Tom’s Top 11 Albums of 2011

So I’m late in putting together an album list. So what? Just because it’s 2012 doesn’t mean you have to stop listening to music released last year. Now’s the time to re-listen to the stunning recordings that were released last year, and sit in the corner and count the days to the next Animal Collective album is released…or is that just me?

2011 was an interesting year for me. It was my first year in full-time employment working as a journalist at a newspaper. It had its ups, and it had its downs. And although I spent a hell of a lot less time listening to music (used to be able to do it while working, but can’t anymore now I spend half my life on the phone), a few great things happened. Right at the tail end of 2010 I went to Stereosonic and saw one of my idols, Ricardo Villalobos. But that was overshadowed by Optimo giving friends and I a bottle of vodka poured into a water bottle because we were the ONLY PEOPLE watching the gig. Once they knew I knew who they were, it was awesome. Amanda Palmer, of the Dresdon Dolls, performed at the Fringe and I spent a week pleading for a Radiohead song on Twitter. She complied at the free Ninja gig she did afterwards, but i missed the beginning when she was asking if the guy who had been harassing her was there. I was outside smoking… So I learnt my lesson and quit smoking. Seeing the Flaming Lips at the end of the year was also a brilliant experience, and them playing two Pink Floyd songs made it even more memorable.

Anyhow, onto the recordings I loved during 2011. In no real order, mind you, but the last one really does stand apart from the others, so I guess I’ll call it my number one.

Sandwell District – Feed-Forward.

Pure, deep, dark techno of the purest sense. The guys behind this have developed an anonymous, collective aesthetic to their releases that was capped by the vinyl version of Feed-Forward and the slightly different CD version, that pulled together different mixes of the same tracks.

What is known as techno in Australia is far removed from the actuality that is played in clubs around the world. This gave me a taste of what it is like. As a result? I’m planning to go to Berlin, somehow, and experience this for real.

BNJMN – Plastic Word

If Sandwell District is deep, dark techno, BNJMN produces light, airy techno. Its like an entire range of sound frequencies have been unused for years, and BNJMN nails it in the opening seconds of the opening track. How different does this sound to stereotypical techno? There’s a midrange there that is just irresistible. And the whole album continues in the same vein.

Andy Stott – Passed Me By / We Stay Together

And this couldn’t be more different to the sound pushed by BNJMN. Until this pair of EPs, Andy Stott was a very good dub techno artist. But this blew it all out of the water. It’s techno, but after years of the degrading to a point that everything is covered in static, and the record player is only able to play it at 33rpm rather than 45rpm. And it’s playing in the room next to you, so you can’t QUITE hear what is going on, but you know it’s good. It’s slow, dark, and captivating.

Zomby – Dedication

Think you know what dubstep is? If you do, you’ve heard of Zomby, and this brilliant album doesn’t need an introduction. One of the best releasing one of the greatest albums the scene has produced. If you haven’t heard of Zomby, you know nothing, and you Skrillex and that other shit you call “dubstep” need to listen to this and just STOP RELEASING THAT CRAP /rant over.

Zomby, from what on first appears to be short fragments of ideas, has constructed an emotional, web of sounds that pull you in further until any memory of a ridiculous bass drop is all but forgotten.

The Field – Looping State of Mind

As long as there’s a new The Field album, it will appear in my best-of list. Apparently. Axel Willner’s first, From Here We Go Sublime is one of my favorite albums of all time. The second, Yesterday and Today, was in my Top 10 of 2009. And this is better than the last one, so it has to be here. Short loops of unknown songs are taken and instruments added on top to create the most beautiful, hypnotic music you have ever heard.

Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact

Not as “tracky” as the last, Saint Dymphna, which remains one of my favourite recordings ever released. Eye Contact is a little different, and could be seen as a step backwards to their earlier jammy records, but have kept the clean recordings. Which makes it possibly better if you have an interest in longer jams rather than a 3-minutes pop song. Is this BETTER than Dymphna? No, simply because it’s different. Eye Contact is just as good as it though.

Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972

“Noise” music has been around for quite a while. Some friends have told me the music I listen to is”just noise”, which is a crap, misinformed opinion, like saying a Picasso “is just paint on a canvas”. This recording, by prolific noise artist Tim Hecker, may appear to be at times nothing but a wall of static…until you actually LISTEN, and it becomes sublime, emotional, cathartic, and simply stunning.

The Weeknd – House of Balloons

An indie hip-hop mix tape, released for free by a complete unknown…that exploded into one of the most known and most important releases of the year. Two free followups have been released since, creating a brilliant trilogy that defined much of the music of 2011. At times dark and bleak, other times filthy, showing the seedy underbelly of sexuality, and at other times beautiful. It’s amazing to think this was put together by someone in their bedroom on a laptop. Who also happens to have one of the best voices you have ever heard. Get it free here.

Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch the Throne

Yes, I have included a rap album. This will surprise some people. I wasn’t going to include this originally, but then decided that I should include the album that’s provided so much fun throughout last year. Otis and No Church in the Wild are just brilliant. There are some tracks that I don’t really remember, or didn’t seem that interesting. Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy turned me around to actually realise there is rap I like, and this is even better. I’ve spent more times dancing around like an idiot to Otis than anything else…ever. So I have to include it.

Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness

Initially it was a toss-up between this and Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost, coz they are both fantastic. But this soundtracked a very important week for me personally this year, so for my own selfish nostalgic sake, it gets the nod. On the surface, Los Campesinos! write happy, big-band indie similar to Architecture in Helsinki, Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. But there is a slight darkness to it that (especially lyrically), for me at least, that gives it more of an emotional resonance. And although it’s called Hello Sadness, it is still a happy record made by a group of people quite clearly enjoying themselves.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica

This is my album of the year. But it puts me in a difficult position, because it is very hard to write about how it sounds. It is made from loops taken from DVDs of old commercials from the 1980s that the artist (Daniel Lopatin) bought online. But you would never be able to tell what it was from if you didn’t know. He has somehow melded it all together into an ambient soundscape that at times turns into walls of static and other times resembles synth-drones of his earlier work. But like the Tim Hecker record I mentioned earlier, it is emotional and overwhelming, at times funny, and at times sad. It is much more than the sum of its parts. I know I haven’t sold it well, but I don’t really need to other than to say this: If you have any interest in music as an art form, listen to this. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.