Favourite Albums of 2011

Here's the annual, requisite list of my 20 favourite albums. These are the albums that I listened to most over the past year; the ones that inspired me and kept me going. Once again, while I've been waiting for the last half of December to yield that one final amazing album that would make the list, most of the other major music critics had jumped the gun and already posted theirs.

I always find it so hard to actually put these in any sort of order, but I can say that the #1 album was definitely my favourite by a lot. Your favourite albums from the past year will inevitably be different from what's on my list. But as I've said before, that's one of the great things about music - that it all affects each person in different ways. It's for that same reason that I've also refrained from writing any long-winded explanations of why I love these records so much. Though I know it's a rarity in the world of music critique, I really believe that that great albums must be heard rather than analyzed in writing. Indeed, the only long winded writing in this post is the introduction you are (possibly still) reading right now.

I hope you can give these records a listen, as maybe you'll find something that you really love as well. And because I'd rather share the actual music with you than write about it, there are songs from each one of these albums on the quarterly mixes that I regularly post here for free download. Stay tuned for the next mix coming in late March of 2012, and in the meantime keep discovering great new music!

Alright, here's the list...

1. Destroyer - Kaputt
2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
3. The Drums - Portamento
4. Cut Copy - Zonoscope
5. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact
6. James Blake - s/t
7. Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital
8. The Horrors - Skying
9. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
10. The Field - Looping State Of Mind
11. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne
12. M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming
13. Neon Indian - Era Extraña
14. Washed Out - Within And Without
15. Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
16. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
17. Toro Y Moi - Underneath The Pine
18. Tuneyards - Whokill
19. Holy Ghost! - s/t
20. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

There are a few other great albums that just barely missed the top 20 cut. In no particular order, here they are...

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mirror Traffic
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Feist - Metals
WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain
The Strokes - Angles
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx - We're New Here
Cat's Eyes - s/t
The Black Keys - El Camino
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
The various singles released by Burial this year

And here are the download links for those mixes...

January-March mix: http://www.mediafire.com/?827uv628k3s3a8y
April-June mix: http://www.mediafire.com/?24w9x9cihojcy16
July-September mix: http://www.mediafire.com/?ckr626tm2agzq4q
October-December mix: http://www.mediafire.com/?8q5tc2erpy8551v

Best New Albums - Oct-Dec 2011

Once again, here's a mix of songs from my favourite albums of the past three months. This is getting to be a pretty regular thing now, which is good. I hope you are enjoying them, and that they have caused you to seek out some of the full albums.

There are 13 tracks this time around, and I promise that there are no Christmas songs. Here are the artists on the mix: The Field, M83, Feist, The Black Keys, Wooden Shjips, St. Vincent, AA Bondy, The Kooks, Atlas Sound, Factory Floor, Oneohtrix Point Never, Noel Gallagher, and Surfer Blood.

http://www.mediafire.com/?8q5tc2erpy8551v

Enjoy! And as usual, please feel free to share the link with friends.

Best New Albums - July-Sept 2011

Here's a mix of songs from my favourite albums of the past three months. There are 14 tracks on this one, from the following artists:

Washed Out, Neon Indian, The Horrors, The Drums, WU LYF, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Wilco, Jay-Z & Kanye West, Beirut, Toro Y Moi, Caribou (remixing Radiohead), The War On Drugs, and The National.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ckr626tm2agzq4q

Enjoy! And feel free to share the link, as music is made for sharing.

Best New Albums - April-June 2011

There were a lot of great albums released during the second quarter of 2011. Here's the link to download a mix of songs from my favourite ones...

http://www.mediafire.com/?24w9x9cihojcy16

There are 17 tracks on this one, from the following artists: Friendly Fires, Crystal Stilts, TV On The Radio, Cat's Eyes, Radiohead, Ford & Lopatin, Handsome Furs, Gang Gang Dance, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Miles Kane, Foster The People, Tom Vek, Holy Ghost, The Rosebuds, Alex Turner, and Thurston Moore.

Hope you enjoy it! And if you do, please share the link with friends.

Best New Albums - January-March 2011

While the mainstream music industry overall is now largely based on promoting singles as opposed to entire records, there are definitely still a ton of musicians, labels, and music lovers out there who believe that entire albums remain the greatest expression of the popular music art form. Feel free to include me among those believers.

This ongoing series of mixes contains some of the best songs from my favourite albums (as well as the occasional EP or single if it's particularly great), released over the previous 3-month period. These are the albums that I feel are most worthy of your time and attention.

I've tried to include songs that should give you a pretty good idea of the overall character of the album. So if you like sound of a certain song or artist, I would encourage you to then seek out the whole record and give it a good listen.

Here's the link to download the mix for January-March 2011...

http://www.mediafire.com/?827uv628k3s3a8y

It features 15 tracks from the following artists: James Blake, Radiohead, The Strokes, Cut Copy, Destroyer, R.E.M, Jamaica, Toro Y Moi, Burial/Four Tet/Thom Yorke, Kurt Vile, Smith Westerns, Gil Scott-Heron & Jaime xx, The Weeknd, Burial, and Mogwai.

Enjoy!

Favourite Albums of 2010

Here's a list of my 20 favourite albums of 2010. Note my continued use of the word "favourite" as opposed to "best", as one of the greatest things about music is its ability to speak to different people in different ways. These are the albums that contained music and words that spoke to me most over the past year.

While I could go on about the reasons why I found each of these albums to be particularly appealing or interesting, I will instead encourage you to download the mixes I've posted on this blog throughout the year so that you can check out songs from each of them on your own.

And now, the list...

1. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

4. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

5. !!! - Strange Weather, Isn't It?

6. Beach House - Teen Dream

7. Delorean - Subiza

8. Foals - Total Life Forever

9. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker

10. The National - High Violet

11. Vampire Weekend - Contra

12. Hot Chip - One Life Stand

13. Black Keys - Brothers

14. The Drums - s/t

15. Broken Bells - s/t

16. Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz

17. Jonsi - Go

18. Avi Buffalo - s/t

19. Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal

20. Moonface - Dreamland

I'm sure it's also no secret that I listen to a ton of music; probably too much at times. So there are inevitably always going to be a bunch of other albums that I really loved which narrowly missed inclusion on the list. You'll also find songs from each of these on the aforementioned mixes though, and here they are in no particular order...

Liars - Sisterworld

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

Spoon - Transference

Gigi - Maintenant

The English Premership - Affects

MGMT - Congratulations

The Walkmen - Lisbon

jj - No. 3

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

Twin Shadow - s/t

Sleigh Bells - Treats

The Morning Benders - Big Echo

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

Brian Eno - Small Craft On A Milk Sea

Stars - The Five Ghosts

Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises

Casiokids - Top Stemning Pa Lokal Bar

Apparatjik - We Are Here

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Klaxons - Surfing The Void

Wolf Parade - Expo 86

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

ceo - White Magic

A couple of quick notes: Support the artists by purchasing the albums you love most, or by seeing them live in concert. And never stop discovering great new music!

Missed Best New Albums from 2010

Here's one last short mix to download for 2010...

http://www.mediafire.com/?6o8tsq1r0qbmsbw

It contains songs from albums that I didn't get into until some time after they had been released, as well as some stuff that I didn't think fit very well with the quarterly mixes (eg. "weird" electronic stuff). Upon listening to all 5 of the mixes I've posted this year, you should have a pretty good impression of the albums I thought were particularly good over the course of 2010. But I'll also post my "official" favourite albums list soon.

Best New Albums: October-December 2010

Here's a link to download my final BNA mix for 2010...

http://www.mediafire.com/?mrnt3xr1332fh30

There are 19 great tracks on this one, including music from Sufjan Stevens, Kanye West, Hot Chip, Belle & Sebastian, Wolf Parade, The National, Ryan Adams, Cut Copy, and more.

I'll also soon be posting a list of my favourite albums of 2010. Songs from most of the albums that will be on it can be found on the quarterly mixes I've posted this year. Here are the links to those again for you...

Jan-Mar 2010: http://www.mediafire.com/?ozdd5znm2y2

Apr-Jun 2010: http://www.mediafire.com/?zjnemozinkw

Jul-Sep 2010: http://www.mediafire.com/?vtx5mc752mmkrf6

Stay tuned for my next mix of great new tunes. It will be posted here in early April 2011.

Best New Albums: July-September 2010

Here's the link to download a mix of songs from my favourite albums released in the third quarter of 2010...

http://www.mediafire.com/?vtx5mc752mmkrf6

This time around there are 16 songs, once again in MP3 format so they'll work with your media player of choice. You'll find lots of great stuff on here from artists such as Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, The Walkmen, Chromeo, Stars, !!!, Klaxons, and more.

Anyway, enjoy the tunes, support the artists, and drop me a line to let me know what you think of this and/or the two previous mixes that I've posted from this year.

Best New Albums: April-June 2010

Here's a link to download a mix of songs from my favourite albums released in the second quarter of this year...

http://www.mediafire.com/?zjnemozinkw

There are 20 songs, all in MP3 format, including new music from artists such as The National, LCD Soundsystem, The Black Keys, Foals, Delorean, The Drums, Wolf Parade, and more.

Hope you enjoy it!

Best New Albums: January-March 2010

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here, but I can assure you that I'm still DJing and still checking out lots of new music; probably even a bit too much. (Some things will never change).

A quick update for 2010 so far... The London Underground has been going strong since January at a couple of relatively new (and great) downtown venues - one Saturday a month at The Morrissey House and one Thursday a month at Nite Owl. Both nights still feature danceable rock n' roll - from the best new indie rock and electro, to post-punk, new wave, Brit pop, and everything in between.

On the topic of good new music... back in early April I put together a mix of songs from my favourite albums of the first quarter of 2010 (January-March). I've given it to a few friends on CD over the past couple months, but I've now also uploaded it here for you to download and check out...

http://www.mediafire.com/?ozdd5znm2y2

As you'll hear, it's not just a bunch of songs randomly thrown together. I've tried to create some semblance of a good "mixtape" with a coherent track order, within the confines of including only the best songs from my favourite albums. Sometimes my musical tastes can seem a bit schizophrenic, but DJ sets and mixes like this give me a good chance to tie it all back together. And these mixes in particular let me share some of the music that I love, but wouldn't normally play at a live DJ night.

Going forward, I'll most likely put together another mix like this for each subsequent quarter of the year. In fact, I already have a lot of the songs picked for the April to June mix. I'll just need to see what good music comes out in June and then put it all together. Expect to see a download link for that posted here sometime in early July.

Favourite Albums of 2009

Here's a list of my ten favourite albums of the past year:

1. The Horrors - Primary Colours

2. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic

3. Handsome Furs - Face Control

4. The xx - xx

5. jj - jj No. 2

6. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

7. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

8. Franz Ferdinand - Tonight

9. Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

10. Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth

I could go on an on about how great all of these albums are and why, but it's always better if you hear some of the music for yourself. So here's a link to download a mix with two tracks from each album... http://www.mediafire.com/?m4mnyjt1yhi

Also, here are a bunch more great albums from 2009 that I really liked...

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today...

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms

The Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Peter Doherty - Grace/Wastelands

The Rakes - Klang

Maximo Park - Quicken The Heart

Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young

The Raveonettes - In And Out Of Control

A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

The Big Pink - A Brief History Of Love

Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care

Air - Love 2

Julian Plenti - ...Is Skyscraper

Crystal Antlers - Tentacles

Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall

Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

I've also put together another sampler with one song from each of the above albums. And in addition to those 21 songs, the second mix continues with 15 excellent songs from albums which I though were merely alright overall; or songs which were only released as one-off singles.

You can download the entire 'best-of-the-rest' mix here:

Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?wqz4wozjzdn

Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?4zmkyntujdn

This may (or may not) be my last 'best albums of the year' post on this blog, so I wanted to make it a good one with lots of music for you to download. Enjoy! And please support great music - get a turntable and buy the albums you love on vinyl, and try to see the bands live in concert!

Favourite albums from the second half of '08

Here, in no particular order, is a list of the albums that I enjoyed most from the second half of 2008. If you haven't yet checked them out, download them and have a listen. And for the ones you like most, consider supporting the artists and buying their albums.

The Rosebuds - Life Like

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

Fujiya & Miyagi - Lightbulbs

Alexis Taylor - Rubbed Out

The Walkmen - You & Me

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

Pavement - Live Europaturnén MCMXCVII

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

The Black Ghosts - s/t

CSS - Donkey

Syclops - I've Got My Eye On You

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology

Poni Hoax - Images Of Sigrid

Q-Tip - The Renaissance

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line

The Virgins - s/t

The Stills - Oceans Will Rise

Little Joy - s/t

The Verve - Forth

Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling

You may also want to check out the list of my favs from the first half of the year, which is below this post...

Favourite albums from the first half of '08

It's been quite a while since I last posted anything on here. Without having a radio show anymore, there's not as much music info for me to pass along.

One new development though, is that the London Underground is hosting a new weekly event called Shake Appeal. It happens every Tuesday night and so far it has been great. Myself and Johnny Law are the DJ's, and we're still featuring super-cheap import beer specials. You can find more information here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8379827061

Also, lately a lot of people have been asking me for a list of my favourite new albums. So, here's the stuff from the first half of 2008 that I've enjoyed most, in no particular order...

Beck - Modern Guilt
Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha
The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Albert Hammond, Jr. - ¿Cómo Te Llama?
Vampire Weekend - s/t
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Foals - Antidotes
The Kills - Midnight Boom
Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
Neon Neon - Stainless Style

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
Sun Kil Moon - April
R.E.M. - Accelerate
The Futureheads - This Is Not The World
Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
Sigur Rós - Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Crystal Castles - s/t

French Kicks - Swimming

The National - The Virginia EP
No Age - Nouns

Check them out if you haven't done so already.

New DJ night on Tuesdays

Starting with next week's launch party (January 22nd), I'm going to be co-hosting a new Tuesday DJ night in London with my friend and bandmate Jesse (aka DJ Fraggle Rock). It will be at a new venue at 333 Richmond St. (at York), downstairs. The room is actually great, expecially for this type of thing, so we're both really excited!

Anyway, the idea of the night is to play all the best rock and electronic music that's big in the UK right now - whether it's from London, New York, Montreal, Stockholm, Tokyo, wherever. If you can dance to it, we'll play it! And, although the focus will be on newer music, we'll also throw in some great stuff from the past... garage rock from the 60's, to glam rock and punk from the 70's, to 80's new wave, to 90's Brit pop.

There will also be music videos, concerts and films playing all night on the LCD TV's. And, we'll have weekly LP, CD and DVD giveaways courtesy of Grooves.

As for drink specials, they're great... $4 all night for import tallboy cans, and those sweet Grolsch swingtop bottles. If you're not into the import beer, it's only $3 for domestic bottles and bar shots too. And if you get hungry, they also have a kitchen.

Come out for the launch party, and check it out... http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=20693310460. Giveaways for the launch will be LP and CD copies of the new Radiohead album, 'In Rainbows'.

Also, you can find more info on the night here.