AOTY

1. Panda Bear - Tomboy

The music still has the hallmarks of Lennox’s Brian Wilson-indebted sound, but what could have seemed like a flash-in-the-pan as a single album has become a fully formed beast on ‘Tomboy’. The difference between Lennox’s re-appropriation of techno, doo-wop, dub, world music and goodness knows what else, and most other pallid attempts at the same kind of thing, is that it sounds like he actually loves what he does. Not only the music that comes out of it, but the listening part – I get the sense that he really listens to the sounds, and when they appear on a song they feel sincere. The chunky oldskool rap break on ‘Slow Motion’, the doubletime Shangaan-style electrified kalimba of ‘Surfer’s Hymn’, the hazy drugged-up house of ‘Afterburner’; somehow it holds together, and usually by Lennox’s incredibly distinct songwriting and reverberating vocals. Like a great mixtape there’s something intrinsic that holds things together, maybe a theme, a small sound or a sample that just seems like it was plonked in just the right place at the right time. ‘Tomboy’ isn’t a record that ever gets dull, and through the mish mash of styles and the rampant experimentation it makes for an album that is more mature and more contemplative than its predecessor. Deep beneath the chattering samples and choirboy vocals there is the beating heart of a record that is likely to haunt you for the rest of the year. (Boomkat)

2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

Sure they managed to strip down the distinctly West Coast sound of The Beach Boys and fuse it with Simon and Garfunkel and that should be an easy sell, but their sound was much more than that, and 'Helplessness Blues' shows exactly how deep their ideas flow. The 'difficult' second album is only ever made more difficult with universal critical acclaim, but instead of offering simply more of the same the band appear shadowy and somehow more minimal. The distinct chamber choral qualities have been accentuated, and the distinct, poignant 'movements' of their songwriting have risen to another level entirely. This is far from the regular indie rock you might expect to be gracing the pages of the NME, and is thankfully just as distanced from the nauseating pop-folk of Mumford and Sons. 'Helplessness Blues' is an assured, consistently interesting record from a band who seem unafraid to challenge their listeners. Sometimes it's easy to forget that folk music was about telling stories, and Fleet Foxes' stories are as enchanting as they have ever been. (Boomkat)

3. Real Estate - Days

Recorded in Upstate New York through the late winter/spring of 2011 with Kevin McMahon (The Walkmen, Titus Andronicus), Days is a gorgeous suite of timelessly melodic, achingly melancholy pop songs and a delightfully confident follow-up to 2009's exceptionally well-received eponymous debut. Comprised of nine new recordings and a revisit of last year's enduringly wonderful 'Out of Tune", days is the next step in the career of a uniquely close songwriting collective that feels more important with their every release. (Boomkat)

4. Memory Tapes - Player Piano

Dayve Hawk's sepia-tinged early work presaged the hypnagogic pop and chillwave explosion, but for this, his second album proper, he claims to have drawn inspiration from insomnia, social awkwardness and a relationship meltdown. Not that you'd know it just from listening: for all its melancholy undertones, this is an album with a strong, bright pop sensibility; tracks like 'Wait In The Dark' 'Player Piano' are wonderfully hooky and direct, but still sufficiently strange and skew-whiff to reward listen after listen. 'Yes I Know' is just beautiful: with its martial drums, lovelorn harmonies and graceful strings, it's like a Pet Sounds number rendered in faded watercolours, while 'Offers' could be Ariel Pink if he was channelling 70s Canterbury rather than California. Memory Tapes has taken a giant evolutionary leap for this album, refining his instrumental palette and production technique to near-perfection; retaining a charming lo-fi patina while giving his beautifully composed songs the balance and detailed shading they deserve. It's just hugely accomplished and moving in a way that very little music is these days. (Boomkat)

5. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

In his interview with Spin magazine Gonzalez said of the album "It's mainly about dreams, how every one is different, how you dream differently when you're a kid, a teenager, or an adult. I'm really proud of it. If you're doing a very long album, all the songs need to be different and I think i've done that with this one." In all, the album's expanded instrumental range, its HD scope and acute sense of emotional engineering is just shy of requiring it's own Hollywood premiere, and for many of his fans that's probably a dream nearly realised. Mondo emo, bro. (Boomkat)

6. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

San Francisco indie types Girls might want to think their sound is indebted to the glory days of Neil Young, Randy Newman and The Beach Boys, but while those comparisons aren’t a million miles away, I hear a lot more of the 90s than the 60s in their pop nuggets. There’s a sense that these guys didn’t just grow up through that decade, but grabbed onto every bit of rock history they could; there’s a bit of latter day metal, a sprinkling of the kind of slacker indie that made Pavement shine, a wink to grunge and even a knowledge of Brit Pop that gets thrown into a blender and ground to perfection. The band are slick, but this wide range of influences makes for a strangely juxtaposed, oddly coherent listening experience. Far from the pop rockers you might expect them to be, the band genuinely seem to be taking risks on this third record, and that’s a very good thing indeed. From garage punk to doo wop, they throw everything at the board – and some of it really sticks. (Boomkat)

7. Destroyer - Kaputt

Destroyer, delivers a potential classic referencing the '80s pop of Scritti Politti, Roxy Music, Prefab Sprout and New Order. This is whimsical, subtly ambiguous pop music at its finest, full of lush, and ever-so-slightly off centre harmonies, dreamy vocals and incisive lyrics with a prime production polish. Impressive. (Boomkat)

8. Atlas Sound - Parallax

Bradford Cox, frontman for Deerhunter delivers the quietly positive pop glow of 'Parallax', his 2nd solo album for 4AD. 'Parallax' is imbued with a personal, introspective yet un-self-indulgent sound, fleshing out a classic soundscape influenced by original '50s pop hooks and space-age S-FX but always with an ear for more modern, slightly avant sensibilities. There's a gentle psychedelic aspect to his music, sharing something of a mild lysergic element with the likes of Ducktails, but with a "better" studio production, recording at NYC's esteemed Rare Book Rooms for a subtle yet detailed placement of sounds in his fragile, sensitively involved arrangements. Many would agree that it's his best work to date, mature, confident, and naggingly memorable. (Boomkat)

9. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

Seeping to the surface two years since his cherished and widely acclaimed 'Persistent Repetition Of Phrases' LP, 'An Empty Bliss Beyond The World' returns our doddering protagonist to the deserted ballroom, wandering its waxed floor and dilapidated grandeur in an attempt to capture an era which has long since disappeared but still haunts the atmosphere. In the meantime he's accessed an alternate set of memory banks with his derivés into Leyland Kirby land, but back in The Caretaker role, James Leyland Kirby conjures a quieter, more introspective spirit, lost in his own mind amidst a low-lit labyrinth of ever-decaying and antediluvian shellac phrases. Sourced from his mysterious collection of 78s, these vague snippets of archaic sonics reflect the ability of Alzheimers patients to recall the songs of their past, and with them recollections of places, people, moods and sensations. The effect is subtly amplified by the chronic vinyl cut at Berlin's D&M, allowing each memory to segue seamlessly and unpredictably into the next for an otherworldly and disorienting experience. Coupled with another deeply enigmatic artwork commission from Ivan Seal, 'An Empty Bliss Beyond The World', is a highly potent transmission from one of the most singular characters operating in music today. (Boomkat)

10. Grouper - Alien Observer

while the songs aren’t necessarily as clearly defined as those on ‘Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill’, they slowly and pointedly push up through Liz’s familiar gaseous layers of drone. Her distinct, breathy tones are initially barely audible over the mudded harmonies, starting life as ghostly echoes, but the further you get into each track the more clearly defined shapes start to emerge. It's music that no doubt changes with each listen and listener – you're left to fill in the gaps, and while we can hear the heaving breaths of the Cocteau Twins, The Red House Painters and This Mortal Coil wrenching themselves from the subconscious, you would probably come to a different conclusion altogether. ‘Alien Observer’ is a markedly different record from its predecessor, and comes across as a deeply thoughtful blend of the harrowing, sincere experiments of Liz’s early records and the sort of songwriting that lodged ‘Heavy Water’ in our collective memory back in 2008. Needless to say, this album and its duskier ally ‘Dream Loss’ are likely to set high water mark for this kind of thing in 2011 - Unmissable doesn’t even come close. (Boomkat)