It’s that time. List your top Albums, EPs, Mixes, Tracks, Music Videos, Films, Artists, Labels, Journalists, Books, Music/culture sites, Designers, Musicians, Radio Shows, Radio Stations, DJs, Record Shops, Articles, TV/Netflix, Live shows, Remixes, Social Feeds, Directors, Festivals, Clubnights, Venues &&&&tc. Maybe we’ll run some overall stats & make charts late Dec.
Prob avoid embeds & graphics on this one or it’ll get pretty heavy pretty quick.
top 10 albums
honorables:
Reto A Ichi – The Lapse of the Exchange / Alone Moving Often
DJ Koze – Knock Knock
Leslie Winer & Jay Glass Dubs – YMFEES
Fennec – So That I May See You Again
Lorenzo Senni – The Shape of RemixXxes to Come
Forces – Dynamics
Kanye West – ye
Yves Tumor – Safe in the Hands of Love
Szun Waves – New Hymn to Freedom
RXM Reality – Panic Cycle
Tourist Kid – Crude Tracer
Carla Bozulich – Quieter
@DanielKatinsky – Digital Concrete
Gabor Lazar – Unfold
ACT! – Universalist
@kindohm Starter Pack Meme
Ploy - Ramos
Ploy - Ramos
Ploy - Ramos
Voiski - Megatrance2
Impey - The Alchemist (Kromestar remix)
Borai & Denham Audio - Make Me
V.I.V.E.K - Where Were You
Ishan Sound/Hodge - C5
Hodge & Gramrcy - Barnohl
Makeness - Day Old Death (Dj Python Edit)
Dj Seinfeld - Sagrada
2 Bad Mice - Gone Too Soon (Sully Remix)
Dinamarca - Dino
Fever Ray - Wanna Sip (Olof Dreijer remix)
More Time Records
Slowthai
Hugo Massien
Albums/EPs:
Ouri - We Share Our Blood
Bryte - Too Good for your Liking
TSVI - Inner Worlds
Voiski - Sick Parrots
Robert Fleck - Soft Focus EP
Definite AOTY for me: Kaku P-Model - Kai=Kai. Absolutely fantastic album, wonderfully apocalyptic in its lyrics and overally completely trumps his previous work under the alias. Be sure to check it out if you were a fan of the soundtracks to Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent or Paprika, it’s the same dude (Susumu Hirasawa).
Other albums I really bloody enjoyed that came out this year:
Machine Girl - The Ugly Art
Gabor Lazor - Unfold
Weird Magic - ULU
Yves Tumor - Safe In The Hands Of Love
SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES
Goreshit - Nineties Rave Retrospective Collection 1
Oyubi - My Fingers
Ross From Friends - Family Portrait
Rabit - CRY ALONE DIE ALONE
Betonkust & Palmbomen II - Center Parcs LP
Honorable Mentions:
88Kasyo Junrei - Tokyo (I haven’t been able to listen to it yet! Need to import the CD still lmao)
Clarence Clarity - THINK:PEACE (Not as good as No Now imho)
Soichi Terada - Sumo Jungle Grandeur (Didn’t come out this year, but god I’ve been addicted to it)
GAS - Rausch (It’s good, but not his best.)
Diptera 001 [MANA]
Grim Lusk - SUNP0101 [Domestic Exile]
Terekke - Improvisational Loops [Music From Memory]
Vessel - Queen of Golden Dogs [Tri Angle]
@avery ugh! an absolutely fantastic album only available on YouTube? what’s the story behind the poor distro on the P-Model record?
my take its that 2018 was the year techno got tired and festival bros/ship fam started playing drumcode and other average techno that they missed and somehow learned was supposed to be cool but since they have no historical concept of what techno is, they just made it embarrassing for everyone. The better end of techno seemed to move in the more percussive end of the spectrum
electro and ebm took over the dark, edgy scene, even if the dark edgy scene didnt care.
HIp HOp is ubiquitous and house got breaky and better or techier and more formulaic
That’s Japan-only releases for you, buddy. It probably is on streaming services but only for that region and nowhere else. It’s incredibly annoying (see: that 88Kasyo Junrei album.)
So much good music both new and old this year! Very hard for me to pick out a top ten, so here’s a list of favs (in no particular order):
OPN ‘Age Of’
Gabor Lazar ‘Unfold’
Autechre ‘NTS Session 3’
Richard Devine ‘Sort\Lave’
Objekt ‘Cocoon Crush’
Lena Platonos ‘Galop’
Guerilla Toss ‘Twisted Crystal’ (super super fun record)
Can ‘Soon Over Babaluma’
Aphex ‘Collapse’
Maelstrom ‘Fragment’
Miss Red ‘K.O.’
Geinoh Yamashirogumi ‘Akira Symphonic Suite’
2 8 1 4 ‘Pillar / New Sun’
bod ‘Limpid Fear’
Eli Keszler ‘Stadium’
Sugai Ken ‘tele-n-tech-da’
Beak ‘>>>’
Lotic ‘Power’
The Future Sound Of London ‘Lifeforms’
Space Afrika ‘Somewhere Decent To Live’
East Man ‘Red, White & Zero’
B12 ‘Time Tourist (Expanded)’
Demdike Stare ‘Passion’
I could definitely go on for quite a while… 
Best show of the year was Autechre at Max Watts in Sydney. Incredible.
This year has been one of the best for music. I have found myself constantly finding new and different sounds from artists old and new. Whilst people from the past return presenting exciting material (Aphex and Earl Swearshirt being good examples of this,) a lot of new faces for me have appeared in the spotlight of this year.
Interested to hear what people have thought their favourite releases were. I think my favourite albums of the year looks like this:
So many releases I need to go back and relisten to though (Garies, Kamaal Williams, Nils Frahm, Leon Vynehall, Kamasi Washington)
Interested to hear what people think their favourite track of the year is as well! Whilst it’s hard to choose, I think sometimes there’s a big tune that people can choose.
Hope everyone is well :–)
There have been some really superb record labels as well. Whities and Trilogy Tapes continue to be awesome as hell. The other day I was put onto In Paradisum who seem to have a huuuge discography of releases. I plan to listen through these.
There’s no structure to my list. However I do consider Age Of my favourite album of the year.
@djcustard not embarrassed even slightly to say that the biggest tune for me this year was Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Party for One”. fuckin’ love her so much. either that or “Ghost Town” off ye…no surprise there, everyone loved that track…
@criminiminal The West stuff released this year has partly slipped underneath my radar, although I have listened to both Ye and Kids See Ghosts. Watching them finish Camp Flog Gnaw with Ghost Town was pretty impressive I thought. Originally my favourite track from Ye was No Mistakes. Freee is absolutely superb though, one of my favourite hip hop tracks of the year.
@criminiminal That is a great song. The end makes me feel so emotional. I find myself constantly changing what my favourite is. ATM it’s probably either We’ll Take It, Manifold, Raycats or Toys 2.
I’ve been making EOY lists for myself since 2016, always around December once things are fully wrapped up after a long year. Been thinking a lot about what I’ve been repping this year, and I’ve been listening to a lot of older stuff as well. It’s earlier than usual but here’s what I got so far (in chronological order of what I’ve listened to from the start till the end of this year):
Iglew - 2017 - any% in 60.00 (production mix on NTS, 20/12/17)
Mr. Mitch - VPN ft. Palmistry (Silk Road Assassins Remix)
Sully - 368ft High and Rising
Kiyoko - Sea of Trees
Synkro - Closed Doors (really went thru Synkros’ discography a lot this year)
Mokona - Love in Restricted Areas
almost everything from Samba this year, definitely one of the best newest names in dubstep/140 now
Boxed V Compilation (highlights: Swimful - Offline VIP / Iglew & Gundam - Illuminated)
Coyote Records releases this year (VIO_L3T - Cloud-Tech EP is a highlight, Sentinel is the best track on the EP)
slowthai - T N biscuits
Skee Mask - Compro (this LP single handedly made me a techno head after 5+ years of paying attention on/off to UK based post-dubstep techno scenes)
bladee - Dragonfly / Red Light
Suicideyear - Color the Weather
Kara-Lis Coverdale - Grafts
luna (FKA lunarboy) - starlight
Murlo / Sharda tracks released this year
select tracks from the drain gang D&G compilation (bladee - Dumpster Baby, ECCO2K - Black Boy / GT-R)
Sophie - The Way I Am
Yamaneko - Afterglow
Amnesia Scanner - Another Life
PAN - Mono No Aware [highlights: Yves Tumor - Limerence / ADR - Open Invitation]
Last Japan & Inner - The Projects
Lone - Ambivert Tools Vol. 4
Blood Orange - Chewing Gum (feat. A$AP Rocky & Project Pat)
Finn - Dance Music Has Betrayed Us All
and lastly… everything from Brockhampton and Kevin Abstract.
drafted this list about a week ago but so far, it’s a conclusion of my year. I guarantee the rest of the year will be dedicated to stanning Brockhampton though. Very obsessed with them now.