Aside from right here, I will not mention anymore the long break that apheramusic took because it was inexcusable and silllllly. I feel like I’m starting a new page and I’m also 21 which I’ve been told means something.

I saw James Blake perform twice in the last 4 months. Both times I can safely say my mind was blown. This guy is taking long strides towards a future of musical domination. His new EP, Enough Thunder, does little for me except for this one song but no worries because he’s got a new EP coming out later this year and I’ve heard some of his unreleased songs when he played them live and they kick ass.

I was surprised to hear that James Blake was being called dubstep so I looked up what dubstep meant and I discovered it has a rich history steeped in two step and house and all those weird genres that come from London. Not only that, but I found out that an electronic artist with whose work I am sorta familiar, Burial, is a pioneer of dubstep. funny. Then I found Mount Kimbie, a group loosely associated with Blake, and I heard this song, “50 Mile View” and it blew me away. A lot of richness to their sound – ear candy for anyone with an ear for electronica. A lot of it comes from the way they use reverb to keep sounds lingering; every new sound sits on the residue of the previous blips and synth struts, lingering and fading simultaneously.

Next, Pitchfork just posted a new track by Gonjasufi, everyone’s favorite stoner electronica raspy-voiced psychadelia singer. That’s right kids. Anyway he’s got a new EP coming out or something and again the tracks are produced by my very favorite Flying Lotus. Listen below but first I’m going to express my excitement over the news that Flying Lotus tweeted about his new album, for which he apparently has so much music that he either has to pare it down or make a double album. Now excuse me while I clean up the mess I just left on my keyboard (eww gross).

GONJASUFI – “EATFISH” w: BLU (Produced by Johnson&Johnson) [aif] by Hydroshare.tv

It’s nice to see you guys again, signing off, this is George aka Yurij.

This is a song by Bilal called “Levels”. The particular mix that I added to our playlist is a done by Flying Lotus and it’s brilliant. The song just builds and builds and the climax isn’t even overblown – just perfect.

Click Here to open the playlist and listen.

Here’s the original mix with video  directed by Flying Lotus.

Bilal ”Levels” from flying lotus on Vimeo.

Click here to hear selected songs from each album

Honorable Mention: KiD CuDi: Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager

#10 Vampire Weekend: Contra

While I’ve been a Vampire Weekend diehard since last January, George says “it makes me want to vomit cartoon rainbows.” Maybe there is something kitschy about Ezra singing about horchata, cheese steaks and toothpaste, but this is no reason to write off Contra. I’ve mentioned before that a good artist can take something simple, commonplace and present it in a completely novel way – in other words, make us pay attention to the clothes rubbing against our skin. This is what Vampire Weekend does. On one level, each song is completely unassuming, on another it’s mind blowing. Take “California English”, so fraught with auto-tune and syncopated rhythm you’re forced to ask “why?!” But the auto-tune is just a creative way to present “California English” or Spanish perhaps? Another way Vampire Weekend present simplicity is through perfectionism – the attention paid to minute detail. Although “White Sky” could be repetitive till dullness, it is instead subtly different through the use of changing percussion and inflections in Ezra’s voice. This is 2010’s version of XX – restraint, simplicity yet subtle complexity. The rarity of this combination is what makes such albums winners.

-Larissa

#9 Major Lazer: Lazers Never Die EP

Pure epinephrine runs through the veins of MAJOR LAZER. This causes him to create perfect dance music. This is what I imagine must be true for such unapologetically obscene dance music to exist. This EP is in part a recognition of all ML has done this year but also an appreciation of the EP itself. The remixes on this album do nothing less than improve upon the originals in the case of “Bruk Out” and in the case of “Jump Up” and “Can’t Stop Now” they remixes present the songs in a form that seems just as natural (or perhaps just as ridiculous?) as the originals.

-George

#8 Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

Talk about album cohesion! Thematic, melting of one song into another, and even similar chord cadences in every song, Arcade Fire produced a soundtrack-like album. It even seems to have a beginning, middle, and end (it ends with “The Suburbs (continued)” that brings us right back to the first song on the album). On a smaller scale, within each song, the chord progressions are also circular. Where the cadence ends is also the beginning of the next cadence. Thus, every song is circular, and the effect is a continuous anticipation for a “real” ending. Maybe, that’s why this album is so catchy and debuted at #1 on the U.S. Billboard and received three nominations at the Grammys.

-Larissa

#7 Tame Impala: Innerspeaker

Listening to tracks like “Alter Ego” and “Solitude Is Bliss” really makes me want to put Tame Impala’s, Innerspeaker as number one on our list. But I honestly have to admit, the album as a whole just doesn’t make it that far. If you dig The Beatles, you might disagree with me, but as fresh as the whole classic rock, phased-out style, backed up by the “I don’t give a s**t” feels, may be, we have better justifications for our current higher rated picks. Innerspeaker succeeds in being nostalgic, without making the same mistake other indie bands make who just succeed in sounding stupid. Their 2008 EP sounds like it could have been made today by the band. That’s because Innerspeaker is Tame Impala’s genuine sound.
-Alexander

#6 Beach House: Teen Dream

Teen Dream is a very personable album. This may sound vague, but Teen Dream is vague. The entire album collectively makes a mess of your emotions. Obviously, from the song titles there is some theme of love, but honestly I can’t tell if the album is about falling in love or breaking up. Every song is introspective and absorbing. For example the song, “Lover Of Mine”, may begin like another kitschy song by MGMT, but after the bass and piano enter to accompany the guitar, the song becomes a pool of thought (perfect day-dream material). I personally found this album to be reflexive but I believe you can perceive this album in any way you wish. You can sympathize with it, embrace it, philosophize, etc. Every track on Teen Dream is unique to any listening aspiration. I don’t know how crazy I am about Alex Scally’s voice singing higher than his female counterpart, Victoria Legrand, but the duo together create a very luscious, yet translucent feel. The perfected and smooth production amplifies its imagery and tone. This album isn’t anything mind-blowing, but it pains me to pause my iPod midway through a song. You can claim that music is ear-candy, but Teen Dream is food for thought.

-Alexander

#5 Gorillaz: Plastic Beach

Damon Albarn clearly strives for grandeur with this album. Heavy beats, soaring orchestrations and collaborations out the wazoo do not mask Albarn’s intentions and in fact do quite well to propel this album most of the way towards what it seeks to accomplish. However, the album is plagued by just a few shortcomings that keep this album inches away from perfection. Unfortunate this was for Damon in a year like 2010 where these kinds of minor shortcomings keep a really incredible album at fifth place amidst some other really incredible releases. One or two really expendable songs (“Glitter Freeze” comes to mind) and a couple other hit or miss moments are the only real flaws and unlike in Demon Days, Damon proves that the Gorillaz project is more than just a vehicle for radio friendly pop singles.

-George

# 4 Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz

“Letting loose” doesn’t exactly evoke ideas of frivolous brass and superfluous choir. We usually associate “letting loose” will sloppiness, incompletion and disorder. The wonderful, absolutely amazing, extraordinary thing about The Age of Adz is that it’s everything we wouldn’t expect from a free-form, sufjan-finally-let-loose album – it’s saturated with technical orchestration, complex ideas, story lines and masterful song writing. But even more impressively, the free form is still there – themes meander, noises pop out of nowhere, there seems to be little restraint. What makes this a top ten album is the effortlessness – orchestration that would sound contrived if written by anyone else, flows out of Sufjan like drunken ramblings; song structure that would normally either confuse us or put us to sleep, is instead enthralling and deeply emotional. Sufjan is naturally complex and often stabs at the air with odd “noises”. Every so often he stabs us in the heart and throughout his chaos he carries a beautiful melody and story – the combination of chaos, dissonance and harmony and peace is something only Sufjan could have crafted and something that may never be achieved on such a high level ever again.

-Larissa

#3 Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma

I initially wanted Cosmogramma to be album of the year. This was because from the moment I heard the leaked tracks in early 2010 and still to today, the album hit me on a supremely spiritual level. Its huge “cosmic” sound left me paralyzed. However, perhaps its scope was alienating; you’ve really got to get inside your own head to get into this music. Is this enough to push FlyLo off the top spot? Is it problematic at all? Perhaps, if you’re afraid of dementia or insomnia.

Aside from the psychological problems the album chaperones, FlyLo does some innovative things with his music. For instance, he seems so deliberate with his beat placement and ultimately you can tell because FlyLo’s seemingly sloppy, lazy beat (which in reality is probably incredibly delicately timed) really kills it, in a good way. I mean, if it was just a tad more sloppy in places, it straight up wouldn’t work and it is exactly that teetering on the threshold, that suspended dissolution that makes FlyLo’s music so kickass.

-George

#2 Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The reason this album is so perfectly effective is because Kanye created an album that is a self portrait of a megalomaniac: A cinematic self portrait that is never self-effacing and always opportunistic. The cinematic aspect of it comes from his ability to sculpt an album that shows his true self from several angles: his obsession with power and opulence, his monstrous ego, his inability to sustain a relationship, his devils and his tribulations. Perhaps the reason MBDTF touches so many people so deeply is because it has an protagonist with whom we can clearly relate: a protagonist who is his own antagonist. Kanye’s got a pretty twisted mind to create such a fantastical album, full of dark imagery yet beautifully brilliant music.

-George

#1 LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening

Exceptionally danceable. Stylistically nouveau. Tastefully self-deprecating. Often humorous. The facets of this album which, when working in tandem, make this our favorite album of the year are surprisingly actually not that hard to pin down.

In effect, this album just hit our pleasure centers from the very start and the music on this album hasn’t really stopped doing that even now. It’s not even a drip feed of pleasure, it’s like an endless waterfall of pleasure. However, it goes beyond that. The album goes the other way too. The absurdly ridiculous simplicity that this album exudes at first glance is a front for what is actually a crazy synthesis of several incongruous genres into one pseudo-dance-punk-who-cares-for-proper-labeling awesome piece of musical ass. I safely assert that this album contains the songs that James Murphy has been trying to make since “Losing My Touch”. This would be irrelevant if not for the fact that Murphy feels perfectly at ease in these songs. The production is tops, and in fact quite interesting, as Murphy finds way to play with your perception of the sounds he records. The sounds all sound framed in space yet still succulently clear. No sound is hidden or masked but there’s still an infinity of depth. In the end, This Is Happening just happens to be the most perfect album of the year.

-George

Here is Animal Collective’s video for their Merriweather Post Pavilion track “Bluish”. It came out in September and it’s pretty righteous. Click the image below to watch. Or click here.

After the narrative and (pretty much) visual mess that was ODDSAC, it’s nice to see something visually appealing that seems appropriate in relation to its abilities to capture the subtleties of that AC sound. Now that’s a purely personal opinion as I’ve spoken to a growing number of people who say ODDSAC was perfect and so maybe I’m the one who’s way off. Whatever. I mean ODDSAC wasn’t a complete failure but it was pretty “film school project” quality –amateurish? Sure, but that’s not expected from AC at this point in their career (is this the end of it LOL?). A handful of moments of sonic brilliance and the occasional interesting visual unfortunately doesn’t “save” the work as a whole. Better luck next time?

Next: Flying Lotus.

Last week I showed you guys some tracks from his new EP, Pattern+Grid World. Yesterday, a video for the FlyLo track “Kill Your Co-Workers” was released. The visuals homages to the video games of yesteryear are everywhere and the video itself is fucked up as hell. It’s awesome!

Lastly, Larissa mentioned to me in conversation yesterday how difficult it’s gonna be for us to come up with our top ten albums list at the end of the year. I concurred; in fact, it’s been on my mind almost every day. So much good music has already been released, and not released yet. Kanye’s new album is gonna kick so much ass. I mean, look at  the cover!!!!

As previously mentioned, it’s called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and it’s gonna be good. Also, Radiohead might release something this year which would also blow my mind. Well that’s something to think about.

Oh, not much, just STILL MAKING KICK ASS MUSIC. He released an EP called Pattern+Grid World in August not long after he showed up at the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival to perform his own original soundtrack to the 1962 art film Heaven and Earth Magic. Unlike Comsogramma, his full length released earlier this year, the new EP is not so much a breakthrough in form or style but rather it displays elements not so discretely borrowed from contemporaries like Aphex Twin and Dilla and it also takes cues from Drum and Bass. Here are two tracks to sample.
Flying Lotus – “Kill Your Co-Workers” by Some Kind of Awesome
Flying Lotus – Camera Day (taken from Pattern+Grid World) by Warp Records
He also performed his Cosmogramma track, “Drips”, with the jazz ensemble of the Los Angeles Orchestra. FlyLo plays laptop (LOL). The orchestra seamlessly segues from “Drips” in a Dilla track, “Take Notice”. It’s beautiful and incredible that a track from an album like Cosmogramma can receive a live treatment like this.

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble “Drips/Take Notice” feat Flying Lotus from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on Vimeo.

It’s the everlasting gobstopper of ear candy yet it also achieves an incredible level of musical narrative. Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma will send you on a trip.

What Cosmogramma achieves is not easily or often accomplished. The sounds are immediate and explode outwards from the record. One could say Flying Lotus has perfected the art of recording, but to call what Flying Lotus does “recording” is too passive; he’s more of an architect of sound and form. Also, the idea behind a recording is that something was captured onto tape: it implies a source. The sounds are too novel to be such, but still Flying Lotus doesn’t rely on the novelty to capture your attention, the sounds are merely part of the overall idea of the album. It’s an album with a very concrete overall idea– space– which permeates through every aspect of the album: its soundscape and its structure.

Me with my sparkly copy of Cosmogramma outside Chicago's Reckless Records

Regarding the narrative of Cosmogramma, the track “Intro // A Cosmic Drama” is placed four songs into the album, implying a sort of prologue of the first three tracks, which sound like false starts considering their short and choppy nature. Nevertheless these tracks work to the effect of immersing the listener into the universe of Cosmogramma, because let’s face it, Flying Lotus didn’t just make an album, he created a whole new alternate dimension to put it in. The side-chained compression of “Nose Art”, which gives the song its dance floor pulsating feel, is an example of Flying Lotus’ ability as a producer to create otherworldly effects which only add to the total development of the album. FlyLo’s production is not an end in itself but rather an inseparable component of the album’s general aura. If the first three tracks frame the Cosmogramma universe, then the subsequent track, “Intro // A Cosmic Drama”, begins to fill that vacuum and from there forth, the songs just ooze into frame.

A third of the way into Cosmogramma, “Computer Face // Pure Being” hits you in the face. Its fugue-like sonic incline builds until a final collapse and release. Then comes magic– “…And the World Laughs With You”. How appropriate for a cosmic album and quite the “star-studded” collaboration. Thom Yorke’s vocals ask, “I need to know you’re out there/ I need to know you’re listening.” We’re listening, Thom.

At this point, it would be worth mentioning the slightly less prominent but nevertheless ubiquitous (he appears on nearly half the album’s tracks) collaborator, Thundercat, whose basslines move tracks like “Satelllliiiiiitee” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” from sick to uber-fly. These songs are part of the jazz heavy, climactic second half of the album, a standout of which is “Do the Astral Plane” whose percussive drive makes it one of the danciest, grooviest tracks on the album (not to mention I think I hear Buddha laughing on that track).

In the same fashion that the first three tracks introduced the listener to the world of Cosmogramma, the last three tracks return to the album’s namesake mysticism, working off of the previously constructed stellar environment. Cosmogramma is in no way a traditional concept album but rather, it is simply one of the most unifyingly thematically cohesive albums I’ve ever encountered. Forget prosody and don’t even try to atomize; just soak it all in and make way for Flying Lotus, who will likely become the DJ Shadow figure of the 2010′s, at the very least.

The only thing

Thom Yorke has ever wanted to do was make dance music.

If you’ve listened to The Eraser though, you’d hardly ever guess this was the case but if you look closely, Thom has left us some subtle clues. Most obviously, a lot of his stage presence is centered around his awkward squirmish dancing (perhaps his inability to dance normally stems from his inability to make traditional dance music/or vice versa). However on Sunday when I saw Atoms For Peace, Thom’s solo band, play at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, I thought to myself, “by George, he’s done it!” What I meant is that Thom finally was playing really groovy dance tunes he had been going for since his college days as a DJ. The live band he assembled perfectly transformed The Eraser into an album of dance music. The entire floor was dancing more erratically and consistently than I’ve ever seen at a Radiohead concert. Even Thom’s onstage dancing was a bit more like normal. It was a powerful performance.

The Full Band at the Aragon playing Black Swan

Flea, Thom’s bassist, was an even more incredible dancer than Thom and commanded the focus on stage almost as much as Thom did. I think at one point they were trying to out-dance each other. Flea not only made the concert more visually appealing (a beautiful light show really fit the mood of the performance) but I think he is the reason that the songs turned out so well. His bass playing was infectiously sick and without him I doubt the concert would have been half as good. The bass line on “Black Swan” was especially milky and made me wanna go “Oh YEAH!!!!!”

The main part of the concert was them playing straight through The Eraser and without a doubt, every song sounded far better live than recorded with the exception of “Analyze”, which just sounded muddy and confusing live.

Thom Yorke playing "Airbag" on his acoustic. Note the Lighters.

The band played a seven song encore with the first half of it being Thom solo. Highlights from the second act were Thom playing “Like Spinning Plates” (a sublime performance) and “Airbag” which surprisingly sounded like a Neil Young tune and had people waving their lighters at the end.

It was a fast paced, visually pleasing, and very, very danceable concert. The crowd was fun and I’d give a lot to be able to go back to it. Wow.

Anyway…

Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma

Lastly, I want to say something about Thom Yorke’s opening act, Flying Lotus. This guy is like the next DJ Shadow. His beats is ILL and he’s not bringing it next level, he’s making a whole new level for himself. He’s already got the production credits, the incredible mastery of splicing, looping, and layering, and most importantly, he’s got Thom Yorke behind him. I can’t believe that after that entire concert, the only piece of audio I can offer you guys is a leak from FlyLo’s next album. I mean it’s the best new song I’ve heard all year but I stood there at the concert thinking I was recording the entire concert binaurally (which would have been a trip to listen to) but alas the recording sounds like robotic vomit as a result of super hard clipping. But don’t be sad, cuz this track kicks serious ass; it’s sure to make your head spin.

LISTEN

EDIT:
I found these videos of “Black Swan” and “Harrowdown Hill” from the concert I saw. Good example of Flea’s awesome playing and personality on stage. The quality of the audio is not such that you can really tell how incredible the bass playing was but at least it’s better than what I came out with.