Top 10 albums by Brian Veysey

1. The Bug, London Zoo 
By virtue of the alphabet this is the best album of the year. This album may be the summation of all those much-hyped British electronic subgenres that never really caught on in the states for whatever reason. Sparse beats and blips seamlessly stretch into elastic electro noise without warning as some of the best rappers in England destroy every verse.

2. DJ/Rupture, Uproot
Unlike the folks at the Hood Internet or a certain laptop DJ a couple spots below, Rupture crafts tracks from bits and pieces of recorded sound from around the world and conjoins them in a way that compliments the feel of the track.

3. Fuck Buttons, Street Horrrsing
Fuck Buttons are more than capable fire starters, and after fully living up to hype rarely associated with experimental bands, they released this album, full of blissful screams, washes of lo-fi electro noise and song structures that appear superficially to be casually constructed but show signs of skillful premeditation with repeated listens.

4. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
In which Greg Gillis takes the roughly 300 songs that the radio knows, cuts, pastes and spins them into a kaleidoscopically diverse stew of beats, soaring harmonies and roaring guitars. Using more sophisticated editing techniques than his previous albums, he layers samples so densely it lays waste to any criticism due to the complete absence of material composed by Gillis in the traditional sense. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that one of the many highlights of the album is cribbed, more or less, unadulterated from the song “Footloose.” I’ll get over it.

5. Health, Disco 
Remix albums are typically an opportunity for a band to maintain brand visibility while simultaneously securing themselves from criticism. Here, Health uses the medium of the remix to redefine themselves as heirs to the Prodigy’s legacy. The source material for this album is culled from a single LP released last year and many tracks receive multiple remixes. Any of which you could play back-to-back and only notice sparse similarities. Acid Girls’ second remix of “Triceratops” bears the least in common with its source material, or anything of this earth for that matter, and may be one of the most intense electronic tracks in years.     

6. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
So he really might be the best rapper alive, but his competition isn’t as far behind him as Weezy would like to believe, except in terms of chart positions. Most of them did take the year off, though. The only thing that can be said of Tha Carter III is that those who haven’t yet heard the non-single tracks will not be disappointed. From the blazing intro, “3 Peat,” to the blazed-out political commentary of the Nina Simone sampling closer “dontgetit,” the missteps and self-indulgent moments only add character to one of the few simultaneously innovative and popular albums of this or any year. 

7. Nachtmystium, Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1
The countless Sabbath-by-way-of-Floyd references this album has groped for with its title and opening track are justly earned. While in the past this combination of influences generally leads to music as pretentious as it is loud, singer/writer/guitarist Blake Judd shifts between the two influences seamlessly and uses them as a foundation to push his sound forward incorporating modern experimental elements, and decidedly non “metal” instruments like samplers, synths and saxophones.

8. Ponytail, Ice Cream Spiritual 
Ponytail builds on the budding B-more freako scene with an album that sounds like something Deerhoof would record if they were a little more inclined to have fun or were getting drunk with the Minutemen. The vocals consist of singer Molly Siegel’s energetic yelps, with occasional shout-alongs from the rest of the band while they try to cram angular, mile-a-minute guitar solos in between satisfyingly crunchy riffs.  

9. School of Seven Bells, Alpinisms 
Last year Benjamin Curtis left the periodically enjoyable Secret Machines to focus on this project with twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. The result is one of the few updates of the shoegaze genre to show any strong sign of progress since its decline in the early ’90s. Not content merely to add “texture” with his guitar, or settle for the sometimes inane riffage of his previous band, Curtis plays his guitar off the two vocalists interweaving harmonies.

10. Valet, Naked Acid
Honey Owens’ guitar (and, occasionally, Mark Burden’s drums) never seem content simply filling conversational pauses. They unexpectedly flitter in and out of a misty garden of electronics and vocals just long enough to grab the listener’s attention and direct it back to the ethereal beauty surrounding them. Fortunately, ambient music has a limited audience outside of the yoga community, so few will complain about the use of dynamics or the two dreampop nuggets that close the album.