alright screw it, here's my top 10 albums of the year with some video proof of their greatness:

10. Hidden - These New Puritans
Future rock a la Battles but better
first single and one of the coolest video's this year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIfKqgWPVvk

9. Magnetic Man - Magnetic Man
Dubstep supergroup makes pop album brilliance
there are better clips but this song rocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEAYERxJtek

8. Cosmogramma - Flying Lotus
Supreme beatmaker widens his scope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uCyv05SG1g

7. FabricLive 50 - D-Bridge and Instra:mental
Start of the Autonomic movement in drum'n'bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mnW--E2aOI

6. King Knight - Salem
dark electronic synthy hip hop with heavy religious symbolism breaks all the rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwMc91DQXHU&feature=related

5. In Search of Stoney Jackson - Strong Arm Steady
Madlibs finest hour with Strong Arm Steady providing the carefree rhymes
with Talib on first verse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJql-33zFho

4. Diamond Eyes - Deftones
Return of the kings, fuck it, it's the best things they've ever done
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woR6ohiFeYE

3. Black Sands - Bonobo
Effortless instrumental hip hop of the highest order
here's a superb mini-mix of the whole album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tvQCf57peM

2. Arch Android - Janelle Monae
Her creativity and passion is limitless and inspiring
one of the songs and video's of the year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc

1. How i got over - The Roots
A career defining album that surpasses "Do you want more?" and "Phrenology"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI4D1QOLGuM

see you in 2011!!!

Top Ten Albums - 2009

well instead of crapping on and on, here is my top ten for the year in no particular order

Converge - Axe to Fall

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse

Jay-Z - The Blueprint III

Nosaj Thing - Drift

Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - II

Mos Def - The Ecstatic

Mungolian Jet Set - We Gave It All Away, Now We Are Taking It Back

Joris Voorn - Balance 014

Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect

Hudson Mohawke - Butter

Happy 2010 everyone!

it's all about the beats

.... lots of different stuff here this week, but all anchored by the beat

Nosaj Thing - Drift

Coming out of LA's now infamous beat scene, this debut shows great depth maturity. For all you Flying Lotus sluts out there, here's is the less organic but no less sonically complex version. Pulsing rave/electro influenced synths ride over a super organic almost lazy hip hop beats, with eyebrow-raising ease. Like Flying Lotus, it's less about the individual song, and more about he sum of it's parts, as the album washes from song to song creating almost one giant track. This is future-electro avant-garde hip hop of the highest order... sorry but i'm trying to nail down an album that is almost un-pigeon-holeable... yeah, cop that english language!

No Made Sense - The Epillanic Choragi

So progressive sludgey post hardcore metal is nothing new. What has been lingering since Tool first invaded the space has only been built upon by bands like Isis, Buried Inside and The Psyke Project. Taking the prog and making it DIRTY, very dark and downright claustrophobic. Here, No Made Sense, push things even further with moody interludes, sweeping 13 minute opus's, light, shade, grey, rain, sun... pick an advective, verb, noun whatever, as rotating guitar lines, and drum beats swirl endlessly towards the apocalypse! Now exhale.....

FabricLive 47 - VA - mixed by Toddla T

Who hasn't heard of Fabric and the FabricLive series, but i wouldn't call this out unless i was suitably impressed. I suppose the overridding theme here is dancehall, but along the way you'll flow from nu-reggae to dubstep, drum'n'bass, soul and everything in-between, take a journey through the urban jungle!

Clutch - Strange Cousins from the West

Been doin' it for 20 years. Bluesy sabbath rock doesn't get any better.

Disco, prog RAWk wrap up

wow this is going to confuse the f#@k out of some people. Lots of interesting albums have come out of the last few weeks. Something for everyone here.

Dysrhythmia - Psychic Maps

This isn't something we would expect to see released on Relapse Records - better know for pushing crazy hardcore, grind and death spasm nutiness. Dysrhythmia is an instrumental prog rock 3-piece. If the world were a fairer place, the guitarist would be held in the same exalted company as Van Halen and other so-called guitar gods. This music is devoid of trendiness, and pro-tools trickery… it’s almost indescribable. If you have any interest in rock music, song writing, song structure or would just like to have your jaw left broken on the ground, you need this.

Horse Meat Disco

Horse Meat Disco are a crew who put on spectacular gay dance club nights around the world… how hilarious is the name! This selection of lesser know disco inferno bangers, is nothing short of brilliant. Frankly I don’t care how much of a hard man you are, if you aren’t doing the running man early 80’s style, then you don’t have a pulse. This is more about the 8-minute disco jam than the 3-minute made-for-the-charts crap you’ll usually run screaming from. It’s unmixed, so this is perfect for the DJ, but even better for listening at home. Pure guilty bliss.

JJ – JJ No.2

Nothing is known about JJ. Is it one guy, a duo or a whole band? This guy/duo/band is cloaked in mystery. All we know is that JJ have released this debut album of blissed out summer indie electro pop sweetness on the label started by the guys in The Tough Alliance. This is pretty much where this album is aiming at. The subtlety is amazing; each song sounding like you have fallen in love for the first time. Check out track “ecstacy” for a floaty drugged out pop-take on a hip-hop beat. Go Sunday arvo come down!

Between the Buried and Me - Colors

Wow, am i late to the party with these guys.. this came out in 2007! As i am so fecking out of touch.. all i'll say is: pop, rock, death metal, opera, TV sitcom, prog, melodic angry who said what now?!?!?!

Looking forward to:

Sean Diddy Combs - Last Train to Paris, anyone who has been following his posts on twitter probably can't wait till this thing comes out and he falls flat on his face. I hope i'm wrong, but i bet i'm not

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3 'nough said

Muse - The Resistance, please don't disappear up your own arses

Air - Love 2, a fair way off, but still hoping they can pull their career out of the fire

Mid Winter Warmers

Lynx & Kemo - The Raw Truth

I've been letting this one simmer for a few weeks, and i'm really glad i did. Kemo is a Yanky MC living in Germany and Lynx has been a young upstart in the UK drum'n'bass scene for a few years. Together they have put forward one of the most stripped back yet genre hopping dub'n'bass releases in ages. Straddling genres like playthings, the album never feels disjointed. In fact, more than any other realease in recent memory, the tracks play off each other seamlessly washing from lo-fi d'n'b, to dubstep, to jazzed out hippin' breaks. At first it all seams little underwhelming, but rest assured this is one of the most accomplished breaks/hip hop releases you'll listen to this year.

Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - II

A few weeks back i said i was letting some albums grow on me. I didn't want to judge too soon. This was one of them, and i just can't stop returning to it. Like a tripped out prog soft electronic rock masterpiece from the future, this thing is so dreamy it almost makes me wish i could fly... At times sounding like a more organic version of Shpongle; from the opening track to the final note this album feels like nothing else. But be warned, it is not for the short of attention span as tracks build and build over minutes, with huge peaks and troughs, mutli-layering, crazed synth-lines and weird "what the fuck was that?" moments. MiNd aLteRing ShEEite..?><

Mothra - Dyes

no, not the dredful nu-metal cretins that crawled out of buttfuck USA in the late 90's. These guys are from Poland, and all i'll say is... if you grew up poor and hungry in Poland, you'd make hardcore punk as angry, unhinged and downright miserable as this... RAWK!!!

Things to look forward to:

new The Roots album
new lil wayne - please don't suck... but i have a bad feeling about this "rock" album
finally the new Datarock album.. good god take your time boys!

short and sweet

OK, boys and girls, just two quick albums that are worthy of your attention. In the process of going through some albums that are 'growers', so i'll write about them shortly... out!

Kylesa - Static Tensions

Remember that kid at school that used to liked Black Sabbath, always smelt of weed and loved drawing violent cartoons on his arms. Well that kid grew up and started a band called Kylesa - a progressive sludgey stoner RAWKin' metal band that loves the dusty desert riff. Think, Queens of the Stone Age, just wasted on mushrooms and on the verge of a psychotic episode. The production is as dirty as it gets and simply demands to be played while speeding in a car. In fact, this is your new car music... now go wrap that muscle car round a pole!

Filastine - Dirty Bomb

This is not new. In fact, when it was released in January it slipped under most peoples noses. It's music from the not to distant future. Equal parts dub-step, hip hop, cut and paste and breakcore all wrapped up with a world music slant. If you want proof of how inventive music can be, then this demands your attention. This is a truly mesmerizing talent, and what i love is this albums sounds like only a peak into the genius to come. If you want to know what global urban music sounds like, give this a few spins.

Long time between drinks

Sorry folks, been away on travel for a few weeks, but I'm back in the game and ready to alert you to some great new sounds from around the world.. we've got some dance, some metal and some hip hop for y'all....

The Empty Foxhole 2 - mixed by Stefan Goldman

Stefen Goldman has been a prolific producer of minimal tech and spacious house for the last few years. This compilation mixes his own productions alongside other minimal masterpieces and is clear proof he's at the top of his game. It's a real headphone trip, with the mix washing from glitchy minimal to techy inspired house. There's really so much to discover here, which is not usually the case in minimal mixes. Effortless in it's simplicity, devastating in it's outcome.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse

ANb are a strange beast... on first inspection back in the early 2000's they seemed like another joke band out to terrorize the world with chainsaw guitars, drum machine insanity and old school hardcore style. Their songs, often with tempo's over 1000bpm, were produced with the aim of offending the listener as much as possible. But on this album ANb show a great deal of maturity with amazing song structures, technical wizadry and diversity to burn. They have lost none of their hardcore crusty punk edge and grindcore stylings, more just expanded on their sound with extra vocalists and more genre hopping... For some reason these don't make the album disjointed, as there's a real thread running through this chaos... can't wait to see it live too.

Madlib - Beat Konductor vol. 5-6

Alright well Madlib isn't exactly an unknown quantity but his albums of instrumental patchwork hip hop will be less talked about than his productions for other hip hop heavy weights. This album is his tribute to the late Jay Dilla and really pays homage to the old 'cut and paste' style. Don't let that put you off, because the production is flawless, soulful, seamless and funky... If you are a bit sick of some dude just rapping over a beat this could be the hip hop album for you. It will garner tonnes of new fans... if anyone ever hears about it?!?!?!