S/R]
On the final EP in their Nowhere trilogy, Brooklyn doom-grunge band GHXST have lost none of their darkness. Fuzz pedals and heavy guitar continue to do the dirty work, their coolest attribute remaining disinterested singer Shelley X. A tour of modern Americana’s star-strewn badlands through to its neon-lit back alleys, they may always have been on the road to Nowhere, but it’s been one hell of a ride.
30. Negative Scanner – Nose Picker (Punk) [Trouble In Mind]
No messing here. A proper punk record, Nose Picker is – pun intended – a really snotty listen that pogoes in all the right places, railing and wailing against a series of injustices as only punks can. It’s centrepiece, though, is a track twice as long as any other and this incongruous luxury allows it to lay down a properly rousing call to arms. Let it be said, the sub two-minutes either side of it are no slouches either though.
31. Dilly Dally – Heaven (Punk-Rock/Grunge) [Partisan]
Apologies to the other members of Dilly Dally, but this band is hers. Without her sultry, rasping voice, Dilly Dally just wouldn’t be a thing. Simple. So, sit back and let her sandpaper your ears with wave after wave of soaring emotion. An angel with a 20-a-day habit, it’s the contrasts that do it. A coo becomes a howl. Gentle strumming a wall of a noise. Dreamy plodding ripped asunder by a killer solo.
32. No Age – Snares Like A Haircut (Garage/Noise-Punk) [Drag City]
It’s a fair bet that not even No Age expected their come-back album to be this good. After a hot run, Snares Like A Haircut is the LA duo’s first since 2014, first since both becoming fathers and yet immediately it’s their most professional. This might put off the DIY punks, but it turns out a proper album suits these noisy boys very nicely. The high-end remains full of scree, but the melodies have never been stronger.
33. The Lavender Flu – Mow The Glass (Garage-Psych/60s Psych) [In The Red]
Former Hunches guitarist Chris Gunn’s debut was meandering and experimental, but its eyebrow-raising follow-up is a much more precise and quite gorgeous piece of lightly psychedelic guitar-pop. Imperfectly perfect to a track, dusty lo-fi melodies take a veritable tour of the 60s; the album’s jangles and whistling will appeal to the Kevin Morby crowd, scrappy garage-psych blasters an “in” for the Black Lips gang.
34. Parquet Courts – Wide Awake! (Garage/Punk-Rock) [Rough Trade]
Probably the most consistent Parquet Courts LP in terms of quality, Wide Awake! is probably also the New Yorkers’ most varied in terms of songs too. There’s a refreshing simplicity to it all though that’s really hard to shake. Remaining a punk-rock record at heart all the same, it’s not afraid to yell when the mood takes it, nor draw out its vocals with a cool sneer just as soon as new listeners get too comfortable.
35. Slift – La Planète Inexplorée (Garage-Psych) [Howlin Banana et al.]
An ambitious space-rock concept, fast-paced kosmiche is here favoured over repetitive kraut, distorted melodies dragging you along like a fishhook to the cheek. An initiation rite of sorts, tribal rhythms and weirdo samples are this away-team’s diplomacy arm while its military wing slash and burn all before them with an onslaught of guitar fuzz. It’s as if the titular planet is alive at times, and it’s fighting back.
36. Preoccupations – New Material (Post-Punk) [Jagjaguwar]
Economically titled, New Material does what it says on the tin, gloomy crescendos coursing beneath surprisingly minimal, pretty guitar patterning. Dialling down some of the camper Goth of Preoccupations’ ever-awkward post-punk too, it all feels – despite sounding like no-one else – like what this year’s Interpol record should have sounded like if that band weren’t still so constrained by their past.
37. Jupiter-C – Football Game OST (Darkwave/Industrial) [Ramber Records]
Football Game is a point-and-click PC game inspired by Twin Peaks and, while the year might be 1987, but Ashiya Eastwood and David Kane (the duo tasked with the soundtrack) have their sights on the industrial revolution instead. The oppressive hum of machinery pollutes throughout, cold chimes, metallic beats and a punishing snare contributing to pixelated post-punk bangers and noir cinematics.
38. Father John Misty – God’s Favourite Customer (Singer-Songwriter/Alt-Country) [Bella Union/Sub Pop]
Everyone’s favourite arsehole (© Loud And Quiet Magazine), Father John Misty is, of course, just a character Josh Tillman has invented, but the personae are now blurring (see single “Mr. Tillman”). He/they do have a knack for song-writing though and God’s Favourite Customer, knowingly tongue-in-cheek in places, sprawls like a lost Gram Parson record, a shred of vulnerability now the chink in his armour.
39. Ought – Room Inside The World (Art-Punk/New Wave) [Merge]
Yikes! Ought are growing up fast. The Talking Heads fascination remains intact, but it’s a more sophisticated take on the sound this time around, skittering drums and fluttering vocals softening a more angular palette of late punk/early New Wave guitars. Wild Beasts fans still smarting from that band’s demise will want to get on board now; Room Inside The World sounds likely to lead somewhere better still.
40. Anna Von Hausswolff – Dead Magic (Doom-Rock/Drone) [City Slang]
A creature of the night, Ms. Von Hausswolff hails from Sweden’s darkest recesses, her perverted classical motifs treated to organ dirge, heavy doom riffs dragging her more theatrical vocal turns through the circles of hell. Making the most of the lack of sunlight in winter, these gloomy compositions take their time, stalking the listener across glistening soundscapes, hungry for the moment to pounce.
41. Amnesia Scanner – Another Life (Electronica/Experimental) [PAN]
Well, well, well. Highly regarded Finnish producer Amnesia Scanner has only gone and blown the bloody doors off! Dragging his outsider beats an inch closer to the mainstream for his full-length debut on PAN, Another Life is a firework display of challenging future-pop full of industrial compressions, screwed vocal samples and machine-gun drum programmes. It’s an exhilarating if abrasive listen.
42. Peaking Lights – Sea Of Sand EP (Psych-Dub/Electro) [Dekmantel]
Sorely overlooked release alert! With rumours of a new LP coming soon, Peaking Lights celebrate their switch to dance label Dekmantel with a lengthy EP of strongly positioned and yet bleary electro dub. It’s their most front frontal and immediate platter to date too, wheezing around the joint with spacey FX and lolloping beats, the duo’s head-nodding psychedelic squelch played like an ace in the hole.
43. Dead Sea Apes & Adam Stone – Warheads (Heavy Psych/Space-Rock) [Cardinal Fuzz]
Dead Sea Apes have only recently begun experimenting with vocals and here they promote their secret weapon, the superbly Manc-accented poet Adam Stone, to full collaborator status. Warheads brings the noise alright, but with Stone at their back, the result is often unrecognisable. These are truly apocalyptic visions of Britain’s future, punk and Goth flirting with the overdrive of a band like Hawkwind.
44. FACS – Negative Houses (Post-Punk/Noise Rock) [Trouble In Mind]
Chicago band Disappears were a good outfit and now, from their ashes, rises another. At the experimental end of post-punk, the bass undulates in an inhuman manner, the percussion and guitar a scratchy series of nervous tics. The whole thing creaks and groans like a galleon in a storm, starburst snares and riffs, man and machine in awkward union. It’s early days, but the student may become the master.
45. GØGGS – Pre Strike Sweep (Garage-Punk) [In The Red]
Screaming out for a hyphen that just doesn’t come, GØGGS are Ty Segall, Charles Moothart and Chris Shaw of Ex-Cult and Pre Strike Sweep doubles down on this band of bros’ hardcore inspo and crashes it headlong into outsider noise-art and distortion. Teach a man to fish at this pool and you feed him for a lifetime, yet – a feast of guitar – it takes no chances, preferring to blast-fish with dynamite throughout.
46. Oh Sees – Smote Reverser (Heavy Prog/Garage-Psych) [Castle Face]
(Thee) Oh Sees is rarely just John Dwyer. In and out of prominence, long-time member Brigid Dawson has often nevertheless been just as influential over the band’s changing sound. Here, the apple-cart is once again upset, Dawson bringing her trademark 60s psych organ to the party, but otherwise generally letting Dwyer’s stranger and more rhythmic, heavy-prog tendencies dominate as only he can.
47. Warm Drag – Warm Drag (Electro-Garage/Noise-Pop) [In The Red]
Vashti Windish and Paul Quattrone’s S/T debut is a seedy exploration of what goes on when the sun goes down and which brings to mind former favourites The Kills. Leading you straight to the wrong side of the tracks, it’s an alluring tour of filthy electro-rock dives where there’s a reason the lights are barely on. Double check the doors are locked before you go to bed tonight. Warm Drag are on the hunt for blood.
48. Power – Turned On (Hard-Rock/Proto-Punk) [In The Red]
Power couldn’t be more appropriately named. The Aussie trio’s hard-rocking debut is likely still ringing in the ears of anyone that heard it. Retreating from some of that LP’s thrashier content, Turned On is instead simply an uncompromising flow of full-throttle retro-rock, a maelstrom of supercharged Glam and pedal-to-the-primitive-metal. Bring your sharpest elbows to the pit for this one.
49. Essaie Pas – New Path (Techno/Coldwave) [DFA]
Husband-and-wife electronic duo Essaie Pas are now a few albums deep, but none hit so claustrophobically as the suitably dank, A Scanner Darkly-inspired New Path. It pulses and hums as if plugged into the mainframe, menacing ambience, tense micro-detail and mute beats ramping up the intensity, spoken samples questioning the human condition. This is music for insurrection; who will answer the call?
50. tUnE-yArDs – I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life (Alt-Pop) [4AD]
The ever-wacky new Merrill Garbus LP again straddles the vintage sounds of Afro-inflected roots music, treating it this time to doses of experimental future-pop, piano-line house and retro electro too. It’s also woke AF, tackling capitalism, feminism, the environment, and white privilege. The air naturally becomes thin as these altitudes, so it’s hardly surprising there aren’t many keeping up with her.
The best of the rest (no particular order):
Kaviar Special – Vortex (Garage-Psych) [Howlin Banana]
A Grave With No Name – Passover (Singer-Songwriter/Alt-Folk) [Forged Artifacts]
Chemtrails – Calf Of The Sacred Cow (Garage-Pop/Lo-fi) [PNKSLM]
Amorie – Volume One (Electro-Pop) [Ramber Records]
Ty Segall – Freedom’s Goblin (Garage-Psych/Rock) [Drag City]
U.S. Girls – In A Poem Unlimited (Alt-Pop/Experimental Funk) [4AD]
Hovvdy – Cranberry (Slacker/Indie-Pop) [Double Double Whammy]
1954 – A Part Of Me (Post-Dubstep/R&B) [Project: Mooncircle]
Cabbage – Nihilistic Glamour Shots (Indie/Punk) [Infectious]
Amen Dunes – Freedom (Singer-Songwriter/Folk-Rock) [Sacred Bones]
Iceage – Beyondless (Punk-Rock) [Matador]
Beach House – 7 (Dream-Pop) [Bella Union]
Beach Skulls – Las Dunas (Indie/Garage-Surf) [PNKSLM]
Juliana Daugherty – Light (Singer-Songwriter) [Western Vinyl]
Parades Against Parades – Driving Me Stoned (60s Psych-Rock) [Cardinal Fuzz]
Snail Mail – Lush (Singer-Songwriter/Indie) [Matador]
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs (Indie/Slacker-Rock) [Sub Pop]
DJ Taye – Still Trippin’ (Footwork/Hip-Hop) [Hyperdub]
Here Lies Man – You Will Know Nothing (Worldbeat/Psych) [RidingEasy]
oOoOO & Islamiq Grrrls – Faminine Mystique (Electro-Pop/Beats) [Nihjgt Feelings]
YOB – Our Raw Heart (Sludge/Doom-Metal) [Relapse Records]
Ice Baths – Ice Baths (Post-Punk) [Blank Editions]
Lice – It All Worked Out Great Vol. 1 + Vol. 2 (Indie-Rock/Punk) [Balley Records]
Hilary Woods – Colt (Singer-Songwriter/Alt-Folk) [Sacred Bones]
Mourn – Sorpresa Familia (Indie/Rock) [Captured Tracks]
Wand – Perfume (Garage-Psych) [Drag City]
Nest Egg – Nothingness Is Not A Curse (Kraut-Psych) [Fuzz Club]
Hater – Siesta (Dream/Synth-Pop) [Fire Records]
Pinkshinyultrablast – Miserable Machines (Shoegaze) [Club AC30]
Exit Group – Adverse Habitat (Post-Punk/Electro-Punk) [Castle Face]
Mitski – Be The Cowboy (Singer-Songwriter) [Dead Oceans]
Death Grips – Year Of The Snitch (Hip-Hop/Hardcore) [Third Worlds]
Phantastic Ferniture – Phantastic Ferniture (Garage-Rock/Pop) [Transgressive]
Spider Bags – Someday Everything Will Be Fine (Garage-Rock/Alt-Country) [Merge]
DUDS – Immediate (Post-Punk/Punk-Funk) [Red Wig/Opal Tapes]
SOPHIE – Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides (Future-Pop) [Transgressive]
Kurt Vile – Bottle It In (Americana/Heartland Rock) [Matador]
Firefriend – Yellow Spider (Psych/Shoegaze/Noise Rock) [Cardinal Fuzz/Little Cloud]
Mutual Benefit – Thunder Follows The Light (Dream-Pop) [Transgressive]
Echo Ladies – Pink Noise (Dream-Pop/Shoegaze) [Sonic Cathedral/Hybris]
Straight Arrows – On Top! (Garage-Psych/Punk) [Agitated]
Lala Lala – The Lamb (Indie/Rock) [Hardly Art]
Cathédrale – Facing Death (Garage-Pop/Psych) [Howlin Banana]
Alison Cotton – All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre (Folk/Drone) [Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube]
Tim Hecker – Konoyo (Drone/Avant Classical) [Kranky]
Fucked Up – Dose Your Dreams (Hardcore/Indie-Rock) [Merge]
Jlin – Autobiography (Music From Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography) (IDM/Footwork) [Planet Mu]
Thou – Magus (Sludge-Metal) [Sacred Bones]
Cornelia Murr – Lake Tear Of The Clouds (Dream-Pop) [Autumn Tone]
Efrim Manuel Menuck – Pissing Stars (Experimental/Psych-Pop) [Constellation]