2016

Piccadilly Records' Top 100 Albums of 2016

100. Heron Oblivion - Heron Oblivion
99. Howes - 3.5 Degrees
98. Africaine 808 - Basar
97. Field Music - commontime
96. LNZNDRF - LNZNDRF
95. KAYTRANADA - 99.9%
94. Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart Like a Levee
93. Gold Panda - Good Luck and Do Your Best
92. Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
91. De La Soul - and the Anonymous Nobody...
90. The Kills - Ash & Ice
89. The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come to Expect
88. Warpaint - Heads Up
87. Poliça - United Crushers
86. Beyond the Wizards Sleeve - The Soft Bounce
85. Zomby - Ultra
84. HINDS - Leave Me Alone
83. Mala - Mirrors
82. Savages - Adore Life
81. Swans - The Glowing Man
80. Allah-Las - Calico Review
79. Charles Bradley - Changes
78. The Goon Sax - Up to Anything
77. Fat White Family - Songs for Our Mothers
76. Camera - Phantom of Liberty
75. Angel Olsen - My Woman
74. Palehound - Dry Food
73. Explosions in the Sky - The Wilderness
72. Amber Arcades - Fading Lines
71. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy
70. Factory Floor - 25 25
69. Steve Gunn - Eyes on the Lines
68. Drugdealer - The End of Comedy
67. Ultimate Painting - Dusk
66. GØGGS - GØGGS
65. Mitski - Puberty 2
64. Kristin Kontrol - X-Communicate
63. King Creosote - Astronaut Meets Appleman
62. Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
61. The Limiñanas - Malamore
60. Death In Vegas - Transmission
59. Pantha Du Prince - The Triad
58. The Woodleigh Research Facility - The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories)
57. Morgan Delt - Phase Zero
56. CFCF - On Vacation
55. Steve Hauschildt - Strands
54. Mild High Club - Skiptracing
53. Omar-S - The Best
52. The Mystery Lights - The Mystery Lights
51. DIIV - Is the Is Are
50. Steve Mason - Meet the Humans
49. S U R V I V E - RR7349
48. Toy - Clear Shot
47. Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
46. Greys - Outer Heaven
45. Teenage Fanclub - Here
44. Exploded View - Exploded View
43. Woods - City Sun Eater in the River Of Light
42. Nicolas Jaar - Sirens
41. Kane Strang - Blue Cheese
40. Charlie Hilton - Palana
39. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Until the Hunter
38. Leon Vynehall - Rojus
37. Claypool Lennon Delirium - Monolith of Phobos
36. Ulrika Spacek - The Album Paranoia
35. Agnes Obel - Citizen of Glass
34. Bon Iver - 22, A Million
33. Cantoma - Just Landed
32. William Tyler - Modern Country
31. Lucy Dacus - No Burden
30. Damien Jurado - Visions of Us on the Land
29. Ryley Walker - Golden Sings That Have Been Sung
28. Mark Pritchard - Under the Sun
27. Bat For Lashes - The Bride
26. Ray LaMontagne - Ouroboros
25. Cass McCombs - Mangy Love
24. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
23. Tim Burgess & Peter Gordon - Same Language, Different Worlds
22. Psychic Ills - Inner Journey Out
21. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
20. GOAT - Requiem
19. The Avalanches - Wildflower
18. Wild Billy Childish & CTMF - SQ1
17. Preoccupations - Preoccupations
16. BADBADNOTGOOD - IV
15. Whitney - Light Upon The Lake
14. GoGo Penguin - Man Made Object
13. Julianna Barwick - Will
12. PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project
11. David Bowie - Blackstar
10. Cavern of Anti-Matter - Void Beats/Invocation Trex
9. Juan Atkins & Moritz Von Oswald - Borderland: Transport
8. Miranda Lee Richards - Echoes of the Dreamtime
7. Cate Le Bon - Crab Day
6. Wild Nothing - Life of Pause
5. Parquet Courts - Human Performance
4. Pye Corner Audio - Stasis
3. Wilson Tanner - 69
2. Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits
1. Whyte Horses - Pop or Not

FACT Magazine 2016

50. Lil Uzi Vert - Lil Uzi Vert vs. The World
49. serpentwithfeet - blisters
48. Good Willsmith - Things Our Bodies Used To Have
47. Chino Amobi - Airport Music For Black Folk
46. Cousin Stizz - MONDA
45. Klara Lewis - Too
44. Elon Katz - The Human Pet
43. Mozzy - Mandatory Check
42. Will Long - Long Trax
41. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy
40. Botany - Deepak Verbera
39. Disasterpeace - Hyper Light Drifter
38. Second Woman - Second Woman
37. Abra - Princess
35. Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein - Stranger Things, Vol 1/2
34. Anderson .Paak - Malibu
33. Ohal - Acid Park
32. Seekersinternational - RaggaPreservationSociety EP
31. Angel Olsen - My Woman
30. Powell - Sport
29. Helena Celle - If I Can't Handle Me At My Best, Then You Don't Deserve You At Your Worst
28. FIS - From Patterns To Details
27. DVA - NOTU_URONLINEU
26. Sophia Loizou - Singulacra
25. Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
24. Negative Gemini - Body Work
23. David Bowie - Blackstar
22. Demdike Stare - Wonderland
21. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
20. Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body
19. Young Thug - Jeffery
18. Bjarki - b
17. Konx-Om-Pax - Caramel
16. The Outfit, TX - Green Lights: Everythang Goin
15. Beyoncé - Lemonade
14. YG - Still Brazy
13. Rihanna - ANTI
12. The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
11. Jessy Lanza - Oh No
10. Solange - A Seat at the Table
9. Pangaea - In Drum Play
8. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service
7. Steve Hauschildt - Strands
6. Kamaiyah - A Good Night in the Ghetto
5. Mitski - Puberty 2
4. Lorenzo Senni - Persona
3. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
2. Equiknoxx - Bird Sound Power
1. Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch

The Wire's Best Releases of 2016

50. Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body
49. Klara Lewis - Too
48. Zomby - Ultra
47. Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn
46. Kepler Quartet - Ben Johnston: String Quartets Nos. 6, 7 & 8
45. Charlemagne Palestine - Cathédrale De Strasbourg
44. Thalia Zedek Band - Eve
43. Frank Ocean - Blonde
42. Roy Montgomery - R M H Q: Headquarters
41. Horse Lords - Interventions
40. Catherine Christer Hennix - Live At Issue Project Room
39. The Dwarfs of East Agouza - Bes
38. Puce Mary - The Spiral
37. Skepta - Konnichiwa
36. Anxiety - Anxiety
35. Shackleton - Devotional Songs (With Ernesto Tomasini)
34. Katie Gately - Color
33. Elysia Crampton - Demon City
32. Bitchin Bajas & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties
31. Scott Walker - The Childhood of a Leader (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
30. Laraaji & Sun Araw - Professional Sunflow
29. Matmos - Ultimate Care II
28. Ian William Craig - Centres
27. Steve Gunn - Eyes on the Lines
26. Ectoplasm Girls - New Feeling Come
25. Laura Cannell - Simultaneous Flight Movement
24. Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - We Be All Africans
23. Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.
22. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker
21. David Toop - Entities Inertias Faint Beings
20. Carla dal Forno - You Know What It's Like
19. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service
18. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS
17. Anna Meredith - Varmints
16. 75 Dollar Bill - Wood / Metal / Plastic / Pattern / Rhythm / Rock
15. Babyfather - BBF Hosted by DJ Escrow
14. Oren Ambarchi - Hubris
13. Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
12. Solange - A Seat at the Table
11. Gate - Saturday Night Fever
10. Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force - Yermande
9. Gaika - Security
8. Yves Tumor - Serpent Music
7. Noura Mint Seymali - Arbina
6. Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
4. Autechre - elseq 1–5
3. Moor Mother - Fetish Bones
2. Shirley Collins - Lodestar
1. David Bowie – Blackstar

THE QUIETUS 2016

The majority of the music that makes up The Quietus' 100 best albums of 2016 was surely conceived of, written and recorded before the events that have made this year such a strange, challenging, even traumatic one. The sparks that led to this being one of the best years for albums since we started The Quietus in 2008 ignited before Brexit and Trump, the murder of Jo Cox, the rise in British hate crimes, record-breaking increases in global temperatures, the slide of the pound, the growing sense that we're teetering on the edge of something very grim indeed. They of course were also born before David Bowie, Prince, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen, Pauline Oliveros, Alan Vega, Sharon Jones, David Manusco, Jock Scott and many other greats joined the silent majority in recent months.

What purpose does music serve in these times? I suspect that our best of list in years to come will reflect these seismic changes in politics, society, and the environment. This is not to say, of course, that we (as some foolishly and dangerously do) subscribe to the belief that a terrible period in history will produce great music. Instead it's that culture ought and must reflect the times that creates it, even if it is aware of its limitations in effecting change. It's necessary to try and avoid the complacency that has dominated cultural discourse in recent years, with a (apologies for using the term) mainstream media that often seems to fear music that engages with difficult issues, that is more than entertainment, that is more than just about the LOLs. We do after all have a man who made his name in reality TV as President of the USA - to reference the title of a Coil album from many years ago, constant shallowness can indeed lead to evil.

As ever, looking over our list it is hard to pull out a continuous thread or theme other than that these records resonate with a sense of purpose, drive, ingenuity, and psychic strength. It's interesting that two of the most 'mainstream' records on the list, by the good sisters Knowles, are also the most defiantly political. Solange's A Seat At The Table and Beyoncé's Lemonade are both robust slaps in the chops for those Golden Ager duffers who like to claim that pop has lost its political urgency.


In a world that is increasingly sinking into myopic nationalism and putting up borders, music is a vital, universal force that can unite people, open up the channels of understanding that exist even beyond language, as is reflected by this year's list that features music from Norway, the USA, Sweden, Finland, Iran, the UK, South Korea, Australia, Jamaica, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, France, Iceland, Mauritania, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Egypt and beyond. We need this music not just for solace and escape in uneven times, but to instigate debate and change minds. The old notions of what constitutes "politicised" music have changed, and I think for the better, and this can be seen in so many of the records on this list, considering as they do race, sexual and gender diversity, the environment, mental health, history and even spirituality.

We must hear these songs, listen to these voices - this is a huge part of what drives us to keep The Quietus going despite the never-ending battle against the Facebook and Google algorithms that decide what you see. Last year I wrote about how most of the artists we love are part of the "fucked bottom", struggling to survive in an age when money has been sucked out of the music business. I am sorry to report that conversations with small labels over the past year, and especially the past few months, have been depressing - sales are going nowhere but down. Please do support labels and artists by buying the records from this list that intrigue you - thanks to our friends at Norman Records for making that easy via the links provided. This is, after all, why we do it. And while we're on the subject, a word from us. The Quietus is currently funded pretty much entirely via ad revenue. We understand ad blocker is a useful tool when most websites are so plastered in animated propaganda that they become unreadable, but the plugin is proving to be, and increasingly will be, a disaster for independent publishers like The Quietus. Please do switch it off for us, and other, small websites that you read. If you must have us bare, there's always the option of donating to our fund that we use directly to pay writers. I have a feeling that in years to come independent music and independent publishing are going to be increasingly important sites of solace and resistance to a strange new world order. Let's try and keep it all alive for, as one of the greats who left us this year had it, "there is a crack in everything / that's where the light gets in". Thanks for reading The Quietus in 2016. We hope you enjoy the music below. Luke Turner, 5th December 2016

100. Stein Urheim - Strandebarm (Hubro)
"His tastes remain impressively catholic, as he skilfully references the late 20th Century sufi music of Morocco; Chinese gu qin; Norwegian folk; Carnatic ragas; kosmische; spritual free jazz and the Delta blues. Psychedelic, texturally rich and great fun, Urheim has knocked it clean out of the park again." John Doran
99. Melt Yourself Down - Last Evenings On Earth (The Leaf Label)
"Snake coils of fuzzed up bass courtesy of Acoustic Ladyland's Ruth Goller and high tension horns by Pete Wareham and Shabaka Hutchings create the bed for Kush Gayal's satisfyingly unhinged vocal exhortations, making Melt Yourself Down (travelling via Cairo and Algiers) one of London's premier party bands." John Doran
98. Ahrkh Wagner - Ahrkh Wagner (Tesla Tapes)
"By steering and ultimately subsuming vocal layers into their cosmic circuitry Ahrkh Wagner bring both drama and a rare romantic, libertarian lilt that bravely stands apart from the more common evocations of urban decay in electronic music."
97. Cat’s Eyes - Treasure House (Kobalt)
"On Treasure House they find an impressive balance: classical, symphonic music melds with garage and post-punk, giving credence to the cliché that opposites attract, outstanding in its complex sounds and arrangements."Guia Cortassa
96. The Dwarfs Of East Agouza - Bes (Nawa)
"Time is a luxury that The Dwarfs Of East Agouza indulge themselves in fully. Deeply satisfying riffs are explored fully by the trio of Cairene electronic producer Maurice Louca, Sam Shalabi of the Land Of Kush and Sun City Girl, Alan Bishop, producing hypnotic psych rock that lies somewhere between Circle, Omar Khorshid, Can and the Groundhogs."
95. Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn (Thrill Jockey)
"The record's economy is striking: a little over 20 minutes in length, the listener is still treated to a wealth of textures, atmospheres and narrative ideas, bound together by Fohr's vocals and an insistent, Lynchian sense of the uncanny." Luke Cartledge 94. Wire - Nocturnal Koreans (Pink Flag)
"It's asking to be appreciated differently, to let it wash over and absorb you as on sedate post-rocker 'Pilgrim Trade', as opposed to having it hammer its way into your skull. With their unwillingness to play their old tunes and history of persistent experimentation, Wire are, without question, a band that wants to be moving forward, and all power to them for that." Tom Marsh
93. The Invisible - Patience (Ninja Tune)
"The closest Patience comes to something unsettling lurking stage-left is in the minor keys of 'Best Of Me', where Okumu's promise that "you'll always have the best of me" rears up like a threat. But soon sinister electro-pop thickens into a jacking workout, then an overlapping cosmic wig-out, as The Invisible unfurl their full, joyous breadth of skills."
92. John Cale - M:FANS/Music For A New Society (Domino)
"Just because this album taps into dark themes does not mean that its tracks sound tired or defeated. Even at its weakest ebb, the album still finds strength to push out." Lottie Brazier
91. Gnaw Their Tongues - Hymns For The Broken, Swollen And Silent (Consouling Sounds)
"When Peter Kürten, the German serial killer known commonly as The Vampire of Düsseldorf, pleaded guilty to nine murders and seven attempted murders in 1931, he was sentenced to death by guillotine. He was pleased with the result, saying: 'Tell me, after my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.' But then Peter Kürten had not heard the utterly wretched and remorseless Gnaw Their Tongues." John Doran
90. Knifeworld - Bottled Out Of Eden (Inside Out Music)
"Above all, the three-piece saxophones-clarinets-bassoon section keep things kinetic with their stabs of sunshine, sorrow and surprise. It can never settle into the crushingly conventional when they're interjecting so impishly."Chris Roberts
89. Omar-S - The Best (FXHE)
"While Omar S' signature qualities can be heard across The Best maintaining much of the humour of past work as well as that sound that could only emerge from Detroit, it's still an album that throws up a number of surprises on the way. No more clear is the producer's ability to bring together both those sides of his output on this album than on 'Ah'Revolution', a charming beatless cut with its instrumentation sitting in stark contrast to Amp Fiddler's crooned vocal about partying."
88. Bon Iver - 22, A Million (Jagjaguwar)
"It is the sound of a musician coming to terms with the excruciation of making art and exposing himself without armour. The understanding that the spirit is not enough, it's the body they –the audience, the fans, the press, the industry – will always lay claim to: as a relic, as a trophy, as a proof of faith."
87. Swans - The Glowing Man (Young God)
"Much like religious experience, the constellations of songs here (and their brethren on the two prior albums) rely on an intensely relatable core, a simple idea or feeling sizzling at the center that anyone can attach to. From there, the instrumentalists ripple out in meditative layers, never covering over or distracting from it, but rather reinforcing."
86. Carla dal Forno - You Know What It's Like (Blackest Ever Black)
"What really gives this record its strength is the total lack of bombast. There’s no sense of braggadocio. No sense of being in the “music industry”. No striving to make a point to peers." Richard Foster
85. FIS - From Patterns To Details (Subtext)

84. Ghold - Pyr (Ritual Productions)
"Ghold's primordial sludge is not gratuitous, it's a masterclass of doom-laden sturm und drang with an eerie, dread-filled undercurrent that sets the heart pacing and the mind wandering." Louise Brown
83. Pangaea - In Drum Play (Hessle Audio)
"In Drum Play, Pangaea’s first studio album proper, is considerably less seamless than his Fabric mix and all the better for it: not only does the BPM here fluctuate considerably, from beat-free numbers like ‘Scaled Wing’ to ‘DNS’’ 140BPM sprint, but the 10 tracks here vary wildly in style." Ben Cardew
82. Sam Shalabi - Isis and Osiris (Nashazphone)
"Hectic piano arpeggios, voice manipulation, an AFX sounding jaw harp, a hypnogogic narrator, outer edges oud explorations, berserk tape manipulation and machine noise mark this out as a truly unique and psychedelic listening experience."
81. Hannah Peel - Awake But Always Dreaming (My Own Pleasure)
"[Recording Awake But Always Dreaming] has been a life-changing experience in terms of opening my mind and contextualising my grandma’s [dementia]. People may ask why it has taken five years to make another solo album, and it is because it took that time for all the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place – meeting the scientists, coming to the Wellcome Collection, talking to people and hearing their experiences and also realisng that we can find a cure for dementia if we can raise awareness and divert funds to research. Also, from a musical perspective, finding the correct resonance in the blend of organic and electronic sounds was a massive challenge. I didn’t want it to feel like an electronic album – I wanted it to feel like stepping into another world. My grandma’s world." Hannah Peel
80. Kristoffer Lo - The Black Meat (Propeller)
"Played on just a tuba and flugabone, it is a dynamic, bright and almost poppy piece of music… well, for a drone LP at least. Just when you think you’ve heard all you want to hear (or need to hear) from the drone genre, another unexpectedly brilliant piece of music swoops in out of the wide blue yonder." John Doran
79. Kassem Mosse - Disclosure (Honest Jon’s)
"Disclosure eschews the traditional intro and outro formula of much of his past output across its 11 tracks in favour of showing another side to a producer who is already considered one of the most compelling operating within electronic music today." Christian Eede
78. Hen Ogledd - Bronze (alt.vinyl)
"Unlike much experimental music that can pose various challenges, be it alienating, overly academic, cold and austere or plain impenetrable, Bronze is warm and inviting. While not always immediately accessible, it encourages its listeners to go with it, to delve in and find a way in to its way-out-ness."Russel Cuzner
77. Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm (Slip)
76. Noura Mint Seymali - Arbina (Glitterbeat)
"The music played by Seymali and her group follows a tradition of folk music that dates back hundreds of years, but it has never sounded quite like this molten form of sunbaked Saharan psychedelia."
75. Gyða Valtýsdóttir - Epicycle(12 Tónar)
"As a founding member of Múm, Gyða Valtýsdóttir's musical allegiance can be safely — and rightly — assumed to lie in the understatement camp; where Sigur Rós succumbed to bombast over time, Múm remained loyal to their downbeat, bit-crushed brand of pop melancholia. A collection of recordings of well-known and less-well-known classical tracks,Epicycle is less your usual OTT 'reimagining' and more like a musical anagram: while the familiar components of those original pieces remain, they do so latently as part of a new, cogent whole with their own singular beauty." Karl Smith
74. Billy Bao - The Lagos Sessions (Night School)
"As a portrait of the infinitely interesting chaos of modern Lagos, it's hugely valuable, but as an expansion of the aesthetics of noise, punk, and concrète, The Lagos Sessions could end up labelled a decisive moment in years to come."Tristan Bath
73. Julien Marchal - Insight II (11) (1631 Recordings)
"Insight II is located in the acoustic sweet spot of the now-far-too-ubiquitous contemporary classical (post-classical, neo-classical, whatever) spectrum; each note is given individual room to breathe, time to ring out and to resonate properly rather than used as a gaudy showcase of Marchal's technical proficiency as a composer and a piano player. But where these ten tracks really excel is in the depth of their humanity: like Nils Frahm's Felt or John Hopkins' and King Creosote's 'Immunity', where Marchal's record has the most impact is in the creaking between notes — in not eradicating its human touch as a failure of production, but rather placing it front and centre as a reminder of where it came from."
72. Pattern Man - Pattern Man (Self-released)
"It’s really about asking yourself why it is you do what you do, and I think all artists are fascinated by that. Presenting words in different contexts is probably mine, or allowing them to work physically on you rather than functionally." Rick Holland
71. Marie Davidson - Adieux Au Dancefloor (Cititrax)
"Adieux Au Dancefloor balances Davidson’s dry vocal delivery with instrumental cuts, taking in electro, new wave, EBM, industrial and various other forms of electronic synth-heavy music."
70. SHXCXCHCXSH - SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs (Avian)
"Obliquely titled SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs, the scope of the project was simple yet audacious: the melding of techno alien intelligence with machine learning AI weaned on a recursive model derived from kabbalah and carious esoteric teachings, before force injecting it into reality, first virtual, then material." Bob Cluness
69. Atlantikwall - Atlantikwall (Sivilised)
"The artist behind Atlantikwall is an intensely clever arranger, and each of the 10-minute plus tracks builds and shifts with a keenly thought out logic, occasionally parting the sea of criss-crossing textures and chanting for a perfectly placed guitarpeggio."
68. Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book (Self-released)
"No doubt about it: Chancelor Bennett has the joy game on lock. No other hip hop artist this year has even come close to the ebullience and mirth emitting from Coloring Book, the incessantly buzzed-about Chicagoan’s third mixtape." Gary Suarez
67. Roly Porter - Third Law (Tri Angle)
"Even the most abstract, percussion-light pieces are defined by a relentless forward motion, each one building in incremental steps towards a more fleshed-out whole from sparse beginnings, whilst the noisier aspects on Third Law are ultimately closer in feel, if not approach, to the more rhythmic side of noise than, say, the abstract, claustrophobic and beatless harshness of wall noise." Joseph Burnett
66. Wacław Zimpel - Lines (Instant Classic)
"The entire album is a spectacular solo statement from Waclaw Zimpel - and yet another essential transmission from modern Poland to boot. Above all it's a heartfelt response to the ongoing influence of American minimalism that pays tribute and rebuts in equal measure." Tristan Bath
65. Laniakea - A Pot Of Powdered Nettles (House Of Mythology)
"A Pot Of Powdered Nettles is as much a beautiful work of art as it is a fulsome tribute to a lost friend. Stepping outside the biographical and listened to dispassionately, Laniakea's music sounds possessed, inspired, driven into the realm of the angelic on the steady processional which the story and the music both tell, funereal yet celebratory."
64. Darren Hayman - Thankful Villages Vol. 1 (Rivertones)
"Darren Hayman is rapidly becoming a national treasure." Stewart Lee
63. G.H. - Housebound Demigod (Modern Love)
"Exploring drone, black metal and rattling sub-bass, Housebound Demigod does a lot from very little, its eight tracks unflinchingly murky."
62. The Body - No One Deserves Happiness (Thrill Jockey)
"With it's conventional melodic stretches constantly threatened by encroaching walls of noise and Chip King's anguished howls, it becomes a statement of intent. Its rage in the face of despair is given a perfect metaphor. No matter how far the album threatens to fly, it's always getting pulled back into the filth."Mat Colegate
61. Babyfather - BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow (Hyperdub)
"BBF is a rare example of an album that invites both arty introspection and head nodding. Much like Blunt himself, BBF is not always easy to love. But that makes the eventual rewards even more satisfying."Ben Cardew
60. The Comet Is Coming - Channel The Spirits (The Leaf Label)
"Afrofuturist analogue kosmische jazz funk. Huge, played-live (rather than sequenced) synth bass lines, drums Lee Dorsey would have a fit for, more reverb and echo than a dub soundsystem in the Grand Canyon, and King Shabaka's unmistakable, frenetic but still melodic sax lines over the top of it. Reduced to words it sounds chimeric, but realised as music it makes perfect sense."Nick Southall
59. Oren Ambarchi - Hubris (Editions Mego)
"It is essentially Weather Report, Massacre and the Live Evil rhythm section doing Jan Hammer's 'Crockett's Theme'. And don't pretend you don't want to hear what that sounds like."John Doran
58. Skee Mask - Shred (Ilian Tape)
"While Skee Mask's debut album doesn't deviate too far from what we have to come expect from Ilian Tape in recent years, it's a standout take on the label's break-beat indebted sound as the Munich producer wraps stunning, plaintive melodies around beats that rarely lose sight of the dancefloor."
57. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (Columbia)
"On the final track, he offers up a string reprise of ‘Treaty’, allowing the start and finish lines to overlap. It feels like the best possible ending: a reassurance that, come what may, there’ll always be time to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again." Ben Hewitt
56. Grumbling Fur - Furfour (Thrill Jockey)
"With Furfour the duo has altogether eschewed contemporary psychedelia’s hackneyed reliance on drones and heaviosity, and in doing so have made a powerful case for catchy tunes as a vehicle for mind-expanding music." Danny Riley
55. Bruxa Maria - Human Condition (Extreme Ultimate)
"Extra-curricular diversions into drum & bass notwithstanding, Gill Dread has returned, via Conmungos, to her noise-rock rearing but Human Condition is no exercise in futile nostalgia. Its sublimely furious, filthily pummelling style is directly informed by the dismal world that Dread sees around her, as well as the more heartening experience of playing and touring with likeminded artists" - JR Moores
54. Kano - Made In The Manor (Parlophone)
"By chronicling the twists and turns of his own personal life, his family's lives and general life in the East End, Kano draws attention to the role of the past in influencing every path taken on the road of life. This resultant collage, produced by all this cutting and pasting of personal experience and observational wisdom, is a wonderful snapshot in time of the thoughts behind one of the most unique voices in British rap." Josh Gray
53. Beyoncé - Lemonade (Parkwood Entertainment)
"Coming off the back of another surprise release, Beyoncé continues to play with pop conventions as she chips away somewhat at the veneer of her carefully-controlled public image and unveils an album imbued with rage, dealing in the same collection of songs with apparent relationship complications as well as US police brutality."
52. Bully Fae - Defy A Thing To Be (Vague Terrain)
"'Sissy Fatigue' is the banger, about as perfect a song we've heard that goes on for less than 90s seconds involving bleach and chlamydia all year. Dirty, austere, queerly fun, this is the sort of defiantly odd underground record that's going to become ever more important in this new dark age of America."
51. Tim Hecker - Love Streams (4AD)
"Beyond all order, Hecker and co. lean into expressive moments with heightening, heartbreaking, idiomatic sensitivity that leave even the strangest of things with a warm cerebral tingle. Love Streams is both a masterpiece of contemporary composition and of emotional sensitivity in a way still, even after scrambling all the chordal idiomatic anchors that des Prez and others had come to define explicitly, finds beauty without structure, realism without ignominy, tension without reprise. It's an album's worth of soaring gothic architecture, now parsed into digital infinities. It's God in the hard drive, a ghost in the shadow of Big Data's endless eternity forward. It's a dramatised document of these strange, glorious times, forever teetering on the brink of oblivion."
50. Factory Floor - 25 25 (DFA)
"A 'Slow Listen' this album is not. If you’re listening, it may swallow you up before spitting you out, leaving you discombobulated and disorientated, limbs akimbo. Best not surrender to it, though at the end of the day, you might not really have a choice."Mollie Zhang
49. Anna Meredith - Varmints (Moshi Moshi)
"Everything comes from a really practical place – it's not like there's been a guiding artistic principle that's governed it all. I'm not a craftsman, I'm not somebody who enjoys spending hours finding a vintage synth, or a valve, or whatever. If it can work with really shitty sounds, then I'm happy, because that means the material's good." Anna Meredith
48. Equiknoxx - Bird Sound Power (DDS)
"Equiknoxx’s work takes many of its cues from the club drawing on elements of juke and the kind of rib-rattling sub-bass that filled the best productions emerging from the UK over a decade ago, albeit with a firmly Jamaican dancehall sensibility."
47. Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - We Be All Africans (Strut)
"The Pyramids listen to each other with almost as much intensity as the part that they are playing themselves; it requires the ability to hold back and add only a small amount to the overall piece as the musician sees fit at any given time. The musicianship here is self-aware but in a reflective rather than destructively fussy way." Lottie Brazier
46. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - Sunergy (RVNG Intl.)
"You can’t help but feel that a record comprising two instrumental tracks that invite the listener to consider the world’s largest ocean for almost 36 minutes without lyrical distraction feels timely, especially coming as it does from a country that could be led by a man whose rejection of global warming would put him in a minority of one." Laurie Tuffrey
45. Underworld - Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future (Beat)
"It’s a celebratory return for Underworld, showing that not only have they not lost it, but they might never." DJ Pangburn
44. Lord Tang - Butterflies (Meakusma)
"Spinning elements of dub, early electronic experimentations, spoken word and all manner of other abstract sounds, Butterflies makes for gloriously odd listening as Dominic Cramp weaves various eccentric compositions together from field recordings and sparse synth play." Christian Eede
43. Daniel Patrick Quinn - I, Sun (Self-released)
"As well as providing a release from the idiocies of modern life, Quinn’s music is a clear sighted rejoinder to a lot of what passes for alt-folk these days." Richard Foster
42. Black Merlin - Hipnotik Tradisi (Island Of The Gods)
"Black Merlin, aka George Thompson, travelled to Bali to make the field recordings which constitute the backbone of Hipnotik Tradisi: Island Of The Gods' inaugural release. A close attention to detail provides an almost porous, organic interface between field recording and ambient techno, which is shot through with quicksilver flashes of gamelan and the rumble of throat singing." John Doran
41. Puce Mary - The Spiral (Posh Isolation)
"With The Spiral, Hoffmeier has built on rich promise to take her rightful place at the forefront of modern, forward-thinking noise music. Compared to it, so much made under the genre's banner seems locked in a self-defeating prism of pointless swagger, but so long as artists like Puce Mary continue to refuse to use noise for noise's sake, and shock value for shock value's sake, then impressive potential futures are emerging." Joseph Burnett
40. Kemper Norton - Toll (Front and Follow)
"Toll shows Norton is surely becoming a master of music that, alongside other modern outlier visionaries such as Daniel Patrick Quinn, is not concerned with purity and nostalgia, but instead pieces itself together from the flotsam and jetsam of sounds and tales that collect all around us."
39. Kanye West - The Life Of Pablo
"Samples range from Iranian pop to 70s Italian prog rock to Goldfrapp: West has always been more interesting as a sonic nerd and producer/curator than as a persona." Alex Macpherson
38.Convextion - 2845 (a.r.t.l.e.s.s.)
"What’s so remarkable about 2845 is just how carefully considered every element seems to be and yet how unfussy the end result is - a record that is sure to earn the same mythical status that Hanson’s debut Convextion album did ten years ago."
37. Jambinai - A Hermitage (Bella Union)
"Yes, there is a gloaming quality to the music, a sense of humidity that at times verges into the oppressive, but A Hermitage, in its reflectiveness, feels both symptomatic and sympathetic. Where even Godspeed! would occasionally take on a superego-ish quality and set the framework of the mood with their pace and timbre, Jambinai's 'Echo Of Creation', for example, is so violently unpredictable in its transitions that it can't even be said to have a single mood." Karl Smith
36. Suede - Night Thoughts (Warner)
"Night Thoughts is a record that deals poetically and bravely with the shadows that start to grow as we age and life's responsibilities weigh heavier on our shoulders. Brett Anderson seems as comfortable writing about the aging process as he did chemical smiles in the backs of Volvos and bored suburban housewives done in on sleeping pills etc, something that bodes well indeed for the future." Luke Turner
35. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool (XL)
"‘Daydreaming’ is gob-smackingly gorgeous, a song I can hold against my chest and feel my heart swell in synch with its fluttering keys; and the you-took-your-sweet-time studio recording of ‘True Love Waits’, a song that’s been in the Radiohead canon since the mid-1990s, shakes the soul like nothing the band’s put out since ‘Nude’" Mike Diver
34. Julianna Barwick - Will (Dead Oceans)
"As compared to 2011’s The Magic Place there’s far less air, less room to maneuver in the songs here: ambient swirl, while far from gone, has been filled out with lusher instrumentation – with more traditional electronics and strings – to the point where Barwick’s music now feels less like watching ripples than a deep ocean tide. Inherently less reflective, structured to project to rather than from the listener, perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a lot more of Barwick’s own, impassioned will here than ever before." Karl Smith
33. A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic)
"The beauty of Tribe albums comes from the sheer jumble of voices, and while this one is no exception, the expanded universe present on this reunion makes it all the more special. Q-Tip toasts Phife in the afterlife on the gripping ‘Black Spasmodic' while veritable free-for-all ‘Dis Generation’ shows love to the new breed of socially thoughtful rappers.:"
32. The Stargazer’s Assistant - Remoteness Of Light (House of Mythology)
"With such auspicious assistance the ride is unsurprisingly illuminating and ethereal. Its mix of modern and ancient instrumentation gives rise to a sense of alien space technology made from organic materials, as 'Agents Of Altitude', the first of three twenty-minute pieces, describes a launch from an enchanted forest. The percussion is played as much on chimes, bells and other objects as it is on drums, while the outsider folk vibe of the wyrd woodwinds treads through the rising synth trails."Russell Cuzner
31. Blood Orange - Freetown Sound (Domino)
"Although Hynes, who was raised in London, has become the consummate local New Yorker, Freetown is a cosmopolitan album: one could easily argue it’s just as fitting a soundtrack for the streets of Sierra Leone as it is for New York or London or just about anywhere else; the operative word is “free.”"Lauretta Charlton
30. Huerco S - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) (Proibito)
"With this new album Leeds has peeled away from the house and dance-oriented sounds he has hitherto been associated with, moving into more ambient territory: a natural progression for the Huerco S. project — this solipsistic, eerie and ambient side having always been present in Leeds' work. Now, however, we find this stylistic trait firmly at the forefront of his music." Christopher Sanders
29. Jute Gyte - Perdurance(Jeshimoth Entertainment)
"Perdurance is aggressively antisocial music, systematically stripped of anything remotely enjoyable or expressive. The guitar tone has been forcibly sterilised, the drum machine reduced to a Casio click. Nothing is left but convulsion and abrasion, alienation and revulsion."
28. Wolfgang Buttress & Bees - Be One (Rivertones)
"A stunning record featuring sculptor Wolfgang Buttress, his relations, members of Spiritualized and tens of thousands of bees that draws attention to the disastrous decline in bee populations in recent years, and reasserts their importance to nearly all global ecosystems. Ambient as if Eno had made an album called Music For Apiarists. Luke Turner
27. GNOD - Mirror (Rocket)
"Every second of this album feels gargantuan. The aural vistas seems to stretch for mile after mile of mountainous terrain, complete with giant peaks and chasms. This is where Gnod stride gloriously ahead of many of their contemporaries." Mick Middles
26. King - We Are King (King Creative)
"Twin sisters with voices, Paris and Amber Strother plus Anita Bias make up the godlike King. On their first album proper they hit the sweetest of sweet spots, referencing the 80s R&B of Sade, Off The Wall Michael Jackson and Anita Baker but with an enchanting gossamer-light production touch that always suggests that things are going drift off into vapourwave, dream pop or smooth jazz but then never do." John Doran
25. Brian Eno - The Ship (Beat)
"With true respect to its wartime narrative The Ship is not an overwrought, gaudy attempt at stirring a tear; feeling is built over the slow pace of the album and reaches its peak in its impassioned finale. The Ship is the work of someone who fully believes in the power of art as an empathic tool, as a means to invoke a particular viewpoint, an unconsidered perspective." Lottie Brazier
24. Sex Swing - Sex Swing
"Straying deep into murky canal waters - past the rusting shopping trolleys and unidentifiable body parts - Sex Swing pulsates, chugs and hisses in malevolent intent, laying down lumbering sonic threshings like a psychotic farmer scorned: a wall of sound both foreboding and slippery." Harry Sword
23. Katie Gately - Color (Tri Angle)
"Color's power lies in the visceral imprints it leaves on our mind's ear. Mutated beats and overbearing percussive noise point to the body's rebellion against annihilation in some kind of post-human, post-body futurist utopia in which we will upload our minds and float off into cyberspace."Danijela Bočev
22. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd.)
“Skeleton Tree isn't an album written about the death of his son, the majority of the music and lyrics were written before it happened, but it is entirely shaped by it.” Luke Turner
21. Sote - Hardcore Sounds From Tehran (Opal Tapes)
"This juddering slab of Iranian techno not only lives up to the anticipation generated by the glorious sight of a forged metal war hat - it exceeds it and then some. With a kick like a Cyberman drunk on shore leave and acidic bass synths that would melt your shoes, this is a total keeper and I insist that you buy it from Opal Tapes' Bandcamp immediately."
20. Marissa Nadler - Strangers (Bella Union)
"Nadler’s is a lyrical voice that invites you to lean in just a little, to catch meaning rather than to simply relax in the sound of her voice. A song title like ‘All the Colors of the Dark’ is the kind of capsule paradox other writers might strain to spell out, while the character studies in songs like ‘Janie in Love’ and ‘Shadow Show Diane,’ if more allusive than not, are no less subtly intriguing for it."Ned Raggett
19. Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body (Peder Mannerfelt Produktion)
"In a busy year for Peder Mannerfelt, Controlling Body stands out as one of his biggest triumphs as the Swedish producer contorts protagonist Glasser's voice across ever-mutating synth work. Sometimes Mannerfelt sets his sights on the dancefloor as on 'Her Move' while elsewhere, on tracks such as 'BZ Reaction', he settles for a gorgeous, maximalist take on dub techno."
18. Shackleton - Devotional Songs (Honest Jon’s)
"The record feels like a carefully wrought and rather brilliantly executed tribute to the later work of Coil, with nods to fellow travellers Current 93 and Nurse With Wound thrown in along the way."Luke Turner
17. Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä (Svart)
"The very best moments of Värähtelijä are still for the most part the fucking heavy ones, but Oranssi Pazuzu are dealing with a much broader visionary scope here. It's not Venom or Watain or Darkthrone, but rather the likes of Swans and Neurosis (and perhaps the recently released double album from Ulver) that naturally spring to mind as contemporaries to this music. Värähtelijä is most definitely descended from trope-riddled black metal, but no other band is anywhere near taking the music in a more interesting and open-ended direction while retaining its brutal core."Tristan Bath
16. The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time (History Always Favours The Winners)
"It’s a bit of a con talking about Everywhere At The End Of Time, stage one, on it’s own. Leyland James Kirby is finally calling time on his musical alias, The Caretaker, which he began in 1999. Inspired by the final seconds of The Shining and the soundtrack to Pennies From Heaven he took pre-WWII big band swing music and processed it to create a "haunted dancehall" ambiance. The project took on a different tone in 2005 when he released the 72-track collection, Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia and began to explore different concepts of memory loss via his music. Now he has one last job - to give the project itself dementia over a period of three years and six albums, with the music (not just from this album or the tracks he’s yet to write and record but from the entire project) being dragged into confusion and finally into the void. This is the first stage, which he has described as "an old person daydreaming" and is relatively upbeat. When it’s all over in 2019 is this how we will struggle to remember it... in happier times? Whatever transpires, it’s a fascinating project." John Doran
15. Skepta - Konnichiwa (Boy Better Know)
"Grime may be poised ready to sally forth out of its largely self-built walls and conquer hearts and minds the world over, but its fate rests firmly in the hands of its head bannerman. This is his warcry."Josh Gray
14. Klara Lewis - Too (Editions Mego)
"While Ett introduced us to Klara’s external world, Too is more reflective. Klara excels at recording the real world, deconstructing it, abstracting it and then reconstructing it in a way that reveals more about ourselves. The world she creates is both familiar and alien, real and interpreted. As with Ett and Msuic, Too is a great display of musicianship and self-control. Her fearless experimentation and determination to occupy the space between sound and music perpetually excite, but it’s her understanding of personal perception and feeling – and confidence in playing with that with such subtlety – that elevates this album to another level."
13. Matmos - Ultimate Care II (Thrill Jockey)
"This album is a triple threat: it expands the palette of sounds normally at the disposal of the electronic musician; it teases with questions about the meaning and politics of objects; and it is suffused with an expert dance floor aesthetic. In other hands this would have been a dry, conceptual conceit, but this is 50/50 head and heart." Leo Chadburn
12. Laura Cannell - Simultaneous Flight Movement (Brawl Records)
"‘Horselore’ builds and builds skywards, whilst ‘A New Theory of Eclipse’ is more swooping, with the notes seesawing in and out of focus. Again, bird metaphors abound, but one can just as easily drink in this music without any context. Much is made of the contextuality of “historic” music of the sort played by Cannell, but she projects it into a broader continuum that feels both ancient and modern at once, from the haunting folk of ‘Sheltering Hollows’ to the improv and jazz flourishing that dominate on ‘A New Theory of Eclipse’ and ‘Three Stones’."
11. Frank Ocean - Blond(e) (Boys Don’t Cry)
"When you listen to Blond(e), there’s no mistaking the fact you’re listening to Frank Ocean’s fully conceptualised, curated personal vision – that you’re on his schedule. The form isn’t that of a typical pop or R&B album – it tends to meander into his surreal, almost vaporwave-y dreamscapes, cut with jarring samples of conversation, odd effects, drifting guitars and beatless melodies that go on longer than expected. While these explorations may teeter on the brink of being detrimental to the flow of the album, Ocean just about manages to keep his indulgences in check when things threaten to get repetitive or dull."
10. Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones)
"Blood Bitch, to me, is a palimpsest of ancient themes – menstruation, lunar cycles, nature, witchcraft – that are constantly vibrating against each other, and that don’t need to be centred around a character, or indeed, Hval, to make cosmic sense. They are part of a porous palette, rather than a collection of connatively dense symbols with things to teach us, like when saints hold stuff in cathedral friezes." Suzie McCracken
9. D∆WN - Redemption (Local Action)
"It’s orchestral, it’s odd, it’s experimental, it’s ornate, it makes you want to dance, it makes you want to swoon - at its heart Redemption is reflective of so many touchstones of black music from the past 30 years or so. It feels odd to say what Richard is doing is still perhaps too niche to get her a place in the R&B ‘Hot 100’, given her sound is so broad and all-encompassing, but its true. Richard has carved out an ambitiously futuristic place for herself that the mainstream hasn’t quite caught up with yet."
8. Ian William Craig - Centres (FatCat)
"As I will attest, strange things can happen to you once you come under the gravitational pull of this man's singular music." John Doran
7. David Bowie - Blackstar (Columbia)
"The Next Day elicited the usual cries of best album since time immemorial on its release in 2013, but Blackstar reveals it to be a neoteric John the Baptist preparing the way for the all-singing, all-dancing Second Coming. Whether or not this is the best thing since Let's Dance (you're with me on this now aren't you?) is too early to say, but by God is it a cohesive collection that contains the same inscrutable attention to detail that a latter Scott Walker album surely would. And rejoice, because David Bowie hasn't sounded this relevant in an age."Jeremy Allen
6. Fat White Family - Songs For Our Mothers (Fat Possum Records)
"Songs For Our Mothers is worth that stay in their red room. First of all, it sounds incredible. If you've heard 'The Whitest Boy On The Beach' you've had a taste of their new Kraut-pop style, but 'Tinfoil Deathstar' takes it supernova. Imagine a wilder version of Broadcast's 'Pendulum', echoed crashes and guitar skree like meteors imperilling and sharpening your high. Its ingenious conceit sets the tone for the album's often hair-raising lyrics: heroin use is taking off as the government culls its citizens through benefit sanctions, a grim vision we all recognise." Lee Arizuno
5. Shirley Collins - Lodestar (Domino)
"Lodestar sees Shirley Collins creating a boundary-pushing, exhilarating work by doing nothing other than what she does best: reanimating the folk songs of Britain with all the respect and veneration she feels for them. Given the strength of this woman, evidenced in her artistic triumphs past and present, it’s unsurprising that her comeback album is invested with grace and audacity, from its experimental flourishes to its reverent traditionalism."
4. Jessy Lanza - Oh No (Hyperdub)
"Far from those in-vogue themes of empowerment and tackling society's wider ills, Lanza's busy dealing with herself and a lingering sense of inadequacy. 'VV Violence' directly addresses a fear of being ignored (“I'm working all day long / For the love I never see / Yeah, I say it to your face, but it doesn't mean a thing”), but like on the rest of the album, Lanza solves the problem with the joy of beautiful pop music." Tristan Bath
3. Innercity Ensemble - III (Instant Classic)
"Removed from the noise of the mainstream, tucked away in (literally) a palace away from the city, Innercity Ensemble successfully achieve what not only the 1970s American jazz fusion movement did, but also what contemporaries such as Copenhagen’s Selvhenter, Chicago’s Good Willsmith, or even our own Teeth of the Sea manage. Like Marvel’s Avengers a group of likeminded musicians assemble, and their task is merely to create an immovable object to shield against the unstoppable force of comfortably unadventurous aesthetics and mainstream logic. On III Innercity Ensemble are easily at their strongest yet." Tristan Bath
2. Solange - A Seat At The Table (Saint Records/Columbia)
"Taking a step back from the shimmering, groove-led sounds of 2012's True EP, A Seat At The Table sees Solange produce an album that very much reflects the time in which it was made, setting its sights on the Black Lives Matter movement and analysing what it means to be a black woman in 2016 with reference to past history and current happenings, interspersing these musings with deeply personal interludes in the words of her mother and father, and above all, coming out triumphant amidst affecting, uncertain times."
1. Årabrot - The Gospel (Fysisk Format)
"Before, their appeal was limited by their approach, however excellent it might have been. Now, the sludgy guitars and snarled lyrics are a minor component, not the driving force. There's tinkled ivories, rock-club air guitar moments, a genuine pop sensibility, camp theatre and high drama. Plus a backstory with an ending that's happy not just for Årabrot, but for all of us.” Noel Gardne


PITCHFORK 20 Electronic Albums 2016

Aphex Twin - Cheetah
Autechre - elseq 1–5
DJ Earl - Open Your Eyes
Jubilee - After Hours
Kornél Kovács - The Bells
Leon Vynehall - Rojus
Rojus continues in the vein of 2014's mini-LP Music for the Uninvited, but it boasts a bigger sound in almost every way, with more layers, bolder basslines, and harder-edged drums.
Marie Davidson - Adieux Au Dancefloor
Mndsgn - Body Wash
Moodymann - DJ-Kicks
Motion Graphics - Motion Graphics
Mr. Fingers - Outer Acid
Nicolas Jaar - Sirens
He doesn't reveal many new tricks, but his knowledge of his own palette is masterful in every moment. More poetic and thoughtful than ever before, Jaar maintains an ability to fit seemingly disparate sounds together as if they were always meant to find each other.
Nite-Funk - Nite-Funk
Omar-S - The Best
Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon - Two Changes
Shy Layers - Shy Layers
Studio OST - Scenes 2012-2015
The Avalanches - Wildflower
Their work continues to mine a deceptively narrow emotional world—new love, childhood playfulness, wistful sadness, happy feelings of connection—but renders it better than just about any music ever made.
The Range - Potential
This is music designed for uplift, with carefully plotted builds yielding to big choruses, and it taps into electronic music's sense of possibility not by pushing things further, but by simplifying and paring back.
Various Artists - DJ Koze Presents: Pampa Vol. 1

Pitchfork's 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2016

Amnesia Scanner - AS
Anna Meredith - Varmints
She wears her obvious theoretical grounding lightly and never lets it obstruct her ecstatic quest for new ideas and deranged stimuli. And Varmints is a knockout, the kind that makes you see cartoon stars.
Arca - Entrañas
It is darker than Mutant; it’s heavier and more unrelenting.
Brian Eno - The Ship
The Ship is a great, unexpected record. The title track and “Fickle Sun (i)” on their own and as a connected piece of music are marvelous accomplishments, distinctive in Eno’s catalog. And “I’m Set Free” immediately ranks among the most perfect-sounding pop songs Eno has ever had a hand in making.
Dedekind Cut - $uccessor (ded004)
Elysia Crampton - Demon City
Demon City ... is a wonder of concision and represents another massive leap forward in her growth.
Foodman - Ez Minzoku
Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
Part of the album's magic is the way that Huerco S., after the fashion of William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops, has captured a feeling of fragility, of things flaking to dust before our very eyes and ears.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
The Norwegian avant-gardist’s most atmospheric and filmic album draws on several traditions: vampire movies, the cross-hairs of art and pop, and the lineage of artwork made of menstrual blood.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS
In her hands, acoustic instruments sound like electronic ones, synthetic sounds reference nature, and human voices sound like the creation of machines. The defining characteristics of each instrument ... are turned inside out and re-defined, giving the record a pleasingly alien mood that also feels oddly familiar.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy
Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek - Schaum
Matmos - Ultimate Care II
Caressing obsolete technology, they've parodied labor's drudgeries as play. Ultimate Care II is a daydream of domesticity, a chore ignored. Call it the revolutions of everyday life.
Meredith Monk - On Behalf of Nature
Mikael Seifu - Seifu Zelalem
Moor Mother - Fetish Bones
serpentwithfeet - blisters
The hybrid pop collaboration between Josiah Wise and Haxan Cloak is a sly and personal exploration of the queer experience, boiling with personal energy and fantastically operatic in scale.
Tim Hecker - Love Streams
Like Virgins, Love Streams tackles a lot of abstract concepts, like "live" sound, and synthetic sound, and rooms and space, and technology's ability to complicate all those things. But it's also about the ability to disappear into sound, to get lost in the contours of a slippery timbre, or to be made whole by a consonant harmony.
Yves Tumor - Serpent Music

RESIDENT ADVISOR 2016

20. VC-118A - Shift Register
19. Steven Julien - Fallen
18. Yves Tumor - Serpent Music
17. Kyle Hall - From Joy
16. Skepta - Konnichiwa
15. Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body
14. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS
13. Motion Graphics - Motion Graphics
12. Demdike Stare - Wonderland
11. Jessy Lanza - Oh No
10. House of Dad - House of Dad
9. Autechre - elseq 1–5
8. Convextion - 2845
7. Nicolas Jaar - Sirens
6. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
5. Omar-S - The Best
4. Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
3. Skee Mask - Shred
2. Equiknoxx - Bird Sound Power
1. Babyfather - BBF Hosted by DJ Escrow

BLEEP 10 ALBUMS 2016

10. Kowton - Utility
9. Ash Koosha - I AKA I
8. Steven Julien - Fallen
7. Babyfather - BBF Hosted by DJ Escrow
6. Cavern of Anti-Matter - Void Beats/Invocation Trex
5. Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm
4. Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
3. Biosphere - Departed Glories
2. Mark Pritchard - Under the Sun
1. ANOHNI - Hopelessness

Gorilla vs. Bear's Albums of 2016
01 A TRIBE CALLED QUEST | We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service
02 JESSY LANZA | Oh No
03 KEDR LIVANSKIY | January Sun
04 KAYTRANADA | 99.9%
05 RADIOHEAD | A Moon Shaped Pool
06 FRANK OCEAN | Blonde
07 DIANA | Familiar Touch
08 KORNÉL KOVÁCS | The Bells
09 BURIAL | Young Death / Nightmarket
10 BEYONCÉ | Lemonade
11 WEYES BLOOD | Front Row Seat to Earth
12 KYLE DIXON & MICHAEL STEIN | Stranger Things Vol. 1 + 2
13 KENDRICK LAMAR | untitled unmastered.
14 YUMI ZOUMA | Yoncalla
15 VARIOUS | Sky Girl (Compiled by Julien Dechery + DJ Sundae)
16 FEAR OF MEN | Fall Forever
17 CROSS RECORD | Wabi-Sabi
18 ANDY SHAUF | The Party
19 S U R V I V E | RR7349
20 DANNY BROWN | Atrocity Exhibition
21 NEGATIVE GEMINI | Body Work
22 HOOPS | HOOPS + tapes #1-3
23 VESUVIO SOLO | Don’t Leave Me in the Dark
24 CARLA DAL FORNO | You Know What It’s Like
25 CLINT MANSELL | San Junipero OST (Black Mirror)
26 KADHJA BONET | The Visitor
27 NICOLAS JAAR | Sirens
28 TROLLER | Graphic
29 KERO KERO BONITO | Bonito Generation
30 WHITNEY | Light Upon the Lake
31 LEON VYNEHALL | Rojus
32 NXWORRIES | Yes Lawd!
33 ANGEL OLSEN | My Woman
34 POSTILJONEN | Reverie
35 EQUIKNOXX – Bird Power Sound
36 MARIA USBECK – Amparo
37 JAPANESE BREAKFAST – Psychopomp
38 KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH – Ears
39 DREAMBOAT – Dreamboat
40 NV – Binasu
41 LIZ – Cross Your Heart
42 DJDS – Stand Up and Speak
43 CARLY RAE JEPSEN – E•MO•TION Side B
44 CFCF – On Vacation
45 STILL CORNERS – Dead Blue
46 CASEY MECIJA – Psychic Materials
47 PURO INSTINCT – Autodrama
48 MERELY – Uncanny Valley
49 KATIE GATELY – Color
50 MARISSA NADLER – Strangers
51 WHITE DENIM – Stiff
52 PARTS – Parts
53 MOOD HUT – Disco Mantras
54 BOY HARSHER – Yr Body Is Nothing
55 AMBER ARCADES – Fading Lines
56 HINDS – Leave Me Alone
57 NITE JEWEL – Liquid Cool
58 ARIANA GRANDE – Dangerous Woman
59 CASS MCCOMBS – Mangy Love
60 JULIANNA BARWICK – Will

XLR8R's Best Releases of 2016
Andy Stott - Too Many Voices
Aphex Twin - Cheetah
Brood Ma - DAZE
Convextion - 2845
Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
Demdike Stare - Wonderland
Desert Sky - Gaia
DJ Haus - Artificial Intelligence
DJ Marfox - Chapa Quente
Grant - Cranks
Horsepower Productions - Crooks, Crime & Corruption
Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
Kablam - Furiosa
KAYTRANADA - 99.9%
Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force - Yermande
Mark Pritchard - Under the Sun
Nicolas Jaar - Sirens
nonkeen - Oddments of the Gamble
Onur - Frequent Forest Turn EP
Pangaea - In Drum Play
Planetary Assault Systems - Arc Angel
PST & SVN - Recordings 1-4
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Raime - Tooth
Serena Butler - Gynoids Dryads Swim Alone
serpentwithfeet - blisters
Youandewan - There Is No Right Time
Yussef Kamaal - Black Focus