Our Critics' Year-End Top Tens: Daniel Rodrigue Finds Something Happening About LCD Soundsystem's Promised Swan Song

By DC9 At Night Fri., Dec. 24 2010 at 12:23 PM

In this week's paper, you may notice a piece including some of our DC9 writers' choices for best albums of the year. But, space being limited, we couldn't run all of our writers' lists. So, thanks to the power of the Internet, we're doing just that, right here.

Former Denton music beat-writer Daniel Rodrigue offers up a list filled with young 'uns with a flare for aged electronica.

10. Florene - Homemade Extacy

Sure, this Denton-based experimental electronic duo's full-length debut may not be for the faint of heart. At the wrong moment or in the wrong setting, the album's like an intense, pulse-quickening, panic-attack-inducing aural strobe light. And, yeah, Pitchfork panned Homemade Extacy's "annoying sonic antagonism" (5.4), while crowning Crystal Castles II with a Best New Music for its equally "focused" and "propulsive" blown-out electronic sounds. Well, fuck 'em. All 50-plus minutes of Homemade Extacy's industrial beats, driving synths and primal-scream-style vocals are just as inventive and groundbreaking as anything else released this year.

9. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II

8. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

7. Sarah Jaffe - Suburban Nature

6. Caribou - Swim

5. Beach House - Teen Dream

4. Toro Y Moi - Causers of This
Get this album -- and don't loan it out, or you may never see it again. I'm anxiously awaiting the follow-up, Underneath the Pine, due out in February on Carpark Records.

3. No Age - Everything in Between
On No Age's second studio album, the Los Angeles-based guitar-and-drums duo continues producing compelling, intensely catchy and -- what's more important? -- re-listen-able, murky, noise-rock melodies. Even without singles like "Glitter," the album succeeds from epic opener "Life Prowler" through the wacky, roll-the-credits closer "Chem Trails."

2. Small Black - New Chain
This Jagjaguwar-released debut full-length by Brooklyn-based, self-described "Casio dream noise pop" act Small Black was -- for me -- one of those stumble-across album's that completely catches you off guard and then doesn't go out of rotation for days or weeks at a time. My opinion of the songs was only bolstered after I caught the band's lively Halloween performance at The Cavern with fellow Brooklyn act Class Actress and Denton's own Sextape -- one of the best shows I caught this year.

1. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening