i. Black To Comm – Alphabet 1968
Droning ambience. No edges or blisters here, only a Sylvain Chauveau kind-of light and a rare fragility.
ii. Monolake – Silence
Techno and Dub distilled into a minimal, sublime and discreet masterpiece.
iii. Vic Chesnutt – At The Cut
The bodycount has reached number 2 for this year’s top 10. Jack Rose in Thanos’ list, now Vic Chesnutt, who just before commiting suicide released one of the most bleak and unnerving records ever to be dubbed “folk” or “indie”.
iv. Heroin And Your Veins – Nausea
The underbelly of garage, surf, rockabilly is where HAYV choose to position themselves to grab the right mood, the exact moment the needle breaks the skin and the razor finds the throat.
v. Sylvester Anfang II – ST
Sylvester Anfang proudly fill a position generally reserved for Circle, in terms of modern krautrock and psychedelia. Less freak-folk, less acid, more motorik, more blissed-out repetition, a name that pays tribute to Amon Duul II but music that gestures to Can and Faust, these guys know the history, know the tricks, and most importantly, how to still sound original.
vi. Radian – Chimeric
Surgeons with guitars, laptops and a drumkit operate on the worm-riddled corpse of post rock. They cut through bone with glitch, they clear arteries with ambience, they give the heart a polyrhythmic beat, and something new altogether emerges from the mouth.
vii. The Thing – Bag It!
Imagine one of the most furious and innovative free-jazz trios of our time produced by Steve Albini. Enough said (except that the opening track is completely jaw-dropping.)
viii. SUNN – Monoliths & Dimensions
After an already stunning live album aptly titled Domkirke, O’Malley and Anderson join forces with an orchestra and a choir, and prove that, well, nobody can do it as well as they can. (Highlight: the closing track, Alice, a haunting tribute to the late wife of John Coltrane.)
ix. Converge – Axe To Fall
The natural continuation of the direction the band follows since their previous release, No Heroes, with an array of collaborations which include none other than the master Steve Von Till himself, Converge create an album as aggressive as it is atmospheric. Stark contrast between opener Dark Horse which nods to their strictly hardcore punk roots and closer Wretched World, a move into post-metal territory in the vein of the title track from Jane Doe and Grim Heart/Black Rose from No Heroes.
x. Defeater – Travels
A concept album by a hardcore band? As easily as this could turn out a joke, Defeater are uncompromised and painfully emotional. To quote VNV Nation, they are in a mood of “total war”, a war with the outside world as well as a blistering internal conflict.
Posted in Subjekt
stealing the light 
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