Top Singles of 2014
1. Powell Club Music 12″
2. Morgan Buckley Shout Out To All The Weirdos In Rathmines 12″
3. Sheer Mag Sheer Mag 7″
4. Demdike Stare Testpressing #005 12″
5. Priests Bodies And Control And Money And Power 12″
6. St. Julien St. Julien 12″
7. Portable Surrender 12″
8. Impalers Psychedelic Snutskallar 12″
9. Pang Young Professionals 7″
10. Oren Ambarchi Stacte Karaoke 12″
11. Lil Ugly Mane The Weeping Worm download
12. Frau Punk Is My Boyfriend 7″
13. Lumpy And The Dumpers Gnats In The Pissa 7″
14. Dan Trevitt The Missing 12″
15. Mark Pritchard Untitled 12″
16. Henrik Schwarz Masse Remixes III 12″
17. Vladislav Delay Ripatti 03 12″
18. Galcher Lustwerk Nu Day 12″
19. Karenn Sheworks 006 12″
20. Samuel Kerridge Deficit Of Wonder 12″

Honorable Mention:
Donato Dozzy Terzo Giorno 12″
DJ Richard Nailed To The Floor 12″
Helmer Sated 12″
Modus Adderf Arreug 12″
Gary Wrong Group Floods Of Fire 12″

Top Albums of 2014
1. Vessel Punish, Honey
2. Riff Raff Neon Icon
3. Iceage Plowing Into The Field Of Love
4. Total Control Typical System
5. Watery Love Decorative Feeding
6. Gazelle Twin Unflesh
7. Beau Wanzer Untitled
8. Julian Casablancas & The Voidz Tyranny
9. Steve Gunn Way Out Weather
10. Andy Stott Faith In Strangers
11. Pharmakon Bestial Burden
12. Cold World How The Gods Chill
13. Actress Ghettoville
14. Siobhan Southgate
15. Lee Gamble Koch
16. Objekt Flatland
17. Moodymann Moodymann
18. The Jazz June After The Earthquake
19. Boston Strangler Fire
20. Torn Hawk Let’s Cry And Do Pushups At The Same Time

Honorable Mention:
Predator The Complete Earth
Lucy Churches Schools And Guns
Ivy Ivy
Golden Pelicans Golden Pelicans
Hank Wook And The Hammerheads Stay Home

Another year down the drain, and while my advanced age surely has something to do with my perception of time, I swear they’re moving faster than ever. Anyway, I figured I’d take a quick moment to acknowledge some other year-end favorites that weren’t music releases, while I’m at it. The best book I read this year was Lindsay Hunter’s “Ugly Girls”, a dark and complex vision of American misery. The best live band I saw this year was Vexx, who came through with such a frenzy of passion and energy that it made me feel silly by comparison (coming to the East Coast in 2015, I can only hope!). And of course, the best live video of 2014 goes to Lumpy And The Dumpers with the poignant and touching clip known as “Boy Hit By Fireworks In NYC”.

Powell Club Music 12″ (Diagonal)
As you probably know, I listen to a ton of underground experimental techno, and while I truly enjoy it, most of the time I’m just waiting around for someone like Powell to show up and twist my head around completely with his left-field, entirely original take on electronic dance music. There’s really no place to file Powell besides “Diagonal Records”, the label he owns and operates, and while it’s great that he has created his own scene entirely, it’s even greater that the music is as zany, uninhibited, banging and severe as Club Music. Synths bubble, samples sword-fight each other, beats drop and never return, and the concept of linear music is diverted, teased and avoided entirely, much to my delight. After retroactively checking out his earlier EPs (they’re all killer too, but not as killer as Club Music), it seems like Powell is poised to take over 2015 if he wants it.

Vessel Punish, Honey (Tri Angle)
Alright, quick caveat: the decision to rank Vessel’s Punish, Honey over Riff Raff’s Neon Icon wasn’t an easy one, as Neon Icon probably provided me more musical entertainment than anything else this year, and I never reviewed it simply because once I start talking about this record, it’s nearly impossible to stop. That said, Vessel has rightly claimed the top spot, as no other album this year was as cohesive, inventive, stark, pounding, twisted and downright astonishing as Punish, Honey. Using a set of homemade electronics to create these varied-yet-consistent tracks, it’s as if Vessel was trying to clone humans and just ended up with mutated human flesh, like a foot with an ear on it scampering across the floor as a hairy belly with a face looks on from the operating table. It’s more epic than metal, more brutal than power-violence, more alien than Shackleton, and you can still shake your ass to it. Just let me hibernate with this record and come knock on my door once it’s warm out again.

Top Singles of 2013
1. Good Throb Culture Vulture 7″
2. Objekt Objekt #3 12″
3. The Courtneys The Courtneys 12″
4. Burial Rival Dealer 12″
5. Keluar Ennoea 12″
6. Buck Biloxi And The Fucks Holodeck Survivor / Not Getting Stabbed 7″
7. Trade Sheworks 005 12″
8. Kerridge From The Shadows That Melt The Flesh 1-4 12″
9. Systems Of Desire Control / Consumption 12″
10. Haus Arafna All I Can Give 7″
11. White Reaper Conspirator / The Cut 7″
12. Demdike Stare Testpressing 002 12″
13. Bandshell Caustic View 12″
14. Gorgon Sound Gorgon Sound EP 2×12″
15. Exit Hippies Part 3 7″
16. Connections Cindy, Jeni And Johnny 7″
17. Cairo Pythian Unity Mitford 12″
18. Beau Wanzer Beau Wanzer 12″
19. Donato Dozzy 200 EP 12″
20. CCR Headcleaner CCR Headcleaner 7″

Honorable Mention:
Cold Cave Black Boots / Meaningful Life 7″
Kremlin Will You Feed Me 7″
Elgato Dunkel Jam 12″
Obliteration War Is Our Destiny 7″
Demdike Stare Testpressing 003 12″

Top Albums of 2013
1. Daughn Gibson Me Moan
2. Steve Gunn Time Off
3. Darkside Psychic
4. Tony Molina Dissed And Dismissed
5. Kerridge A Fallen Empire
6. Pharmakon Abandon
7. Rabih Beaini Albidaya
8. Hoax Hoax
9. Autre Ne Veut Anxiety
10. Iceage You’re Nothing
11. Räjäyttäjät Awlopbopaloopop Alopbam Räjä
12. Emptyset Recur
13. Call Back The Giants The Marianne
14. Quttinirpaaq No Visitors
15. Kyle Hall The Boat Party
16. Heatsick Re-engineering
17. Gary Wrong Group Knights Of Misery
18. Sete Star Sept Visceral Tavern
19. Ron Morelli Spit
20. Constant Mongrel Heavy Breathing

Honorable Mention:
Donato Dozzy Plays Bee Mask
Bad Noids Everything From Soup To Dessert
Counter Intuits Counter Intuits
Satanic Rockers Fu Kung
Morphosis Dismantle

Seems like every year comes and goes in a flash anymore, but goddamn, 2013 came and went! One thing I’ve noticed is that there is a ton of great music being released, maybe now more than ever – I am absolutely certain that there are records I simply never heard in 2013 that probably would’ve made my lists had I heard them. My lists, as always, are my personal favorites of the year, records that I couldn’t stop listening to, laughing with (or sometimes at), dancing/moshing to, discussing and thinking about. I don’t expect anyone else on Earth to feel the exact same way, but isn’t that part of the fun of an exercise as self-important and silly as this, right? Some of these records were made by good friends, most of them made by total strangers, and they all make me glad that I’m paying attention to modern music.

Good Throb Culture Vulture 7″ (Muscle Horse)
Right around this time last year, Good Throb snuck into my world, just as I thought that my brain had been lost forever to monotonous frozen techno. They’re a British punk group who are dripping with contempt for society and its standards, and for a band as sloppy and unhinged as they can be, listening to Good Throb is as exhilarating as the most technically-precise death metal (if not as knuckleheaded). They play their songs as if they created both punk and feminism, forcing the listener to question his or her privilege at one moment and then threatening to shove golf balls up someone’s ass the next. Most of all, they just seem to be naturally great, the sort of band that just has the perfect chemical equation to make punk rock sound as scary, amateur and unhinged as it’s ever been. Good Throb save the queen!

Daughn Gibson Me Moan (Sub Pop)
Alright, so Daughn Gibson is a good pal of mine, but I have to be true to myself, even with dumb lists like these, lest I tell you that I actually loved Vampire Weekend and Kanye West this year in hopes of more click-backs or something (I hope I never fully understand how blog stats actually work). Anyway, I loved All Hell, Daughn’s debut, but Me Moan really busted out even futher into uncharted territory, acting like a 3-D IMAX sequel to the black-and-white art-house original. Every song on this record has at least one big hook, and each of those hooks has lodged itself in my brain either quickly or over time, which is what I want any good pop record to do. But with Me Moan, the devil is in the details, from little lyrical twists I originally misheard, thus altering my take entirely, to ridiculous little production tricks, like the sound of a snapping whip faintly in the background, or a little five-note piano melody that pops up only once before disappearing. I was disappointed that the hype-masters who put Daughn on a pedestal in 2012 didn’t fully embrace this one, but I blame that on the fact that those types are always in search of the next little wave, whereas Me Moan is an ocean unto itself. It’s easy to forget about anyone else when I put on Me Moan though, as Daughn (you can call him by his first name too, he doesn’t mind) paints vivid pictures of lust, longing and the animal in man.