billie lindahl’s cave-aged black and white super 8 songs captivated me this year like nothing else. she plays streaks of guitar and sings like a choir of ghosts. and she is from sweden.

a very gifted singer, guitarist, pianist, and all around songwriter - and she is adorable. she never performs a song the same way twice, which is indicative of her vast talent. her songs are bluesy, elegiac and infectious - a wonderful debut.

my love of all things patton continues, as he (and band mates) interpret american-indian songs, maintaining meshes of metal and hip hop peculiarities that distinguish all patton projects.

makes a broken 1950s era plastic radio work again, blows the dust off your daddy's jazz lps, compels you to sing along to ipod commercials!

i like to bump this in my nana’s neon like i'm that guy from office space. seriously though, this is a complex collection of wu tunes, layered and intricate.

and the lifeline ep - i’m slopping these separate releases together not only because they were both released in 07 but because they should be taken together like gin and tonic. conqueror is the soundtrack to those moments where you're allowing yourself to fall alseep in the snow, and lifeline is, well, just that.

a seemingly impossible layering of sludgy goodness! it’s like aidan baker dredged the afterbirth of jesu.

beats and rhythms that sound like they were crafted by an unidentified insect species of dark and troubling design whilst playing bubble bobble and other old nintendo games. bola's rare 'shapes' album was also re-released this year with some additional remixes - catch it if you can!

another artist that reminds me of inland empire. though, this and warraw are better than the piece of poo that ended up being inland empire. but i digress… this album is moody and jazzy and soulful and subversive – and this singer/songwriter hails from finland – a magical country that sells highly educational souvenir fridge magnets and has a female president who looks like conan o’brien.

my love of coheed is one more thing i have in common with grade school kids. there’s nothing new here – this album sounds just like their last album which isn’t bad if you loved their last album, as i did – but i wish they’d do something more evocative of their immense talent and the epic story they’re playing out through these albums.