10 Best Albums 2011

2011 was a year of goodbyes for me: I finished high school and started to figure out what the hell I wanted for my life (surprise! Seven years later and I still don't clearly know the answer!). My friendships grew stronger and so was my taste for unorthodox music. As with my list on 2010, most of the record that form the list didn't come out to me directly, but were reached a couple of years later.

Some of my favourite artists released their albums in this year, as well as some of my favourite album covers in general. Darker than the previous one, 2011 feels like drops of cold rain in the middle of summer: instances of reflection and introspection that propel beautiful statements about diversity and hope for the rest to come.

1. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy 

Score: 9.3 

The third record from the American genius Annie Clark is her most explosive and rock-oriented, nausiated with heavy bangers and moody retro-ballads. Her guitar never sounded this furious, and her lyrics this sharp and cutting-edge. St. Vincent forms a coherent approach to rattling art rock and cements herself as one of the most important female voices in the industry. And I'm glad to testify that.

2. James Blake - James Blake 

Score: 9.2 

Few other times have I ever felt this identified with an artist. James delivers his artistry coily and menacingly, exploiting on post-dubstep melodrama and hard-wrenching blue-eyed soul from a second to another. His lyrics talk about extreme isolation, darkness and a depressive retrospective of the world ahead. His voice vibes like an instrument itself, and silence occupies tremblingly emotive places throughout the tracks. This record weeps, and I love it.

3. Death Grips - Exmilitary 

Score: 9.3 

The debut mixtape from the Sacramento-based experimental hip hop trio blew my mind the first second I came to know it. Piercing electronic sounds eject anger and fury, melted into the singer's gargantuan, terrifying voice and verses. Exmilitary changed the way we perceived hip hop and its boundaries, and marked the starting point for an outfit that's transformed into a cult following. It breaks, wooes and sweats muscle and gut.

4. Björk - Biophilia 

Score: 9.0 

After a prolific discography and an established following base, there seemed to be few space to continue experimenting for the Icelandic singer and producer. But then again, after four years, she slapped our expectations and literally created a universe on her own with Biophilia. Spacey, ominous instruments and galactic vocals make up for a record that's as hard to classify as inevitable to love. The most daring record of the year.

5. tUnE-yArDs - W h o k i l l 

Score: 8.9 

The second album from this weird project from Merrill Garbus is their most effervescent and untraditional pop record in their discography and in the year's most catalogues. Clappy, chirpy synthesised sounds and acrobatic vocals form this roller coaster of emotions in which you can dance, sing along, cry, get angry at and from, and continuously get awed on. Asymmetry is a good thing, and even more so when it's performed with such violence.

6. Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis 

Score: 9.1 

The first thing I loved about this was its cover art. The second thing was its name. But the most important one was its music. From horrifying screams to mechanic post-industrial sounds and an ululating vocal delivery, the American artist switched gothic rock and doom metal and made them her own on an album that possesses magic and disdain in equal parts. Wolfe's cryptic image and approach to music never stopped ascending ever since.

7. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World 

Score: 9.0 

The enigmatic artist under the pseudonym The Caretaker aimed to create a record that could help people suffering from Alzheimer. It was declared that certain music could evoke past memories and help connect things into the patient's minds, and the album manages to do that in an incredibly mysterious way. The tracks feel more like movements, and the sounds like emotions. It's touching and cerebral. It explodes sadness and also joy.

8. Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise 

Score: 8.9 

The Chilean producer and DJ has been walking his own path for a while but, on 2011, he broke charts and awed minds with his magnum opus Space Is Only Noise. Unapproachable electronics and soothing, otherworldly samples made up an album for introverts that popularised the idea of being quite and being cool, all at once. Variations and changes of formulas may end up in disaster or eternal bliss: luckily, Jaar's craft is the latter.

9. SBTRKT - SBTRKT 

Score: 8.7 

The debut studio album by the faceless producer and DJ under the name SBTRKT (subtract) is a moody adventure on tropical post-dubstep and heavily dramatic micro-house. With bassy lines, unsteady vocal guests and a diverse palette of sounds and rhythms, the artist created and stated a line for a new trend on electronic music that's hard to ignore. Seven years later, we can see just how influential this record is and will continue to be.

10. Battles - Gloss Drop 

Score: 8.8 

Math rock may seem too calculated and complex to have a soul, but Battles' second album tackled down expectations and canons on the genre and on music itself. Few other times one is able to listen to such a fun, colourful and purposefully stagnated set of songs, where vocalists mingle and play with the charismatic sounds and catchy riffs. Gloss Drop enamours and punches with equal force; it melts into the ears and hands.