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Urban75 Album of the Year 2014 - The Results

30. Flying Lotus - You’re Dead!

You're_Dead!.jpg




Hip hop n jazz taken and beaten to death, appropriately enough as this is an exploration of the inevitability and condition of death, and how mysterious it really is.
 
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=28 Caustic Window - Caustic Window LP




(No Spotify track available, so you can have something else he recorded in 1994 on there)


Aphex Twins long lost 1994 album is now available thanks to kickstarter, with all its bouncy electro-crunchers, salsa acid house, and a whole bunch more.
 
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=26 Perc - The Power And The Glory





Ali Wells, aka Perc, is at the forefront of this resurgence largely because he's been making scraping techno bangers, with little rest or deviation, since 2002. In parts eerie and thrumming, elsewhere dubby and ambient, it’s a bold if messy work that brings together a disparate bunch of ideas in a fascinating manner.
 
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25 Hookworms - The Hum





The second album from the ‘Worms outdoes its predecessor in terms of proto-punk, garage, psychedelia. Leaner, meaner and tougher, these worms will have you hooked.
 
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24 FKA Twigs - LP1





As close to ‘pop’ music as we’ll come, we could list a whole bunch of stuff it kinda sounds like, but, really, it sounds like no one on earth, other thanTahliah Barnett. Is she the girl from that video? Not any more.
 
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23 Shellac - Dude Incredible





Shellac, of North America. Popular singing group that occasionally makes records. They are very good. You just need to turn it up a bit.
 
22 Perfect Pussy - Say Yes To Love

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A hardcore band fronted by Joan of Arc, it says here. 23 minutes of happy revelations about incendiary events. What’s not to love?
 
21 Battle Trance - Palace of Winds



(No Spotify track available, nor anything remotely similar)



The debut full-length release from Travis Laplante's genre-defying tenor saxophone quartet, featuring a dreamlike montage of the performers and audio from the record.
 
oh, almost forgot to mention...special NoPrize goes to the first person to spot the, ahem, deliberate, mistake I will undoubtedly make at some point in the listing.
 
20 Gruff Rhys - American Interior





The album of the year. Yes, I know it’s only a number 20, but it IS the album of the year. The rest of you are wrong. Beautiful melodies, lush arrangements, and a truly barking story combine to create wonder and joy.
 
19 Beck - Morning Phase





Beck’s 12 studio album takes us back into Sea Change territory, Beck adds his idiosyncratic twist to harmony-laden folk-rock ditty’s in a way that stops it from just being another hippy singer-songwriter odyssey. Folk album of the year.
 
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18 Dean Blunt - Black Metal





Big Star sampling from the off, this is a lot more accessible than many expected from half of Hype Williams, in fact you could even call it a pop album, with some delicious play-off’s between Blunt and erstwhile collaborator Joanna Robertson.
 
17 Steven James Adams - House Music





Urban favourites Broken family Band man makes his first solo album. Okay, it bares certain similarities to his earlier albums, but there’s nothing wrong with that when he writes as well and as wittily as this.
 
14 Caribou - Our Love





How could he possibly follow up Andorra and (2010 UAotY winner) Swim? By doing pretty much more of the same with added hints of R&B and hip hop. Not as immediately magnificent as its predecessors, it’s a grower not a shower.
 
13 Richard Dawson - Nothing Important





It’s the anti-folk album of the year. Sometimes it sounds like Les Dawson’s piano playing, sometimes it sounds like Captain Beefheart. Occasionally it even sounds like music. Quite brilliant, if that’s your sort of thing.
 
12 Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers



(No Spotify track available, so you can have a similar piece by him from 2012)



Last year’s AotY was the year of eerie, swirling electronic soundtracks, and this would have fitted right in. An astounding piece from an inquisitive and inventive musician
 
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