it's been another awesome year so far and this is off the cuff so i may well leave some out and have to add them later, but from memory (and after a quick butchers at my listening chart from the last 6 months from
last.fm) these would be mine, more or less in order:
1
in ghost colours cut copy
brilliant 80s influenced sophomore record from melbourne's cut copy, an album that makes me smile and sing-along and is uplifting and life affirming to boot
2
yearbook 2 studio
an album of remixes yes, but what remixes! from their brilliant reworking of kylie to the blissed out
love on a real train and summer pop perfection
impossible this is an album with summer written all over it
3 s/t
fleet foxes
massively hyped but probably worthy of the praise and a great mix of pop, rock & country
4
for emma, forever ago bon iver
simply gorgeous album of gentle acoustic strummings
5
silent movie quiet village
excellent downtempo sampadelic feast from radioslave & mate that sounds both familiar and original
6 s/t
vampire weekend
not everyone's cup of tea but my wife and i have been enjoying these afro beat, prep rock stylings for most of the year
7
pacific ocean blue dennis wilson
okay, this may have originally come out in 1970-something, but it's been beautifully repackaged this year and been out of print almost 20 years so still qualifies for my list. fantastic debut (and sadly only) solo album from the beach boy's drummer and well worth checking out
8
the seldom seen kid elbow
quite simply their best album, which, if you know anything at all about elbow, is reason enough to get hold of this if you don't own a copy already
9
third portishead
brilliant return for beth & co that takes a few listens to get into and is way better than i dreamed hope for after all that time. should probably be higher up the list but to be honest there's been so much great stuff this year i haven't listened to this album as much as some of the others
10
blue river smith & mudd
actually came out the very tail end of last year but very nice album of chilled balearic vibes
and then some other very honourable mentions:
s/t
hercules & love affair
stainless style
neon neon
visiter
the dodo's
sea lion
ruby suns
nouns
no age
the midnight organ fight
frightened rabbits
songs in a&e
spiritualized
staying in
diskjokke
dystopia
midnight juggernauts
saturdays=youth
M83
disastro
sonny j