LCD Soundsystem

This Is Happening
(DFA/ EMI) James Murphy and co’s last album also features one of the year’s most tantalisingly misleading album intros. It’s over three (very mellow) minutes into ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ before the proper beats eventually show up and *sigh of relief* we knew we were going to be in very good hands.

Washed Out

Life of Leisure
(Mexican Summer) 2010 was the year of woozy pop; of over-the-shoulder-looking, 80s-echoing bedroom jams (see Small Black, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Toro Y Moi etc for evidence of the chillwave tsunami) and this debut beauty from Ernest Weatherly Greene still stands up to repeated listens.

Robyn

Body Talk, Pts 1 & 2 and Body Talk
(Konichiwa/ Island) Full of big dance-pop bangers that make you twitch involuntarily towards a dancefloor. Robin Miriam Carlsson has synthpop hits and cold-as-ice style in spades. Take note Doolittle, Goulding, Coyle, Cole etc. (Special mention also goes to Glasser for Ring and First Aid Kit’s The Big Black and Blue, two other 2010 favourites.)

Errors

Come Down With Me
(Mercury) An addictive math-rock-electro hammer, with huge danceability and originality, followed by a double-whammy dose of remixes on Celebrity Come Down With Me. Also big props to Rock Action label-lords, Mogwai, for their monumentally, epically good best-of live album Special Moves, reminding us off their accumulated greatness, from whispery, tickling guitars to room-shaking swells.

Arcade Fire

The Suburbs
(Mercury) Aching melancholia as Win Butler returned to the sprawling suburbia of his childhood. Musically rich, multi-layered and complex with a deep shimmering resonance.