This is the end, the final installment of XLR8R‘s Best of 2011 coverage. We gave you our first 20 picks for the top releases of 2011 yesterday, and now we present the top 10.

10. Sepalcure
Sepalcure
(Hotflush)
On paper, the combination of Machinedrum (a.k.a. Travis Stewart) and Braille (a.k.a. Praveen Sharma) seems like an instant winner, but until this year, Sepalcure had yet to make its mark as an electronic project that could excel in the long-player format. With the release of the duo’s debut self-titled LP, all of that changed. Rarely is there a dull moment on Sepalcure; rather, the album continues to carve interesting spaces within the current UK-informed musical landscape, presenting thick pieces of moody bass music without a misstep in sight.

Once “Pencil Pimp,” the record’s second offering, takes hold, the listener sinks down into Sepalcure’s world, and the sonic spaces on display are nothing short of stunning. Along the way, the record lands on pieces of hyper-real emotions, in which layers of distantly related sound sources combine to a create thick globs of warmth, air, and low vibrations. Tracks like “Eternally Yrs” and “Breezin” push forward with their intricate assemblage of percussion beckoning movement, while tunes like “Yuh Nuh See” and “Hold On” lean heavy on the snare, cutting the proceedings into half-time to further explore the vast pockets in between. The results may not be the most diverse, but each track feels painstakingly put together. The richness of Sepalcure’s productions is as capable of revealing itself at any forward-thinking night club as it is in someone’s headphones. Glenn Jackson

9. Zomby
Dedication
(4AD)
At this point, it’s clear that Zomby is one of the most interesting producers operating today. While the mystery surrounding his reputation and persona continues to swell, that growth is paralleled by the increasing reverence for his fractured output. Dedication arrived about halfway through the year—admittedly, with a bit of trepidation, as the artist had been suprisingly quiet for more than a year and many also wondered, “What the hell is Zomby doing on 4AD?” As we soon found out, there was no need for concern.

Dedication is perhaps the most intentional-sounding release of Zomby’s career. Each sonic element feels meticulously chosen and specifically sculpted to fit his vision, as if Zomby had some mathematical formula for arriving at the theoretically perfect phrasing and rhythmic qualities of his synth lines. As the LP plays out, one gets the sense that Zomby is some sort of weird puppeteer-type overlord, a producer behind the curtain moving elements around purely to serve his own master plan. And with that, it’s hard to shake the feeling that he’s laughing at us, too—how else could one explain the brief track times? In seconds, “Alothea,” “Digital Rain,” and “Mozaik” reach heights other producers could only dream of attaining with hypnotic patterns and sparsely comforting arpeggios, only to teeter off before biting into something more substantial. More enticing (not to mention frustrating) are those beats that are ridiculously short, such as the tribal “Salamander” and the Timbaland-indebted mini-banger “Lucifer,” both of which last for less than a minute. Intentional or not, Dedication both requires—and continues to inspire—a lot of actual, real-life dedication from its audience. The glimpses Zomby offers into his world—no matter how brief they may be—are incredibly alluring, which is likely why his shadowy figure continues to ascend the proverbial mountain that is the UK production scene. Glenn Jackson

8. Oneohtrix Point Never
Replica
(Software)
It almost doesn’t make sense that Replica sounds as heady and highbrow as it does. Brooklyn producer Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never) has even said that he chose the drawing on the album’s cover because of its humorous qualities, and a large portion of the sounds he crafted the music from were lifted off a bootleg DVD of vintage TV commercials. It’s more or less common knowledge that, next to sex, humor basically drives televised advertising. It could also be argued that commercials are snapshots of the zeitgeist of any given era. On Replica, Lopatin deconstructs these time capsules to reveal parts of our everyday world that maybe we didn’t quite realize were there.

Though OPN isn’t exactly known for crafting sexy music, there is an insidious undercurrent to the gulps, sighs, and coughs that comprise the organic rhythms around which Replica‘s other main element—masses of Juno-60 synth tones—drift. It can all sound both beautiful and surreal at times, but listen to those warped sounds again and maybe they become inexplicably funny or nightmarishly inhuman from a different perspective. “Child Soldier” almost certainly samples a soundbyte from Street Fighter II, or maybe the preview of a martial-arts film, products which in and of themselves sound fun and inconsequential, but when applied to the song’s jarring composition, the repetitious sample becomes borderline maniacal. Lopatin plays with these flipped perceptions throughout his 2011 LP, which makes for a very smart collection of music that isn’t afraid to concede a nudge and a wink on occasion. Patric Fallon

7. Altered Natives
Tenement Yard Vol. 2
(Eye4Eye)
Without question, Tenement Yard Vol. 2 takes the crown for slept-on album of the year. Although the modicum of attention it did receive was mostly positive, for whatever reason, it seems like much of the electronic-music world shrugged at the latest full-length from Altered Natives. It’s too bad, because the lengthy effort—which clocks in at 15 tracks totaling more than 90 minutes in length—includes some of the best house music released all year.

Granted, it’s not the most dynamic album. Producer Danny Native was smart enough to realize that he’s already carved out a unique sonic niche, one defined by chunky low-end rhythms and driving beats, and simply used the bulk of Tenement Yard Vol. 2 to further explore that aesthetic. The music doesn’t rely on frills—or melody, for that matter—as its unpolished percussion and raw vibes are instead allowed to take the lead. Plenty of producers strive to create the perfect soundtrack for dark, sweaty basements, but Altered Natives has already perfected the formula, and continues to turn out quality tunes—in bulk, no less. Supposedly, Native is already at work on Vol. 3. Hopefully, folks will be wise enough to pay attention when it sees the light of day. Shawn Reynaldo

6. Martyn
Ghost People
(Brainfeeder)
In the wake of dubstep’s creative demise, an entire crop of artists has been set adrift. While terms like “post-dubstep” and “bass music” crudely attempt to draw links between an increasingly disparate number of sounds, the fact remains that a whole lot of producers are operating in a veritable no man’s land, without a singular scene or genre to call their own. In some ways, this processes has been incredibly liberating, particularly for artists like veteran producer Martyn. The Dutch tunesmith, who now calls the US home, had previously made the jump from one genre to another, shedding his drum & bass beginnings for the moody confines of dubstep, and Ghost People serves as documentation of another, more gradual shift.

Traces of low-end worship still remain in the music, but the album takes far more cues from the strident sounds of house and techno—most effectively on standout cuts like “Masks,” “We Are You in the Future,” “Horror Vacui,” and the title track. That said, Ghost People is not an example of an artist simply hopping from one genre to another in hopes of staying current with the latest trends. The music here is far too detailed and sonically rich for that sort of characterization. What Martyn has done is reach back into his own history with electronic music, painstakingly selected minute elements from a variety of styles and eras, and used those bits to thoughtfully construct something that sounds both familiar and unquestionably innovative. He’s allowing himself to evolve, and Ghost People seems to indicate that the process is unfolding beautifully. Shawn Reynaldo

5. Gang Gang Dance
Eye Contact
(4AD)
Let’s get this out of the way: Gang Gang Dance‘s Eye Contact has hands down the best beginning and ending we heard on an album in 2011. The sprawling psychedelia of opener “Glass Jar” starts with a human voice muttering, “I can hear everything. It’s everything time,” and the anthemic closing track, “Thru and Thru,” ends with a computer voice whispering, “Live forever.” If that doesn’t spell it out clearly enough, this record operates on a twisted quasi-logic all of its own, but a fan of Gang Gang Dance wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ve watched this band grow from a group of outright noise makers into an outfit of seasoned songwriters with the innate ability to meld together the most disparate sounds into a cohesive work of art, which is precisely what Eye Contact is.

Singer Lizzie Bougatsos leads her band throughout its new record; her presence is so strong that you can practically feel her swaying in place during the lengthy instrumental breakdowns and otherwordly interludes. But when she’s singing, well, it sounds like something between a young Kate Bush conducting a seance and an Arabian pop-star refugee pleading for freedom. The music matches seamlessly, too. A mixture of spacey electronics, rollicking drum patterns, Eastern-influenced melodic themes, UK dance music, and, somehow, straight-up guitar pop coalesce to make a sound that’s practically peerless and a record that’s more oddly infectious and effortlessly cool than anything else we heard in 2011. Patric Fallon

4. Balam Acab
Wander/Wonder
(Tri Angle)
When an album doesn’t immediately captivate you with its songwriting, there needs to be another element that, for lack of a better word, compensates. Maybe it’s a unique sound that resonates with your musical sensibilities, or maybe its a fully constructed sonic world that’s unlike anything you’ve experienced before. On Wander/Wonder, the debut LP by young artist Alec Koone (a.k.a. Balam Acab), it’s both of those things, but that’s not to say there’s an utter lack of songwriting skill within these eight productions. Tracks like “Apart,” “Expect,” and “Oh, Why” certainly have their own kind of loose structures; they sound like R&B and radio-friendly pop tunes written by mermaids and the ghosts of Rodgers & Hammerstein. It’s all quite arresting and beautiful, no matter what you think of its shape.

However, it’s ultimately Koone’s attention to detail and his knack for filling each moment of his music with layers of vibrant sound that outshines the songwriting. The producer himself has described his album as a journey, but for us, listening to Wander/Wonder feels more like floating underwater amongst the quiet, incandescent life of a choral reef. Each synth sound is like a flurry of bubbles rising to the surface or a school of glowing fish swimming across your view; the sonic textures feel like a handful of sand or your fingertips grasping onto a porous rock; every rhythm moves like a gentle current taking the pieces of the composition from one reef to another. It’s all so vibrant and fulfilling that you just about forget that this music isn’t the least bit normal at all, but exploring the unique structures of Balam Acab’s immersive universe offers a richness all its own. Patric Fallon

3. M83
Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
(Mute)
If M83‘s masterful double-LP, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, isn’t the best pop record released in 2011, it is without a doubt the most ambitious. The fifth proper studio album by the French-born Anthony Gonzalez, this 22-track offering sounds like the culmination of everything he’s done leading up to it, only expanded, widened, and rendered into true 3-D. It’s the unbridled energy of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts‘ electronic shoegaze, the widescreen concepts of Before the Dawn Heals Us, and the carefree nostalgia of Saturdays = Youth‘s pop hits boiled down to their purest forms and reconstituted as one magnum opus.

The arch of Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming isn’t steady in any sense of the word; powerful opening tracks “Intro,” “Midnight City,” and “Reunion” give way to drifting washes of ambient synths, subdued ballads, and giddy twee-pop about hallucinogenic frogs. And that’s just the first half of disc one. M83’s album is very much like a dream: You’re taken on a long, winding journey across an hour or so of some of the most dynamic and thoughtful songs written in 2011, but it’s a journey with no foreseeable conclusion and seemingly no point. It’s strangely beautiful, it’s deeply surreal, and it rarely makes any sense, but when it does, those moments are even more priceless.

And maybe this is the kind of record that is truly universal—quite possibly even timeless, too—because it is completely open for interpretation. We couldn’t begin to explain what lyrics like “We will dream on the shadow of our world” or “Send your dreams where nobody hides” actually mean, but when hearing them in the context of M83’s synth-driven music, it feels almost as if they were written just for you, a fact that has been fully evidenced by the album’s widespread and immediate success. Still, the best part of Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming has to be that it only marks the beginning of an auteur fully coming into his own. Gonzalez is a young man by all accounts, and will likely only continue to reshape, refine, and realize his craft. We’ll be there listening intently every step of the way. Patric Fallon

2. Rustie
Glass Swords
(Warp)
In 2011, it was quite common to praise electronic music based on what a producer didn’t put into a composition. Seriously, people (including us here at XLR8R) loved to compliment artists’ use of “sonic white space,” and descriptors such as “raw” and “stripped-down” almost surely indicated something positive. Well, Glass Swords, the debut full-length from Scottish producer Rustie, ascribes to none of those characteristics. It’s loud. It’s frantic. It’s anything but subtle. It’s also great.

Somehow, Rustie managed to toss elements of hip-hop, electro, trance, R&B, videogame soundtracks, prog rock, and ’80s funk into an aural blender and come up with something big, bold, and brimming with energy. Even as it shamelessly mines all sorts of nostalgia, the album’s varied elements have been so finely mixed and mashed that Glass Swords still sounds fresh, even as it’s blasting you with a wonky guitar riff or a melody loop jacked from a long-forgotten Sega Genesis game. In all honesty, most of the songs here aren’t very club friendly, as the album’s manic pace and herky-jerky rhythms would only be suitable for the most spastic of dancefloors. Even for home listening, there’s nothing relaxing about Glass Swords. Simply put, there’s a lot happening here, and Rustie brings it to you with all the subtlety and nuance of a slap to the face. Nevertheless, it’s quite possible that getting smacked upside the head never felt—or sounded—so good. Shawn Reynaldo

1. Holy Other
With U
(Tri Angle)
Even though UK producer Holy Other literally remains a shrouded figure, the mystery and mystique surrounding his persona has done nothing to prevent him from breaking out in a huge way in 2011. Anyone who’s kept up with XLR8R‘s Best of 2011 lists shouldn’t be terribly surprised that With U has been deemed our #1 record of the year. It may only contain five songs, yet two of those wound up in the top 20 of our best tracks list (those that didn’t make it wouldn’t have been the least bit out of place), and the EP was largely responsible for propelling Holy Other to the second slot on our wrap-up of 2011’s best new artists.

In all honesty, it’s hard to say a whole lot more about Holy Other and his music without sounding like gushing fanboys. Nevertheless, With U is an incredible record. Even with its dark and dour drones—which are incredibly intoxicating on their own merits—the EP is stuffed with tangible emotion, some of which is surprisingly bright and all of which is incredibly potent. The music was undoubtedly produced in the bedroom, but no other venue could be more appropriate for its genesis, as the ghostly whispers of the warped vocal clips and the lurching drag of its drawn-out melodies speak to a universal sense of isolation that unites us all.

There’s an undeniable feeling of longing that permeates the record—quite possibly making With U the perfect soundtrack for an existence in which technology has placed a whole world of possibilities just a few keystrokes away, yet people by and large inexplicably feel lonelier than ever. It sounds to us like Holy Other is searching for connection, only he doesn’t know quite where to look, and the vast expanse of the universe isn’t providing much in the way of easy answers. It’s a quiet struggle that we’re all grappling with, which is probably why so many continue to rally around these five deeply affecting tracks. Shawn Reynaldo

Check out the rest of XLR8R‘s Best of 2011 coverage here.

Here, we have the first part of the final installment of our year-end coverage, XLR8R‘s picks for the top 30 releases of 2011. Instead of pontificating about the trends, themes, and over-arching styles that colored in our favorite EPs and LPs of the year, let’s just get straight to the list. (Don’t worry, there’s plenty for you to read down there.) Check out #30-11 below, and come back tomorrow when we wrap things up with our top 10.

30. Andy Stott
Passed Me By
(Modern Love)
There was a strong undercurrent of techno in much of the electronic music released in 2011. Some of the most compelling efforts even went so far as to push that classic sound commandingly into the forefront next to heady, experimental sounds. One of the finest examples of this style of damaged techno came from Mancunian DJ/producer Andy Stott and his Passed Me By record for Modern Love (not to mention its commendable follow up, We Stay Together). Across those records, we’re shown a sort of bizarro world of dance-music history, a place where Detroit is actually an underground factory located on the Moon, endlelssly churning out as much clanking rhythm as it does grey space dust. Patric Fallon

29. Patten
GLAQJO XAACSSO
(No Pain in Pop)
It’s no easy task to try to make sense of Patten‘s debut album, GLAQJO XAACSSO, but that’s precisely what makes it so alluring. Amidst the thick swirl of thawed-out melodic fragments and half-audible vocal utterances, there is a rickety backbone of beats—mangled rhythms that float somewhere between the lean template of techno and the leftfield proclivities of IDM whilst mysteriously holding the whole flurry of sounds together. We can hear notes of Autechre and Actress within burly tunes like “Fire Dream” and “Blush Mosaic,” but more importantly, we hear the music of a talented young artist who’s as concerned with retracing the steps of his past favorites as he is with trailblazing new directions in electronic music. Patric Fallon

28. Hudson Mohawke
Satin Panthers EP
(Warp)
Hudson Mohawke isn’t usually described as a focused producer; the Scottish beatmaker’s hyperactive, bass-loaded creations are generally stuffed with an incalculable number of elements. His 2009 LP, Butter, had its share of transcendent moments, but ultimately proved to be more of an up-and-down journey. Satin Panthers, on the other hand, offers only five tracks, all of which are incredibly potent, particularly the horn-laden hip-hop of “Thunder Bay” and the skittering piano-house of “All Your Love.” Granted, those looking for a stripped-down, linear listen will still be left with their head spinning, but Hudson Mohawke has unquestionably trimmed the fat here, leaving behind a leaner sonic frame that we’re incredibly eager for him to keep exploring. Shawn Reynaldo

27. Space Dimension Controller
The Pathway to Tiraquon 6
(R&S)
Space Dimension Controller sure does seem like a weird dude. Where most artists—especially those lumped into the ever-expanding and always-evolving world of bass music—are content to simply turn out tunes, SDC goes a step further by concocting an entire mythology that’s intertwined with both his music and persona. (We’ll spare you all the details, but it does involve aliens, time travel, and the destruction of Earth.) The Pathway to Tiraquon 6 is the latest chapter in this saga, and presents a varied—yet compelling—listen over the course of its 11 tracks. Only occasionally delving into the ’80s electro-funk vibes the producer is best known for, the EP includes bit of pounding techno, low-key serenity, dancefloor-oriented psychedelia, and glitchy abstraction. More importantly, it’s all presented as a cinematic narrative that coincides quite nicely with the song titles and the record’s larger concept. The Pathway to Tiraquon 6 is definitely a sizeable journey, albeit one we don’t mind taking again and again, even if the final destination lies somewhere in deep space. Shawn Reynaldo

26. Tycho
Dive
(Ghostly)
When the “Coastal Brake” single dropped back in 2009, it was clear that Tycho (a.k.a. Scott Hansen) had stumbled upon a bit of musical magic, but the song ultimately only hinted at the potential of Dive, which is simply sublime. 2011 saw plenty of artists striving to create relaxed electronic soundscapes driven by sun-soaked melodies and underpinned by subdued percussion, but Tycho has refined the formula like no one else. Dive may hint at chillwave, but any use of that term ignores the fact that the LP contains none of the amateurish tendencies or purposefully lo-fi sonics that have become so intrinsic to the genre. This is a mature and detailed effort, one whose woozy melodies and deft incorporation of organic instrumentation are simply breathtaking. Dive‘s stunning cover art—created by Hansen himself, who does graphic design as the head of the esteemed ISO50 collective—depicts the vibrant streaks of a coastal sunset, and the music within is just as rich and hypnotic. Shawn Reynaldo

25. AraabMuzik
Electronic Dream
(Duke)
It bears repeating: Who would’ve thought that sampling contemporary trance music for use in by-the-numbers hip-hop beats would make for one of the most compelling and listenable mixtapes to drop in 2011? Hearing AraabMuzik‘s Electronic Dream for the first time induced one of our biggest “duh” moments in recent memory. Because, let’s be honest, we wouldn’t have given Kaskade’s “4AM” or “Why Don’t You Dance With Me” by Future Breeze so much as a cursory listen on their merits alone, but this young Rhode Island producer and Dipset affiliate was able to extract the small bits of each song that made them tolerable and craft something totally original out of it. If that’s not the pure essence of hip-hop production circa now, it’s certainly the product of a genius musical mind. Patric Fallon

24. Stingray313
Electronic Countmeasures EP
(Micron Audio)
There remains a real lore about the salad days of Detroit techno, an era when abandoned warehouses and the skeletal remains of the Motor City’s industrial past were being reappropriated by a music scene celebrating sounds that were similarly raw. It’s an alluring notion, which is likely why Detroit references—both real and imagined—continue to dominate so much of the discourse surrounding electronic music. That said, there are producers whose music truly embodies that harsh and quasi-mythical world, and one of them is Stingray313. Known best for his previous role as Drexciya’s tour DJ, Stingray kept himself busy in 2011, dropping a collaborative EP with Unknown to the Unknown and another solo EP on Trust, but it was Electronic Countermeasures that truly shined, more than anything for its unrelenting paranoia and absolutely uncompromising aesthetic. Its four songs are clearly not for everyone, often approaching 145 bpm and riding harshly along tinny, ear-splitting melodies. This is dark techno of the most menacing variety, and although it might inspire more nightmares than dance parties, it definitely caught our attention. Shawn Reynaldo

23. Battles
Gloss Drop
(Warp)
It seems like fewer and fewer albums are being released that can strike you dumbfounded by sheer skill while simultaneously sticking to your brain with captivating songwriting. But as Battles‘ sophomore record, Gloss Drop, clearly and commandingly exhibited, the feat is far from impossible. As if the locomotive drumming, mind-boggling guitar acrobatics, churning bass rumbles, and hyper-real electronics weren’t enough to make this LP an absolute marvel of modern music, the NY trio enlisted grade-a vocalists—like South American techno jetsetter Matias Aguayo and ’80s icon Gary Numan—to create what amounts to a vision of pop music beamed in from the distant future. Still, if Battles is around in the decades to come, chances are that the group’s forward-thinking sound will be continuously updated, as fully evidenced on Gloss Drop. Patric Fallon

22. Instra:mental
Resolution 653
(Nonplus)
People love to say that drum & bass is dead, and it really doesn’t help the genre’s cause when veteran acts like Instra:mental essentially abandon the sound completely. But when listening to Resolution 653, it’s pretty easy to forgive the UK duo for its lack of drum & bass loyalty. The album is more or a less a complete reinvention, one that finds the pair embracing an edgy, stripped-down aesthetic and delving headlong into classic ’80s electro for inspiration. Make no mistake, this is not an exercise in nostalgia, even if the 808 sounds come hard, fast, and often over the course of the album’s 13 tracks. It’s extremely difficult to create something heavy enough to appease the dancefloor bros while remaining innovative enough to satisfy the chin-scratching heads, but Instra:mental walked that lined perfectly this year. When taken into account alongside the two producers’ solo work as Boddika and Jon Convex, the duo was absolutely dominant in 2011. Shawn Reynaldo

21. LV feat. Joshua Idehen
Routes
(Keysound)
LV‘s debut LP, Routes, couldn’t have gotten off to a better start than with the infectious “I Know.” From the onset, you’re spun into LV’s playful rhythms and precise production, as they mangle, chop, and rearrange Joshua Idehen‘s unique voice to no end. The seasoned trio of producers and their part-street poet/part-bonafide MC collaborator move between futuristic funk and murky rhythmic depths, touching on the quintessential sounds of their city with tunes like “Northern Line,” “Melt,” and “Primary Colours,” eventually forming an image of the London underground that is intoxicatingly vivid. Glenn Jackson

20. Omar-S
It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It
(FXHE)
Detroit veteran Omar-S may not be a warm-and-fuzzy character, but the man is incredibly consistent. For nearly a decade, he has churned out track after track of deep, soulful house and techno while running his own FXHE imprint and operating completely on his own terms. At this point, the DJ/producer’s discography is more or less bulletproof, and It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It does nothing to change that. “Here’s Your Trance, Now Dance” may be the album’s indignant anthem, but there’s a lot more to this full-length, even with the artist’s decidedly no-frills approach. While “Ganymeade” and “Solely Supported” are hooky pieces of acid, the standout “Nite’s Over Compton” is a pointedly subdued piano-house number. Much of the album follows in that vein, keeping things cool and evolving gradually over extended runtimes. Even “Look Hear Watch,” which gets real nasty with an extended porno clip, is a mellow number. At this stage, Omar-S is smart enough to know that he doesn’t need to do anything fast or flashy to grab our attention, and that’s why his output continues to be so good. Shawn Reynaldo

19. BNJMN
Plastic World
(Rush Hour)
2011 saw BNJMN accomplishing a feat almost unheard of for a new producer: He issued two full-length albums equal in depth and sophistication within a single year. Plastic World kicked off the southern Englander’s run with 10 tracks of sticky, spiralling house. “Blocks,” BNJMN’s most distinct song to date, begins the record with little hesitation—taking the listener through the first of many dazzling webs strung together by revolving rhythms and rich, cascading melodies, which BNJMN uses to touch on deep, sometimes funky pockets of electronic weirdness and utter gorgeousness along the way. Although his follow-up LP, Black Square, could rightfully hold its own on this list, it was Plastic World that first brought us into BNJMN’s world and, ultimately, stands as a more complete statement of the producer’s detailed aesthetic. Glenn Jackson

18. Nicolas Jaar
Space is Only Noise
(Circus Company)
The year’s best new artist is also responsible for one of the most unique albums heard in 2011. Nicolas Jaar‘s Space is Only Noise is hard to pin down stylistically, even if it does offer up a lot of recognizable sounds. It’s obvious that the up-and-coming auteur is influenced by nostalgia—vintage house, French nouveau, musique concrete, jazz, classical music, and even a bit of blues all play a part in his aesthetic. But there’s something else, a certain je ne sais quoi, if you will, that gives Jaar’s spacious compositions their alluring edge. Maybe that essence is derived from his shockingly young age of 21 and the fact that he released his first record at 17; maybe it comes from the time he spent studying literature at Brown University; maybe it’s because he’s a wildly talented artist driven to carve his own niche into the ever-widening musical realm. The answer is likely all of the above, as well as a number of reasons we couldn’t even begin to guess. Listening to Space is Only Noise raises a lot of questions, which is a large part of why we continue to return to it. Patric Fallon

17. The Field
Looping State of Mind
(Kompakt)
There’s never been a question as to whether or not Axel Willner (a.k.a. The Field) is a patient artist, and Looping State of Mind is perhaps his most patient record yet, taking Willner’s loop-based productions into deeper meditations than ever before. What emerged was a collection of tracks that flow with the ease of repetition, drawing the listener further into the compositions as they begin to slowly open and reveal the depths held within the course of their elongated runtimes. While Willner’s ideas may seem simple—create a loop, add to it, repeat—it’s the details that make Looping State of Mind shine with complexity and intelligence, as he forces you to accept a repeating phrase as complete (by showing it to you over and over again), only to add another element that fits in just the right place. In doing so, Willner has crafted an album that is as subtle as it is overwhelming. Glenn Jackson

16. Tim Hecker
Ravedeath, 1972
(Kranky)
Here is an album that at once harkens to a place and time while existing in a reality all of its own. Built from organ and piano music recorded inside a church in Reykjavik, Iceland, Ravedeath, 1972 is a monumental album, a statue of icy white noise and cavernous melody. This is Canadian artist Tim Hecker‘s sixth proper solo LP, and the decade spent fleshing out that respectable discography shows in these 12 compositions. Hecker boasts the capability to craft visceral, unworldly noise, as many of his peers do, but it’s the practice of restraint and the achingly beautiful bits of recognizable sound interwoven with that grating audio that sets him and his album apart. Songs like “The Piano Drop” and “In the Fog III” woudn’t be half as lovely if we didn’t know that buried somewhere under the gnarled mess of cascading frequencies, there was a human at work, orchestrating it all. It’s that dichotomy between the organic and tangible source material and Hecker’s deconstructive process that makes Ravedeath, 1972 such a master work. Patric Fallon

15. Clams Casino
Instrumentals
(Type)
2011 saw an exponential rise in creative and forward-thinking hip-hop producers, none of which were as sure-footed and unique as New Jersey’s Clams Casino. The burgeoning artist’s work was featured on just about every mixtape worth its size in megabytes, but it was ultimately his solo instrumentals that encapsulated Michael Volpe’s trademark style. Arriving prior to his proper debut record for Tri Angle, the also-excellent Rainforest EP, Clams Casino’s self-released Instrumentals mixtape (eventually re-released by Type) presented the artist’s beats given to the likes of Soulja Boy, Lil B, and Main Attrakionz, only stripped of the rappers’ lyrics. What remained is an unlikely combination of gritty MP3 samples, ethereal melodies, disembodied vocal snippets, and crunchy rhythms that boom-click-clack over the top of it all. No one expected it, but Instrumentals somehow proved to be the best offering of hip-hop tunes to be heard all year. Patric Fallon

14. Scuba
Adrenalin EP
(Hotflush)
Paul Rose took an unexpected turn towards a new sound with the three tracks he released as Scuba on the Adrenalin EP, a record that arrived a little more than halfway through the man’s rather prolific 2011. As expected, the EP showcased Rose’s impeccable production and absolutely flawless sound sources, but no one anticipated that the title track would essentially be a big house tune infused with trance vibes. In the end, “Adrenalin” proved to be one of the year’s most infectious and surefire dancefloor hits, a track whose success was due as much to the anthemic mass of synths as it was to having one of the year’s most unforgettable basslines. B-sides “Never” and “Everywhere” continued this theme, mining ’80s dance-pop for inspiration and ultimately taking the form of two similarly retro-futuristic explorations. Glenn Jackson

13. FaltyDL
You Stand Uncertain
(Planet Mu)
Over the years, FaltyDL has proven himself a capable producer, no matter what corner of the electronic-music world he chooses to operate in. You Stand Uncertain, however, saw the Brooklyn resident’s imagination expanding to wider pastures than ever. As much IDM as it is UK garage, and as much druggy house as it is techno-infused dubstep, FaltyDL’s second full-length is almost unclassifiable as a whole; each track fully takes on its own distinct sonic perspective. With all its twists and turns, You Stand Uncertain is one of those albums where the listening experience varies from person to person, but we keep finding ourselves drawn to the frantically soulful “Lucky Luciano” (something like Aphex Twin meshed with Lone) and the deep, low-swinging “It’s All Good.” Glenn Jackson

12. Sully
Carrier
(Keysound)
Without question, the much-anticipated debut LP of London DJ/producer Sully lived up to the anticipation that preceded its release. Carrier is a record that seems to simultaneously exist in two camps; its moody chords and distant melodic touches come cloaked in emotional poignancy, while its footwork-indebted drum programming and grimey low end display the kind of edge only the darkest London streets can inspire. Sully’s 10 tracks of propulsive bass music have enough ravey stabs, monstrous drums, and percolating percussion to render nearly all of them appropriate for dancefloors. Standouts like “Let You” and “In Some Pattern” appear tailor made for peak-hour action, while the likes of “2 Hearts” and “Trust” are more appropriate for the later hours of a proper UK-bass set. Glenn Jackson

11. Kuedo
Severant
(Planet Mu)
Severant, the debut LP by Kuedo, had a whole hell of a lot hype to live up to. Just the fact that producer Jamie Teasdale had previously been part of the much-loved dubstep outfit Vex’d was enough to set expectations for this record unusually high, but there was also an article written by Martin “Blackdown” Clark that preemptively named Severant “one of the bass-music albums of the year.” As it turns out, he was dead on, and so were everyone’s expectations. Teasdale has made a thing of beauty with his first solo record, a cohesive work that at once evokes ’80s nostalgia, contemporary Southern rap, and the UK bass continuum. But we wouldn’t necessarily call Severant “bass music”; songs like the touching “Whisper Fate” and the crystalline “Reality Drift” sound more like Lex Luger sampling Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works than they do anything coming out of Bristol or London these days. In that sense, Kuedo used his album to sidestep any stigmas attached to one of the broadest genre titles in music today while also delivering to the fans of that sound exactly what they didn’t know they wanted to hear. Patric Fallon

Check out the rest of XLR8R‘s Best of 2011 coverage here.