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51. Blue Hawaii picked right up where Purity Ring left off in the prismatic—and Canadian!—electro-pop department. Consequently, we dig this record far more than we do frontwoman Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s full-time band Braids.
52. Boiler Room brought its DJ-driven road show to South by Southwest and beat the festival’s longtime players at their own game by hosting the most intense sets we saw all week: Death Grips and Lunice, who riled the warehouse-sized crowd up in two very different ways, through manic dance anthems and genre-smashing muscle spasms (featuring Skype-transmitted drums from Zach Hill, no less).
53. Eliane Radigue had her daunting three-disc collection Adnos reissued, providing us with hours of soul-balming drone tones that sound as if they were beamed from the future despite being from as far back as 1973.
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54. Donato Dozzy developed seven remixes of the same Bee Mask song, which would sound like a tiresome Maxi Single in most cases; instead, Plays Bee Mask takes on a dreamlike quality that drags you, smiling, not screaming, into a vortex of deja vu. The sensation is strange but satisfying, reminding us that loops are nothing but condensed shards of our collective memory.
55. The Knife delivered a feminist dissertation within a twilight zone only they truly understand, one that’s soundtracked by steely beats, hastily slapped sheet metal, endless drones, and vocals that are somehow more demonic than anything on Fever Ray’s record. Be patient with this one; it won’t grow on you, but it will burrow its way into your brain and lay a nest full of eggs that’ll either be poisonous or powerful depending on your perspective and willingness to wade through cuts that are called “Fracking Fluid Injection” for a reason.
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56. Night Slugs kept their eyes where they’ve always been—far into the future, where loosely arranged strains of UK bass music linger and latch onto traces of techno, house, pop and R&B.
57. Oneohtrix Point Never learned a lot from Quentin Tarantino and Tim Hecker, then applied the finer points to a choose your own adventure tale of abstract sound art and polyphonic synth patches.
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58. John Talabot flipped through his record collection and found the meaning of life—his own, at least—within its decade-spanning range of records. Play this DJ-Kicks mix among friends at 4 a.m. and you’ll see just how deep its definition of ‘dance music’ gets.
59. Marshstepper made Marilyn Manson’s bible-tearing, pulpit-pounding Antichrist Superstar run—the peak of his boo-scary appeal among protesters on the Christian right—look like a Disney production. We’re not sure what we witnessed when we wandered into the noise collective’s Northside Festival set other than a performance art piece of the purest order. Definitely the what-the-hell-just-happened moment of 2013 within our self-contained universe.
60. Moderat fused everything we love about Apparat and Modeselektor into a strange mix of deeply melancholic pop and dance music. A Berlin underground uprising at its very best.
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61. Four Tet chased last year’s string of self-released singles with a no-promo rollout of his first proper album since leaving his longtime label Domino. The modus operandi from this point on: doing-whatever-he-damn-well-pleases.
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62. Demdike Stare quietly pressed yet another series of limited EPs—hand-stamped ‘test pressings’ that suggest their next move will be an aggressive mix of jungle, noise and techno. Meanwhile, Miles Whittaker finally released his first solo album after a decade of work on other projects (Pendle Coven, MLZ, Suum Cuique). You’re now looking at one of the most unpredictable duos in underground not-quite-dance music.
63. Factory Floor followed years of buzz-stirring live shows, Chris & Cosey co-signs and impeccable 12” singles with a debut album for DFA, adding to the label’s legacy without borrowing too much from it.
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64. Machinedrum created a concept album—and corresponding live show—that works with or without its cityscape storyline. Think: Metropolis with soulful vocal snippets and pitch-shifted “Amen” breaks providing its nerve-wracked pulse.
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65. Numero Group broadened their reissue portfolio further than ever before with power-pop primers, Purple Rain precursors, a seemingly bottomless barrel of Unwound recordings, and alien broadcasts from the beginning of a New Age.
66. Swans panted and prowled across international stages for hours on end, earning a new generation of fans along the way and proving that frontman Michael Gira is still a force to be reckoned with. While his tantric journeys into the unknown aren’t for everyone, they’re easily the most powerful expression of pure energy you’ll across all genres and age groups.
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67. Daniel Avery led us down a techno-driven tunnel with lavish search lights and liquified synth lines. It’s as if the guitarist-turned-producer found a way to refract and deflect his pedals and pads through a long-day’s-journey-into-night lens. The result isn’t a loosely related collection of 12-inches, supported in part by Avery’s kindred spirit, Phantasy owner Erol Alkan; it’s an album. And a rewarding one at that so long as you actually sit—or awkwardly dance—through the whole thing.
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68. Jon Hopkins showed us why he’s long been on Brian Eno’s call list—because he’s a classically trained composer who also happens to know how to make a heady dance beat. Hopkins tweaks his tempos and manipulates your mood throughout, making Immunity a harrowing test of endurance and unbridled expressionism.
69. Primal Scream puts years of false starts behind them and pushed their political leanings onto passionate protest songs, riff-laden rock ‘n’ roll and caustic David Holmes collages. In fact, More Light is so fantastic you might not even notice that Kevin Shields and Robert Plant are among its many guests.
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70. Nicolas Jaar ignored pleas for another solo LP and plunged right into a psych-steeped side project (Darkside) that’s quickly become the producer’s full-time band.
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71. Death Grips detonated another smart bomb directly in the mug of a masochistic music industry that keeps coming back for more. Maybe it’s because their DIY-or-die mindset is genuine to a fault, pulling the pin on standard practices like proper release dates and tours. Let’s just hope their nine lives don’t run out anytime soon.
72. Tricky stopped worrying about what everyone thinks and wrote the kind of record we all wanted anyway—trip-hop translated for the 21st century, full of dread and dynamics. “I don’t know what it is with me,” he said in a lengthy interview, “but I should have made this album a long time ago–for the listeners.”
73. Diarrhea Planet rescued us from ourselves with a guitar army approach to the kind of cuts we used to blast on the way to Weezer concerts.
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74. Wavves reached deep within Nathan Williams’ panic-attacked psyche and emerged with a record full of razor-laced pop hooks. If you listen closely, dude’s clearly a mess; too bad he makes it sound like such a damn good time. If were post-pubescent and pissed, this would have been our soundtrack to last summer. Actually, we’re not and it was anyway.
75. Les Savy Fav showed the kids how it’s done, then they drifted back to their day jobs for another year. Until then…
