The Downcast’s 2011 album of the year

1. Blu: NoYork!

Los Angeles MC Blu’s lost 2011 LP, NoYork!, is a bold, reckless excursion into LA’s future-shock, Low End Theory-led techno underground. It’s a place where cosmic synth textures and gritty samples mix with geometric beats and glitchy melodies. It’s a place where MCs seldom stray. And for good reason. Months after NoYork! was scheduled for release, Blu was dropped from Warner Brother Records. Why? Neither side is talking, but we’re pretty sure Warner Brothers listened to this album once and immediately cut their losses (NoYork! is well ahead of its time and Warner Brothers’ stock is well below its four-year high). To be honest, the first time we heard NoYork! we thought, what the hell is this? The second time, we thought, holy shit. HolyShit!

Grab NoYork! over there for free, dig album highlight “Never Be the Same”.

More of the year’s best…

	2. Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues Seattle folk collective Fleet Foxes’ humble epic, Helplessness Blues, is a shining season in a coastal wood, where earthy melody, delicate angst and wandering curiosity rule. Helplessness Blues draws its inspiration from a quieter place than the Fleet Foxes excellent, self-titled debut, but it manages to cast a more epic sweep with its richer vocal harmonies and more skilled acoustic arrangements. Download “Grown Ocean” [via Sub Pop]
	3. SebastiAn: Total Trashy, cheap and shining with lazy arrogance, SebastiAn’s schizophrenic Total is a fucking blast. Listen as French DJ Sebastian Akchote shifts schizophrenically from stomping glitchcore and heavy house to warped disco and thump-swinging R+B. Across the album’s 19 tracks, it’s hard to find a common thread or prevailing influence, and it’s even harder not to get bored. This is post-Justice dance-music for the post-MTV generation with a postage stamp on your forehead and a T-shirt that says “delivered to wrong address.” Listen to “Jack Wire”.
	4. Elks: Destined for the Sun We would write a more comprehensive review of this dense, shuttering heavy metal masterwork, how it’s a brilliant patchwork of riffs and cosmic savagery, but it’s best to let Elks do the talking. According to Elks bassist “This EP is about the peaceful inhabitants of a planet colonized by an expanding empire [of nomadic space vikings] who are imprisoned in a golden space hulk, then sent hurtling towards the nearest sun.” Next comes cannibalism, an encounter with a supercomputer at the edge of the universe called “The Wizard” and ultimately, vengeance. Heavy metal album of the year, folks. Download “White Fang Learns to Hate”
	5. Cold Cave: Cherish the Light Years These days, Cold Cave don’t sound as frigid or cavernous as they used to. In fact, their goth-pop sound is more pop (and a lot heavier) than it’s ever been on their latest, Cherish the Light Years. Using a range of attacks (from 80s techno rock and dark-wave to dance pop and experimental electronica) Cold Cave deliver a dense wall of synths, driving percussion, Robert Smith-meets-Ian Curtis vocals and, occasionally, guitars (remember those?). Check “Confetti”
	6. Balam Acab: Wander/Wonder Pennsylvania 20-year-old Alec Koone delivers a spare, aquatic sedative with his atmostperic, otherworldly debut, Wander/Wonder. Slow-rolling beats and cold-shining melodies come and go as mythically distorted voices, gauzy synth textures and watery samples (drips, splashes and waves crashing) persist. Wander/Wonder is a delicate, often shimmering slow dive into blank, adolescent euphoria. Here’s “Apart”
	7. Vast Aire: Ox 2010 After the Mighty Joseph collaborate with Karniege fizzled in 2007 and his last LP, Dueces Wild (yeah, I spelled that right), came up short, we were worried about Cannibal Ox veteran Vast Aire’s hip-hop career. But we ain’t worried no more. The New York MC’s latest, Ox 2010: A Street Odyssey is a stomping, strutting LP packed with sick rhymes, heavy beats and a bitchin collection of Motown-ish samples, sci-fi textures and alternating rhythms. This is it, kids; the 2011 hip-hop comeback of the year. Roam with the “Nomad”.
	8. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats: Blood Lust With an obsession for dark mysticism and grainy proto-metal, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats’ second album, Blood Lust, plays like a droning, heavily stoned version of early Black Sabbath. It’s a totally bad ass trip to the edge of an ancient religion with a coven of faceless, hovering witches. Song structures across Blood Lust are direct, riffs are pulled from a mythic black war chest and drums are applied with strategic simplicity as psychedelic solos and ultraviolet vocals brood overhead. Dig album opener “I’ll Cut You Down”.
	9. Atlas Sound: Parallax Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox wrote a stunning, otherworldly love letter to the late Trish Keenan (Broadcast’s singer, who died earlier this year from pneumonia), and he called it Parallax. The album is a masterfully arranged set of spare, forward-leaning pop where sly rhythmic changes, rather than textural acrobatics, give the masterpiece its balance. Dig album opener “The Shakes”.
	10. Danny Brown: XXX Danny Brown is pissed off. He raps about drugs (adderall, crack and ecstasy), dead celebs (Cobain, River Phoenix, Anna Nicole Smith) and bitch-slapping rival MCs (with an open hand, of course) on his 2011 mixtape XXX. But the Detroit MC finds time to mention fun stuff like Teen Wolf, McDonald’s purple creature Grimmace and, of course, Maya Angelou. All of that with a bad ass collection of spacey, sci-fi infused beats to keep the cadence. We didn’t know much about Danny Brown and his Andre 3000-inspired yap before this year, but we’re pretty much blown away with his mixtape, XXX. I’s great… like 8ths of grape ape getting stuffed in my suitcase. Download “Monopoly” [via Pitchfork]
	11. Andy Stott: We Stay Together UK beat deconstructionist Andy Stott creates a hollow, pulsing purgatory on his latest, We Stay Together. It’s a curious place where smoldering cinders and digital snowflakes fall from the twilit sky and dancehall witches slither through the charred remains of a post-modern city where techno was their last hope and music was their first religion. Creep out to “Posers”.
	12. Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Self-Titled Portland psych-pop trio Unknown Mortal Orchestra broke through this year with an unsettlingly infectious, quirky collection of taught, slightly out-of-focus indie rock gems on their self-titled debut. Check out album standout, “Thought Ballune”.
	13. Shabazz Palaces: Black Up What’s most remarkable about Seattle-based avant hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces debut, Black Up, is how incredibly strange the album manages to sound without slipping into mumbling chaos. Although Black Up has the fractured feel of nostalgic channel-skipping in an urban art museum, the glitchy rhythms and warped beat architecture somehow provide a sturdy framework for Shabazz Palace’s curious sketching. It’s not easy to explain why you like Black Up, but it’s an easy album to fall in love with. Download “Swerve the Reaping”.
	14. Thorr-Axe: Wall of Spears Indiana stoner-doom rockers Thorr-Axe debut with Wall of Spears, a punishing blast of furious nordic riff work reminiscent of early High on Fire or Gods of the Earth-era Sword. (God damn we’ve been waiting a long time to write something like that.) Wall of Spears rolls like a tortured wave of ominous, golden distortion complete with thundering drums and lurching bass. Excellent range in rhythm, good song dynamics and several unexpected twists push Wall of Spears into epic territory. The best part? Thorr-Axe are barely out of high school, so this should be the first in a long string of killer metal from these Bloomfield, Indiana natives. Get stuck on “The Island”.
	15. Siriusmo: Mosaik Berlin DJ Siriusmo weaves a playful, beautifully cluttered mosaic of dance textures on Mosaik (which, correct us if we’re wrong, is his first album following years of remixes and singles). There are moments that remind us of Daft Punk, Justice, Boyz Noise and the like. But you won’t be bored. Siriusmo switches quickly from one hip-shaking pulse to the next and never settles on a clear pattern with his sampling techniques. Freak out to “Sirimande”.
	16. Panda Bear: Tomboy Animal Collective member Panda Bear is more focused and coherent than what we’ve come to expect on his fourth LP, Tomboy. It’s cavernous experimentation where vocal harmonies channeling the Beach Boys tangle with warbling synths, warped sounds and catchy rhythms. The second half of Tomboy is certainly the more experimental, where Panda Bear strays into hollow atmospherics (“Sheherazade”, “Benfica”) and songs layered with hypnotic sounds drone into the 6-minute range (“Friendship Bracelet”, “Afterburner”). But rather than drag the album down, the experimental jams and empty, pre-dawn meditations give Tomboy a more epic span. Check out album standout “Slow Motion” [via MPR]
	17. Bill Callahan: Apocalypse Despite its subtle courage and bold optimism, there’s a lingering cloud of comforting hopelessness shrouding Bill Callahan’s latest, Apocalypse. The strange dichotomy is present throughout the album’s shifting identities: earthy classic rock, slightly psychedelic americana, jazzy folk and washed out acoustic blues. It’s a fragile collective, held together by Callahan’s thick baritone, and pushed by a reluctant sense of duty. It’s a very cool thing. Check out “Free’s”.
	18. Muta: Runner We’re pretty sure Muta descends from a race of underwater robots obsessed with creating music based on heavily corrupted acid house, trip hop and dubstep data files. You can hear it in the glitchy delivery of pixelated melodies, the fractured strut of the LP’s beats and the smooth, submarine quality that infects all levels of Runner’s sonic architecture. Dig “Sleepshop”.
	19. Sic Alps: Napa Asylum San Francisco garage rockers Sic Alps’ latest, Napa Asylum, plays like a stoned, lo-fi stream-of-consciousness inspired by late-60s psychedelia. Songs average about a minute-and-a-half, many seem to end halfway through, but they’re stocked with hooks and brilliantly scattered across the stylistic map. Ultimately, we’re left with what feels like an extraordinary collection of fully conceived garage-rock demos. Here’s one of the noiser, trashier, radder cuts, “The First White Man to Touch California Soil”.
	20. Metermaids: Rooftop Shake The Metermaids take us on a thumping, sample-heavy trip back to the golden age of East Coast hip-hop on Rooftop Shake. It’s 10 bangers laced with stomping beats, sharp hooks, hazy samples and a sincere love for the game. That said, these guys aren’t trying to re-invent hip-hop or incite any social uprisings. MCs Sentence and Swell are content delivering rad verses of tattoos-and-malt-liquor party rap with magnetic bravado over a raft of dope beats by (Grammy winning producer) 9th Wonder and DJ Rob Swift. Check out album opener “8MM”.
	21. Elder: Dead Roots Stirring Boston stoner rock trio Elder return with an epic psychedelic rock opus, Dead Roots Stirring. Jammed with cascading riffs, cosmic melody and spiraling sonic architecture, Roots is a wandering, mostly instrumental LP of stoned, mythical exploration. Calling heavily on deities like Tony Iommi and Dickie Peterson, Elder’s second LP ranges from tumbling riffs and dizzying solos to atmospheric meditations and desert-wrought acoustic exploration. With its range in texture and melody, the five-song, 51-minute Dead Roots Stirring passes with surprising ease. Here’s lead track “Gemini”.
	22. Curren$y: Verde Terrace Honestly, we couldn’t keep up with Curren$y spitta’ this year. He released four mixtapes, two proper LPs and collaborated with a slew of artists (Wiz Khalifa, The Black Keys, STS and Smoke DZA among them). But we did play the shit out of his Verde Terrace mixtape (free download). Curren$y’s flow is as deadpan and buoyant as ever as he spits cold over an eclectic range of beats by DJ Drama. The first half is standard, chillwaving urban-lounge Curren$y. But things get a lot grimier and rugged on the much stronger second half where you’ll find some of the best mixtape cuts of the year: “Crack BC”, “Ways to Kill em” and Wu-banger “Sky Miles”.
	23. The Go! Team: Rolling Blackouts UK six-piece The Go! Team pull together a high-fructose mashup of hip-hop, 70s cop show thematics, funk and indie pop on their latest patchwork, Rolling Blackouts. A thick layer of horns, samples, keyboards and rhymes ride a shifting wave of walking bass lines, stomping drums and guitars (best exemplified by standout track, “Bust Out Brigade”). Rolling Blackouts is almost too easy to like, but The Go Team! never comes across as desperate or eager for attention here, which is pretty cool.
	24. Wooden Shjips: West San Francisco experimental rock ramblers, Wooden Shjips, return with a thick, growling wall of psychedelia on their latest, West. It’s a fuller, more focused sound than we’re used to from these guys, but they still drone with an indirect strangeness that sets them apart from the rest of the Bay Area’s thriving garage/punk/retro underground. Click and zone out heavy to “Black Smoke Rise”.
	25. Neon Indian – Era Extrana Neon Indian (aka Alan Palomo) followed up his chillwave-pioneering debut, Psychic Chasms (2009), with a darker, more fuller 80s-future pop treatment this year, Era Extrena. VHS-filtered synth textures and pixelated melodies combine with thick keyboard riffs and pop rhythms to create an anxious, delightful race through the crumbling shiny city of the future. Download Polish Girl via Everybody Taste