Like a Scientist

With the sheer amount of music that is released and con­sumed by vora­cious fans and writ­ers like me, there’s no ques­tion that “best of” lists are a harsh and dif­fi­cult dis­til­la­tion of the year’s out­put. The lists can never rep­re­sent the total­ity of great music that was released. This goes espe­cially for 2010, for this year was per­haps one of the best in recent mem­ory for qual­ity releases that broke pre­con­cep­tions. The below list is my ver­sion of “hon­or­able men­tions,” those wor­thy releases that were a hair’s breadth from the “best of” lists and deserve con­sid­er­a­tion.

Daft Punk — Tron: Legacy (Orig­i­nal Motion Pic­ture Sound­track) (Disney)

Daft Punk has cer­tainly come a long way from Spike Jonze-directed videos of man-sized dogs and boom­boxes with this sprawl­ing orchestral-electronic sound­track to the highly styl­ized neon-soaked film.

Deru — Say Good­bye To Use­less (Mush)

I had never heard of Deru before this album but I wish I had. His mix­ture of hip-hop and emo­tive elec­tron­ics is so well accom­plished, it should be no sur­prise he is clas­si­cally trained. I wrote a pro­file of him for the now-defunct Cleve­land Inde­pen­dent.

EL-P — Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 (Gold Dust)

I still think I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is one of the best-produced hip-hop albums of all time, so I was extremely excited to hear that EL-P was putting out a new instru­men­tal album. The vocal-less ver­sion of “To Serve Man” is like some THX1138/Bladerunner–fueled under­ground club hype.

Eskmo — Eskmo (Ninja Tune)

This is basi­cally #16 to yesterday’s post, a sim­ply won­der­ful album. One of the most excit­ing and organic elec­tronic com­posers around, Eskmo pulled out all the stops for his debut on Ninja Tune. I reviewed this for FACT.

The Glitch Mob — Drink The Sea (Glass Air)

The Glitch Mob trio really went all out for their debut album. The bass punches the air through­out the tight set and really amps up the energy level. My full review is here.

Guido — Anidea (Punch Drunk)

Com­ing out of the Bris­tol “pur­ple” scene, Guido’s take is much more soul­ful, more focused on emo­tion than the some­times hyper sat­u­ra­tion of his con­tem­po­raries. I reviewed this for Lit­tle White Ear­buds.

Horse­power Pro­duc­tions — Quest For The Sonic Bounty (Tempa)

The sounds of 2005 live again with this new album from dub­step leg­ends Horse­power Pro­duc­tions. I hate to make this state­ment, but they really do put the “dub” in dub­step. Moreso than any other cur­rent act in that genre, you can hear the deep­ness of the sound design here.

Jneiro Jarel — Fauna (Kin­dred Spirits)

After the stel­lar Android Space May­hem EP, Jneiro Jarel turns in a fan­tas­tic, rainforest-inspired set of freeform beats and lovely com­po­si­tion with Fauna.

King Can­ni­bal — The Way of the Ninja (Ninja Tune)

A fan­tas­tic his­tory of Ninja Tune told through the lens of an impec­ca­ble sound sci­en­tist. My full review is here.

Mod­e­se­lek­tor presents Mod­e­se­lek­tion Vol.01 (Monkeytown)

Eas­ily the best sur­vey of bass music all year, Mod­e­se­lek­tor con­tinue to be one of my favorite voices in elec­tronic music. I reviewed this for Lit­tle White Ear­buds.

Reko­r­dah Presents Astro:Dynamics (Astro:Dynamics)

Still the best cover design of the year. The beats inside def­i­nitely live up to it, too. Read my full review here.

John Roberts — Glass Eights (Dial)

I recently saw John Roberts per­form a live set and it was inter­est­ing to see how he esca­lated the energy of his beau­ti­ful Glass Eights into a party stom­per. I reviewed this album for FACT.

Shack­le­ton — Fab­ric 55 (Fabric)

The Shack­le­ton sound is per­haps one of the most unique in mod­ern bass music, sub­tle low-end, echo­ing per­cus­sion and melody, cou­pled with dark, omi­nous atmos­pheres and nar­ra­tion. He show­cases this bril­liantly on one of the best com­mer­cially released mixes of the year.

Teebs — Ardour (Brainfeeder)

There is some­thing frag­ile and ele­gant about Teebs’ pro­duc­tion, an almost crys­talline tex­ture to the beats and sam­ples. When you look at his art­work, there is a dirty ele­gance to the marks as well. For me, that shows a mind con­stantly at work.

Toki­mon­sta — Mid­night Menu (Art Union)

I just love this album. It’s an incred­i­bly solid and gor­geous set of beats and melody from one of LA’s finest pro­duc­ers. Can’t wait to hear more from her.

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