Hastily compiled: the best albums of the year. Not a vintage for year albums, a little worse for British artists with only two featuring in my list. Click artist for artist website, and album title for a link to buy the album…

10) Massive group album of the year
I’m from Barcelona - Let me introduce my friends
An album i’m not excited about. Nor would I find myself recommending it top impress girls. But: I have listened to it a hell of a lot and when I consider it - It’s one of the best albums of the year. Indie-pop from guess where. Sweden. I could build a treehouse… but I spent way too much time listening to this superb work of pop from large groups of people who apparently aren’t actually that nice. But I haven’t met them all. So we’ll let the music sum them up….

9) Solo effort album of the year
Miho Hatori - Ecdysis
Folk-tronica? j(apanese)-pop. A journey through style, substances and like most of my albums of the year: storytelling

8) Local band album of year
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Their third best album, but still an incredible work. Huge, delirious: a composition of unquestionable ambition. More space-rock.

7) Infectious album of the year
Tilly and the Wall - Wild like children
Indie-Pop tap dances all over Connor Oberst dead corpse. Only he is still alive. But that won’t stop them having a great time. Anthems of the year contained within.

6) Best album of the year that only requires one listen
Regina Spektor - Begin to hope
A few incredible songs that drag this, as with Daft Punk’s Discovery album, up to the top echelons of the years picks. Fidelity, Samson, Better and Us. It’s hard to say the rest of the songs pull it down, when music like this is there. Folky and quirky, but so much more heartfelt than Newsom (see: Ys). Not so rough as previosu commitments to tape, but it goes down fantastically.

5) Under the radar album of the year… + British Album of the Year
D_Rradio - U_nderscore
Organic and over-grown electro. I use the word organic metaphorically to imply that this isn’t the work of an automaton, nor a human machine. A sleathy under-the-radar sort of album that appears briefly, demonstrates colour, dance and liquidity then disappears again. It’s a series dispersed, but fantastic moments of crescendos and lull. And like many great electronica albums, is best appreciated in wide open and isolated spaces.

4) Back to the Future award for not being very 2006.
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Hot property on the interweb this year. Electronica meets the periphery of Eastern European folk. Grandoise and maturing. The neccessary balancing point for popular music: it equals out all that seeks influnce in the Sixties and modern guitar.

3) Best non indie Album of year
Ali Farka Touré - Savane
Some of the finest Desert-Blues you are a likely to hear. An album that will never time, nor became less needed as pretenders come along. Transcends “world music”.

2) Best indie + rock album of the year
Tv On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Avant Garde rock where every instrument asserts it’s right to a voice. It’s an evil and paranoid kaleidoscope of sounds, with the bass turned up on every noise, and spreading this mix lightly across 11 tracks that some how outgrow their start and end points. Exploding with frustration at contemporary music and modern life.

1) Album of the year:
Joanna Newsom - Ys
One of the most perfect and literate albums that I feel tells me a story of exuberance, folkiness. A sophomore anti-folk album that rings with highs and lows, orchestras and monkey-bear love. The wonderful lyrics guide you, Newsom opens the doors and lets you walk into her wonderland. She’ll never leave you isolated, but you why should you? It plays like it has always been there. Joanna Newsom breaths fresh air into her musical career, with a powerful, careful and tempered album that is 5 tracks all above 6 minutes in length that fill a gaping hole in everyone’s 2006.

mp3s’ by all these artists are listenable and linked to at the mp3 blog search engine and listening device The Hype Machine.

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You want tracks? Top 20 later this week.

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Thoughts? Best album of the year? Most anticipated album? Use the star rating system to rate the list….

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