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10. Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun



This completely epitomised my long-time love for long, long music that you allow yourself to be enveloped in, to notice
all the subtle changes in sound and direction, music that makes you feel like you're almost there with the creators as
it's being made - this lush, pulsing album really makes you feel like you're there with Boredoms as they pound away
at the drums while the sea comes in. I don't know the story behind House of Sun but what I do know is that it is their
most trance-inducing song yet. A real experience of a release.

9. Gnaw Their Tongues - bubonic burial rites


(doesn't have a cover...)

An extremely intense sonic journey through so many facets of humanity - for example, the title track feels like you're
being led on a tour of all the pain and suffering in the world, through places which can only be described as hell on
earth, and then you're just dropped onto the ground to think it all through - and as the strings come in, you realise
this is an overwhelming sadness, beyond even anger. Truly the high point of GTT so far.

8. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin - Holon



An exercise in subtlety and rhythm, each song in this album builds ever-increasing structures starting from the simplest
little piano arpeggio or percussive shake, each layer twisting in a new level of complexity; each song has a really great groove
but at the same time it feels impossible to move to, each instrument playing in its own time signature but all coming together
to form this crazy addictive polyrhythm you want to experience over and over again.

7. Nadja - The Bungled & The Botched



This record took the whole idea of post-rock/metal and drone and shook it to its logical high-point. Every single note
and flicker of sound fits so well, like it was created just to be there for the song. Both songs breath from start to finish,
developing to a natural and incredible climax, though at the same time they both form a piece in itself, track one tiding over
into track two in a sea of explosive noise. Absolutely beautiful.


6. Guilty Connector - Beats, Noise and Life



Still one of the best noise releases I've ever heard. The first time I ever heard noise was in the track "Cosmic Conspiracy",
and it was truly overwhelming - at the time, I didn't know what to make of it, now, I revel in it. It's tough to define
exactly what makes noise great, but the sound in this record in particular works so perfectly. Works from the harshest layered noise
through really interesting percussive sound all the way to quiet, tinny, ambient sounds that leave you not knowing quite what to
expect. A truly unique and outstanding album.


5. Thomas Bangalter - IRREVERSIBLE (Irréversible)



An amazing album as it was, packed full of harsh beats, euphoria and journeys through light and dark all made to look so easy,
yet being the soundtrack to the film Irréversible gave it even more depth. No longer was Outrun just an excellent house track,
it took on a dreadful sense of foreboding. Suddenly the classical symphony at the end, such a casual sounding piece,
became the most horrific sound in the world, perhaps beaten only by the barrage of noise that takes over for the final track,
simply titled, "The End".

4. Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'til It Was Light



My teenage love, my rash and capricious attachment to something that engaged me so much I was fixated for at least a year,
identifying with lyrics that meant almost nothing to me, gradually becoming more happy in my tastes
as I realised that I didn't care how unashamedly cool this album was. This album is nailed into my heart as much as my
perpetual crises of confidence and incapability to understand my own thoughts.


3. Boards of Canada - Geogaddi



I don't know what other people think but when the last two tracks of an album are first a tiny piece of looped ambience
and second 2 minutes of pure silence and they manage to become the highlight of the album it really says something
about this album. This album feels like a journey through weather experiences, through fragmented thoughts
scattered across every mind in the world. Alongside this was really really neat sound constructions, strange combinations
of odd sound sources that somehow came together to form this drifting, suddenly skipping, so natural-sounding whole.
Absolutely beautiful.

2. Scissor Shock - The Mars Travolta



The main reason for me picking this particular release of theirs above any other is this: it feels like it takes all the
very best elements of Scissor Shock and puts it into one place, where without this you would have to scour every single album
(although you should be doing that anyway!). There's the Beefheart played through a tape recorded while
under angular pressure side, the hella dirty, trashy, droney side, the side that sounds like what cybergrind should
have sounded like (chaotic, sudden, shocking, like a million sounds all being played once at 800bpm), the moments of pure beauty
(thinking "bodymelt" in particular here), so many sides to Scissor Shock it really is impossible to list them all.
They basically encompass so much that is the best thing about music.

1. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of Natural History



Ranging from amazing compositions of music that feels like a really messed-up and philosophical musical number ("A Hymn To the Morning Star", "Cockroach")
to detailed experiments in percussion ("Bring Back the Apocalypse", "The 17-Year Cicada") like Nils Frykhdal's ranging voice from the gruffest baritone to the highest falsetto, this album is truly
incredible from start to finish. The concept behind the album talks of human's gradual emulation of the lower animals and tries to work
out exactly why this is, while looking at the views of the Futurists and the Freedom Club (Theodore Kaczynski's, aka. the "Unabomber", group
of activists) providing two starkly contrasting views on society and the human as a species yet with eerie similarities. The songs
each tell tales of elements of the world, yet are in no way done in the usual concept album style where the songs try too hard to
fit in a story and sacrifice the music. Using unusual instrumentation and even custom instruments that didn't exist before,
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum constructed, for me, the single most inspirational album I have heard that came from this decade.