10. Björk - Biophilia
Amidst all the fuss about phone apps, it was easy to forget that there was an actual album buried under all of the techno-babble. And what an album; in counterbalance to the futuristic concept was Björk's most organic-sounding record to date. With each song essentially built off a single instrumental motif, Biophilia was almost uncomfortably sparse at times, but fleshed out with haunting choral vocals, putting the harsh electronic beat pay-offs of Crystalline and Mutual Core into even sharper relief.
9. Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
21-year old Chilean/New Yorker Nicolas Jaar's debut LP was a deeply intriguing and strangely satisfying record, its languid, loungey electronic throbs, woozy instrumentation and crackly samples coyly entrancing the listener, before disarming you with a blast of skronky horns. The secret weapon was Jaar himself, his deep voice spouting out cryptic words of advice ("Grab a calculator and fix yourself"). The year's essential late-night listen.
8. tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l
The casual use of upper- and lower-case letters was enough to make some run a mile, and the vocals were a deal-breaker for many, but in truth Merril Garbus' endlessly acrobatic and percussive voice was a key ingredient to this astonishing album, somehow managing to meet every twist and turn of this breathless collection of songs. Deranged, yes, but her mangling of R&B and afro-pop, followed by its impeccable reconstruction made her the queen to David Longstreth's king.
7. The Antlers - Burst Apart
2009's Hospice was the sort of record one could obsess over, but its overwhelming bleakness is the sort of thing you can only get away with once. Credit then goes to The Antlers for this expertly judged follow-up which, thanks to Pete Silberman's impassioned wail (plus song titles like Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out and Putting The Dog To Sleep) still struck a raw nerve, but with its more spacious, hymnal songs meant that this time, the listener never felt at risk of suffocating under it all.
6. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
On last year's Returnal, Daniel Lopatin, a.k.a. OPN, demonstrated his mastery of mind-melting, minimalistic drone. Replica was a reprisal of that sound to an extent, but by juxtaposing it with jarring vocal loops and, on Up, even tribal percussion (percussion of any kind was previously unthinkable), it felt like Lopatin had taken a massive step forward. Child Soldier was the brilliant culmination of this development, but every single cut here was a stunningly composed, endlessly shape-shifting wormhole into another world.
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