40

The Field, From Here We Go Sublime [Kompakt]

Axel Willner is probably the best artist signed to Kompakt in the last couple years; he follows his promising ‘Sun & Ice’ EP with this album, his first full-length. Some have argued that this album’s production values are weak and/or lazy (Willner doesn’t bother editing or refining his tracks very much, as reported in interviews), but the quality is easily enough to overcome it. This is hazy, gauzy, blissed-out techno; repetitive but never boring.

~ playbynumbers

Official Site  Buy from Amazon 

Download: A Paw In My Face

39

PJ Harvey, White Chalk [Island]

PJ Harvey is an artist who sheds her skin with each album, unloading a weight off of her chest leaving us to enjoy it. White Chalk sees her do away with her rock 'n' roll roots, taking up the piano and singing in a calm, sensitive and high-pitched voice. She has to be congratulated for having the courage to compose an album that is essentially amateur, but overloaded with raw, frank emotion. It's that courage that is responsible for most likely her most accomplished album to date.

~ acidtongue

MySpace  Buy from Amazon 

Download: To Talk To You

38

Distance, My Demons [Planet Mu]

Distance’s first album is a true head banger, and seeing as how he started out in the metal scene, this album truly belongs to that heavier bass side of dubstep. My Demons just sounds dirty, with grime just completely clogging up my subwoofer. Not until the end song, ‘Delight,’ while still sounding a little grubby, does the whole album come into acuity. This was a complex attempt by Distance to create a dubstep album, which is hard to do without sounding the same on every track involved.

~ Neveryan

MySpace  Buy from Amazon  Download from eMusic

Download: Delight

37

Venetian Snares, My Downfall (Official Soundtrack) [Planet Mu]

By now Aaron Funk needs no introduction. From Winnipeg, Canada, Funk has been producing experimental idm, glitchcore and orchestral breakcore for renown labels, such as Hymen, Sublight, and of course, Planet Mu. With his critically acclaimed and instantly recognizable style, Funk drops drilling breaks over synthesized symphonic instrumentation which is often sliced up with snare rolls. My Downfall is meant to satisfy the fans' cravings for a follow up to his last album, Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, which pretty much overturned the scene by presiding over the unlikely union of modern classical and breakcore. But in his own downfall, Funk takes a further step into chamber composition, scattering abstract numbered sketches titled Holló Utca (Raven Street in Hungarian) throughout the album, as well as heart breaking, mourning pieces that seep under your skin and touch in all the wrong places.

~ Headphone Commute 

MySpace  Buy from Amazon  Download from eMusic

Download: Integraation

36

Message To Bears, EP1 [Self-released]

Searching MySpace for quality music is not an idea I’d recommend. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t talent there hidden behind all the death metal and emo. Case in Point is Message To Bear’s Jerome Alexander, whose debut EP (read: mini-album) is some of the most gorgeous guitar-based music I’ve heard all year. Jerome blends the gentle rhythms of his guitar with other instruments to create the soundtracks to bike rides in the summer, or strolls through the English countryside, where this style of music seems to be picking up steam (and makes the English country sound not so bad after all).

~ onecaseman

MySpace 

Download: Found You And You're Safe

35

Fairmont, Coloured in Memory [Border Community]

Fairmont surprises with his new Border Community identity that is making not minimal but maximal music that almost creates its own trance/post-rock/indie/rock mix of a genre. It's a wonder how these completely different tracks can come together to make a meaningful whole, it's as if it's an experiment of what could be done in techno. Full of emotional and epic feeling, absolutely superb.

~ acidtongue

MySpace  Buy from Amazon 

Download: Flight Of The Albatross

34

LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver [DFA]

The peaks of this album lack the immediate front-brain pleasure of earlier LCD singles (‘Yeah,’ ‘Tribulations’), but upon further listens, James Murphy turns out to be up to something much more interesting. He has improved a great deal as a lyricist, adding some depth and grandeur to his signature DFA production style, and proving the critics wrong by branching out into his own distinctive sound (and no longer merely imitating his krautrock and post-punk predecessors).

~ playbynumbers

MySpace  Buy from Amazon 

Download: Someone Great

33

Kashiwa Daisuke, Program Music I [Noble/MIDI Creative]

Program music dates back to the Renaissance period, when composers crafted ideas around specific scenes or tales. Evolving with the help of Ryuichi Sakamoto's radio program, Daisuke compiles an album of two timeless songs (36 and 27 minutes each, respectively), wrapping oriental melodies around two stories. In "Stella", Daisuke captures the celebrated 1927 Japanese children's story, "Night on the Milky Way Railroad" through live piano, guitars, strings and glitched out port-rock beats. The second song, "Write Once, Run Melos" is based on another Japanese animated film, in which a Greek country man, Melos, gets accused of conspiracy against the king. Indeed, both pieces capture the fantastical and magical worlds that exist only in our childhood memories, and it's too easy to lapse back into the past through Daisuke's music which possesses strong lyrical and visual elements.

~ Headphone Commute 

MySpace  Buy from Darla 

Download: Sample from Program Music I 

32

False, 2007 [M_nus]

One wonders how Matthew Dear finds the time to excel under both monikers Audion and False, as well as himself. 2007 is really a minimal techno set with tracks merging into each other, exploring many soundscapes. Making you feel like your brain is swaying from side to side, it forces you into enjoying the subtle bass. And it's also a pleasure to be able to hear that particular Matthew Dear style of rhythm here too.

~ acidtongue

MySpace  Buy from Amazon 

Download: Alright Liar

31

Uusitalo, Karhunainen [Huume]

Sasu Ripatti's most successful moniker of the year! Karhunainen was a surprise after the previous Uusitalo album Tulenkantaja. Karhunainen takes Tulenkantaja's techniques a step further, creating one of the best techno albums of the year. Minimal with a great treatment of melody that is almost ambient, Karhunainen manages to keep its audience getting lost in the beat.

~ acidtongue

MySpace  Buy from Amazon 

Download: Korpikansa