18 FM3 – Buddha Machine II
The nine endlessly repeating loops housed in the first Buddha Machine was more than enough. BMII adds a pitch-shifting component. Enough said.
19 Beach House – Devotion
20 Max Richter – 24 Postcards in Full Colour
Max Richter’s concept behind ’24 Postcards’ is what makes me love sound’s endless array of possibilities: the 24 pieces of this record really should not be viewed as a record at all. Richter conceived the music as a series of ring tones, proclaiming the medium of expression should be looked at seriously. The subtle pieces meld classical music, electronic composition, and field recordings into such an impressive whole that it makes me believe him.
21 Brendan Murray – Commonwealth
Most electronic laptop-erected albums sound much better on headphones than through the open air, but, as a first for me, I found ‘Commonwealth’ nearly unlistenable through speakers. Headphones, however, allowed Brendan Murray’s latest to blossom into an artfully layered corrosive piece of drone music that spends most of its 50 minutes descending into silence.
22 Thee Oh Sees – The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In
23 Valet – Naked Acid
Psychedelia, in music crit at least, is a cliché. Yet ‘Naked Acid’ can be described in no other way, as Honey Owens spreads the style over a wide expanse of material: from the demented blues of ‘Fuck It’ to ‘Fire’’s slurred folk to the beat-ready synth experiment of ‘Streets.’
24 Zomes – Zomes
This is unquestionably the simplest album on this list, yet also one that I have the hardest time describing. The 16 tracks comprising ‘Zomes’ are each self-contained loops that do little more than repeat, but with each pass they seem to spiral outward, at once becoming increasingly more melodic and more abstract.
25 Belong – Same Places
I could have been convinced that ‘Same Places’ was assembled from blissed-out bits of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless.’ Which, of course, is a great compliment.
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