It’s been a banner year for Hardly Art.  Seemingly back-to-back-to-back-to-back fantastic albums filled out a year capped of by the Gem Club album Breakers, a truly somber bit of orchestration. To celebrate the festive days cluttering up the calender before the inevitable turn towards 2012, the good folk at Hardly Art sent over a list of some of their favorite albums this year.

For your enjoyment:

Sarah Moody

Albums

01. The Sandwitches - Mrs. Jones’ Cookies
02. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
03. Shannon & the Clams - Sleep Talk
04. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
05. Magic Trick - The Glad Birth of Love
06. Grave Babies - Deathface
07. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
08. Grouper - A I A : Alien Observer
09. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - s/t
10. Woods - Sun & Shade
11. Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler / The Dream

Best live shows

Ty Segall, Davila 666, Nu Sensae, White Lung, Thee Oh Sees, Pictureplane

Honorable mention

Demdike Stare, The Babies, Hunx & Tuffy, up all night in Austin, up all night in NYC, Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx, Factory Floor, Clap reissue, Bill Cosby & His White Pudding Pops, James Blake, Total Control, Iceage, Grass Widow, Case Studies… everything on Hardly Art and Sub Pop that I am refraining from putting in the proper 10.

Read the rest of the Hardly Art family’s favorite things

Ruben Mendez

1. German Measles - A German Joke is No Laughing Matter (KRAZY PUNX)
2. The Clap- Have You Reached Yet? (Sing Sing)
3. Cheveu - 1000 (Kill Shamen/Born Bad)
4. Love Butchers (look them up)
5. Magic Trick and all they do (look them up…Tim Cohen’s Magic Trick)
6. Wax Museums - Eye Times (Trouble In Mind)
7. Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
8. Kurt Vile and all he does
9. Total Control LPs/7″s
10. Davila 666 - Tan Bajo (In the Red)
11. Bleached and everything they do!!!!
12. favorite movie? Drive.
13. Fresh n Onlys “Waterfall” video
14. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
15. Colleen Green - CUJO/Rabid Love (Art Fag)

–

Jason Baxter

(In no particular order)

Ponytail – Do Whatever You Want All the Time (We Are Free)

This band went out on a high note—euphoric, even. While their dissolution still stings, this record was joyous and raucous and spastic and potent enough that it ought toto stave off my post-break-up depression for a few more months.

Bandcamp (the internet)

After Myspace’s inglorious implosion, cruising bandcamp became my go-to method for unearthing obscure and totally incredible musicians that I would otherwise never have found and adored. Some of my favorite discoveries from 2011: Grandparents, Yalls, Choongum, Food Pyramid, Twin Steps, Vox Mod, Teeel, and at least a dozen others that I am spacing on.

Liturgy – Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey)

I’m total a Black Metal dilettante, but this hard-hitting conceptual opus won me over instantly. Music this simultaneously badass and totally uplifting was a new and revelatory experience for me. Recommended listening at top volume in your car stereo on a bad day.

Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact (4AD)

One of the most enveloping, psychedelic, ambitious, and far-reaching albums of the year—an outer- dimensional potpourri of cross-pollinated genre-hopping mega-jams. If that description didn’t convince you, all the roto-tom drumming, new age synthwork, and skyward-yelping vocals ought to.

Dan Charnas – The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (New American Library)

This hefty non-fiction tome got my through countless morning commutes. Charnas’ thorough, engrossingly-delivered account starts with the bricklaying of Queens, New York, and then follows hip- hop’s tangled history through to present day as it intersect with the worlds of crime, commerce, and corporate America. It’s a fascinating read whether you’re a hip-hop expert or a total noob.

The Field – Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)

Minimalism is Swedish composer Axel Willner’s stock-in-trade, though his latest record is definitely his fullest, funkiest, and most complicated release to date. At once mesmeric and groove-able, Looping State of Mind demonstrates surprising range and vision, though nothing comes close to the magical, whiplash-inducing curtain-parting of the outro to “A Paw in My Face”—from 2007’s From Here We Go Sublime—which cheekily samples one of Lionel Ritchie’s tackiest ditties.

Ford & Lopatin – Channel Pressure (Software)

I couldn’t get enough of this record’s inspired juxtaposition of expertly-rendered retro-cheese and stuttering, laser-cut 21st-century vivisections. It should come as no surprise that the album slays when you consider all the talent that came together for it: Joel Ford plays in soft rock revivalists Tigercity, Daniel Lopatin is one of the era’s eminent sonic landscapers as Oneohtrix Point Never, Prefuse 73 produced Channel Pressure, and it was mixed at Jan Hammer’s studio for that authentic vintage feel. Yes, Miami Vice’s Jan Hammer.

James Ferraro – Far Side Virtual (Hippos in Tanks)

A late-entry home-run, as far as I am concerned, and my surprise Album of the Year. Not only is this a quantum leap forward for Ferraro as a musician—forgoing the smothering lo-fi hiss that blanketed his earlier instrumental reveries—it’s the album I’ve been trying to make for years. No one besides Ferraro would have the balls to put out a sixteen-track album with such a painstakingly faithful recreation of the most outré of sounds: Windows startup music, mall muzak, audio software demos, the dregs of New Age and Soft Rock. You’d think it’s a joke (at one point during “Palm Trees, Wi-Fi and Dream Sushi,” a robotic voice intones, “Sir? Richard Branson’s avatar says hello”), but scratch away at the album’s linoleum surface and you’ll find a bracing commentary on nostalgia, indulgence, technology, and the suffocating overabundance of choice.

Hausu (unsigned)

This young Portland band only has three (publicly-released) recordings to their name, but is already securing a rightly-deserved rep as one of the most rousing bands currently operating in greater Cascadia. In their words, Hausu’s music is a mutant hybrid of Kate Bush, Bruce Springsteen, and Orange Juice, and I’d add that their lyrics have a totally singular kind of charm—nerdy, relatable, and hopelessly sentimental.

Christmas – s/t (Highfives and Handshakes)

There’s something delirious and intoxicating about this Olympia band’s homebrew of Bollywood-esque guitar squiggles, manic pacing, and frontwoman Emily Beanblossom’s Joplin-y caterwauling. This self- titled record rewards endless plays, and if you’ve ever seen this band live, then you’re already aware that they possess a special (and especially potent) kind of energy.