10) Zola Jesus – Vessel

A fantastic culmination and one of my most recent new discoveries, it just edges into the top 10 by providing me with one of the few dark and damp albums of 2011. Her voice harks back to generations of old and the electronics and dramatic song structures make it a treat to visit the darkness every time.

09) Faun – Eden

Band members have left and been replaced and while you can tell that Faun’s sound has changed forever. It still sits firmly in the Pagan Folk genre they’ve helped create but the vocals are more hymn like, English is introduced and the overall sound is one more of a forest pixie raging war on humanity. Either way, it’s still utterly superb.

08) St Vincent – Strange Mercy

St Vincent makes the most clumsy, sloppy and seemingly out of control music seem to still have order, beauty and integrity. Her third studio album is full of all the quirks, embellishments and random freak outs we’ve come to expect but in a more assured manner and with more layers than ever before!

07) Gregory Douglass – Lucid

Having watched Gregory over various live net shows introduce, change, develop and grow Lucid from a concept into a fully evolved being, it’s a fantastic dream concept album that works from start to finish. Showcasing some great technical wizardry, it features some of the most catchy numbers and some of the most heartbreaking from his career to date.

06) Amiina – Puzzle

From what I thought was a lovely, quaint but slightly one-sided debut, Puzzle lifts Amiina into a new level. The quartet have perfected their craft of weaving the most unlikely of instruments together into lullabies but now also into powerful epic seven minute masterpieces.

05) Bjork – Biophilia

Never one to sit still, Biophilia is a career spanning genre bending full flow freak out. Never compromising, always challenging – it contains highlights of Bjork’s most beautiful, most powerful and most scary moments of her musical career.

04) Tori Amos – Night of Hunters

Tori Amos remains my favourite musical artist of all time. The reason this hasn’t reached the top spot is purely because it’s an album that requires a lot of time and effort to digest and I’m not really there yet. The string arrangements are beautiful and the songs are fantastic. Many have called it a return to form but I never saw her falter. A bold new direction and one that pays off.

03) Lamb – 5

The return of Lamb was unexpected but much appreciated with the perfect blend of Lou’s own solo styles and Andy’s more electronic edges. The album is much more direct and approachable with instant hooks throughout, making it by far my favourite Lamb album to date and hopefully will give them confidence to continue  on.

02) tUne-YaRdS – W H O K I L L

Only discovering the sheer genius of this lady last year, being able to enjoy the growth from début to album number 2 was phenomenal. All the funky vocal collages are still here, as is the home ramshackle production but this time fused with brass and some more tip-top production too. It just seems like such a natural bloom. Magical.

01) Charlotte Martin – Dancing on Needles

The album that keeps giving with all the b-sides being released online, it’s a perfect merger of all Charlotte’s previous works of piano, guitar, keyboard and pounding drums. Her voice is an absolute marvel and every song is as achingly beautiful and painful as the last. Without doubt my album of the year.

Narrowly missing out were PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, Sarah Slean, The Go Team and Omodaka.

Cosmogony

Thunderbolt

Crystalline

It looks fantastic but alas, a poor man like me doesn’t have an iPhone. What’s everyone’s experience of the app?

We do love Bjork here at HPM and her latest album “Biophilia” is another stunning, almost career spanning album taking bits and pieces from other albums and meshing them altogether.

Opener “Moon” see’s the return of Zeena Perkins’ harp for a beautifully layered track that starts off with a very simple melody and then extra layers of Verspertine-like muted percussion is added on with mergers of Medulla vocal collages. It’s a truly emotive piece but one that doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the album. That’s left more for “Thunder Bolt” with thick organs and pulsating Tesla coils. Biophilia is very much about atmosphere and depth. Avoiding any kind of hook whatsoever, the Tesla coil spits out arpeggios while Bjork becomes her own choir over the top. Utterly unique.

“Crystalline” see’s the invent of another beautiful instrument, the Gameleste. It’s jingling xylophonic bells are the beauty to the electronic harsh percussive beast of the beat. The two melt together perfectly as the only song with a specific verse / chorus structure. The final minute see’s the song breakout into a frenzy of breakbeat showdowns and this is the most energetic the album gets. “Cosmogony” takes the brass elements from Volta and Selma Songs and goes spacial with a wonderfully warm and cosy number full of hushed tones and heartbeats. It’s ethereal and mostly a calming piece as all the harshness of the brass is taken out and almost sounds like a thousand people humming. “Dark Matter” returns to the organ that almost sounds like a humming space probe. Bjork’s vocals are manipulated into a twisted mess and it’s really quite eerie. Think the organ version of “Cover Me” and you’re part way there. “Hollow” goes one step further with one of the most atmospherically disturbing tracks she’s created. A stabbing organ, reversed backing vocals and little regard for a melody at all, this is all about scaring ten barrels of juice out of you. After these two tracks, I now would like to start a petition to get Bjork to score a horror film.

“Virus” is possibly my favourite track on the album. Using the Gameleste and warm keyboards / steel drums the track weaves a heart wrenching and beautiful track. It’s full of quirky tuned percussive instruments but they all sounds sumptuous together. Again, although this track has a melody, its more about the arching emotion and atmosphere. “Sacrifice” makes this clear with an awesome futuristic sounding synth noise that also sounds medieval. It’s the sole instrument along with the vocals but it’s all that’s needed in what is a great song full of vocal layers and duelling melodies. “Mutual Core” is the other big hitter with drums and bass on the album. Based on the albums most prominent instrument, the organ, we are treated to some Homogenic-esque bass beats which soon break into their own grizzly euphoria as the backing vocals rise and rise and Bjork lets rip. The normal edition of the album closes with “Solstice” which after lots of digital trickery returns to a more acoustic root. In many ways it’s the typical minimal closer that Bjork likes to place at the end of her albums and this one feels almost freeform in its minimal nature. I felt like I needed a campfire while listening to it.

On the deluxe edition you are also treated to an extended version of Hollow, an equally eerie Dark Matter with a choir added on and the extra track “Nattura” which is a fantastic track I urge people to seek. It’s a massive drum solo with random squiggle riffs and Bjork ad-libbing over the top. There’s nothing like it on the album, nor has she made anything like it elsewhere – it’s more like her Sugarcubes days!

Biophilia is almost devoid of classification. I hate it when people just say the music is bonkers and mad. There is true genius here. Those going after melodies may be disappointed however as Biophilia is all about the overarching feeling. It’s strength lies in the fact that when the albums finished you feel you’ve been somewhere, felt something and want to feel it again. If that isn’t a work of art, I don’t want to go to the gallery.

As if I wasn’t desperately wanting Biophillia already, now I’m positively panting for it. Single of the year by far.