25. Loscil
Sparse, moody meloncholia might not be a bad thing to have as a speciality. Loscil seems to have taken a bit of a kicking in some quarters from the critics, but at his best he is still producing some very compelling ideas.
Perfect music for staring at storm clouds, in other words.
24. Best Coast
This really is delightful. Garage rock with a hint of of Jesus and the Mary Chain mashed together with the bittersweet, love-lorn ramblings of songwriter Bethany Cosentino. And the Sun Was High - which, maddeningly, is not on BC's debut LP - could be just about the most uplifting song on romantic longing I've heard since I was a teenager.
As for Crazy For You, it's possibly the best thing you could listen to while snorting lemonade through a straw.
23. Javelin
Is this what they listen to in the hood? I'm not so sure, but Javelin this year strung together a sound so damn funk-filled, that it had me feeling it might be. No Mas was an album to be played at high volume in the car, at the very least, and with the top down if possible. But so rich was the hip-hop on show here, it would sound just as with it if you put it on while cruising along Skegness high street. Word.
22. Grouper
Liz Harris might have only released a couple of singles this year, but the haunting sound first properly heard by most on Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill is still reverberating around the alternative music scene. Rarely can an album so lethargic have sounded so captivating. And the singles - Vessel and Hold/Sick - bewitchingly picked up the thread of her previous work.
21. Hype Williams
I can't think of anyone since Burial who has given off so much mystery. Hype Williams - who the hell are they? The Guardian didn't have a clue when they profiled them earlier this year, and neither do I. They don't seem to have actually released anything that you can buy in the shops yet, but there's plenty of material on the internet. In sound, somewhere between some sort of post-hauntological excavatory 80s noise experiment and a DJ set of electronica played at half speed. Baffling, but interesting.
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