- Academy Fight Song– Mission of Burma
- You’re My Only Home– Magnetic Fields
- Love is Not Love– Cate le Bon
My three top new albums this year have all been by female solo artists, two of whom are Welsh, Cate le Bon’s Crab Day, Gwenno’s Y Dydd Olaf (the Last Day) and Artangels by Grimes. Crab Day is well worth checking out, combining influences from spooky 70s folk, Fleetwood Mac and Devo. - Come on Let’s Go– Broadcast
- Man on the Moon– R.E.M.
- Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth? Minutemen
The Minutemen have always come across as genuinely good people who genuinely loved playing together and actually lived according to their ethics and treated other people well. The We Jam Econo documentary is now free on Youtube. - The Red Telephone– Love
- Interstate 5– Wedding Present
- Dawns Y Blaned Dirion– Gwenno (Dance of the Kindly Planet)
- Golau Arall– Gwenno (Other Light)
A Welsh-language electronica album based on a dystopian Welsh book.The lyrics and translations are available on the website. - New Seeds– Boards of Canada
- Come to Dust– Boards of Canada
The finest soundtrack to post nuclear apocalypse there is. - Metro– Berlin
I was reading an article on Stereogum from the Weird 90s series (well worth reading), where the writer was recalling a strange period of the late 90s where swing-revival stuff like the Cherry Popping Daddies was preferable to this song. - Invisible Sun– Police
I don’t like the Police at all. So when I was listening to a radio show playing a retrospective of George Martin’s work and this came on, I was pleasantly surprised. A good story I read once about the Police was that at some point in the 80s at a Rolling Stones concert someone announced to Keith Richards that the police were here to see him. So he frantically got rid of all his drugs, and then in walked Sting. - Who Be Lovin Me– Santigold feat ILoveMakonnen
The song could really do with more of Santigold herself, but I think the fact that ILoveMakonnen really can’t sing definitely adds something to the woozy sound.