Besides being good music, this record is a heartening story of perseverance finally rewarded. Naomi Shelton has been singing gospel and soul for over four and a half decades, but this is her first album—and hooray for Daptone for giving her the platform she so richly deserves. I’m not saying she’s making anyone’s Top Ten Gospel Singers list, but anyone who likes soul will appreciate her deft fulfillment of all the genre’s expectations. Her husky voice isn’t quite as gravelly as Betty LaVette’s, but if you like her you will like Naomi. And kudos as well to musical director Cliff Driver, whose piano playing—along with Jim Hall’s swirling organ work drives the music just as surely as Shelton’s deeply soulful singing and the rich backing vocals of The Gospel Queens(including Daptone’s star, Sharon Jones). In a time when most gospel music’s slick production makes it sound like the rest of the crappy pop on the radio, What Have You Done, My Brother? delivers vastly more satisfaction by getting back to basics on six gospel standards and four songs penned by Daptone major domo Bosco Mann, plus a sprinkling of soul: Mann’s socially conscious “Am I Asking Too Much?” and the concluding Sam Cooke cover, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Fans of canonical indie-rock: If you haven’t already hupped to it with Cymbals Eat Guitars in the wake of the notice Pitchfork gave to this album, well, it’s not too late. This scattered-around-NYC quintet is one of many new indie groups that add little to what’s come before elementally speaking, but frontman Joseph D’Agostino & Co. excel in outright confidence. Which is to say that on, Why There Are Mountains, Cymbals Eat Guitars knit together often unusually long pieces that rarely hew to classic song form, cruising instead through passages — some might say movements — of varying intensity and color. If that sounds too arty for your ears, worry not: The band’s palette draws from the tried-and-true: quiet-to-loud dynamics; energy readings ranging from sleepy to earnest and nervy; D’Agostino’s clear-bell vocals, which take on a classic rasp when he pushes things. Guitars, bass, keybs, drums, hooks hooks hooks. If you are unashamedly an indie-rocker, then this is the indie-rock you like — just stretched and pulled and relaxed in interesting ways.

Monoliths & Dimensions is a fantastic display of that hugeness you’ve likely read about in stories on this band and the new avant-doom-metal scene that orbits it. What no amount of hype can tell you, though, is the rich detailing in Sunn O)))’s massed sound. Way more than just two heavy guitars: violin, spine-rattling choral events, all manner of textures and subtleties in this self-renewing universe of dark-matter music. Just incredibleand more often than not, beautiful in a completely other sort of fashion. This music is ripe for projecting your own bleak fantasies into, and no matter how dark you think they are . . . youre not this dark. Startlingly lovely packaging, too, even for a CD. Please do not only listen to this record on your earbuds—it’s worth buying a good stereo for. You can thank me in the afterlife, the depths of which, by the by, may be accurately portrayed right here.

We don’t like it when someone tampers with a good thing, so we weren’t sure at first what to make of the Papercuts’ latest, You Can Have What You Want. Few bands can deliver the kind of hazy, beautiful dream pop of Jason Quever’s Bay Area outfit, and we resisted at first to his new analog-laden album and its swirling organs, thumping basslines and angular rhythms. After many months of constant rotation at the store, however, we became true believers. With You Can Have, Quever has shed Papercuts of any twee trappings. He beefed up his sound without ever sacrificing his melodic gifts, and once again you will be charmed by the broken-heart sincerity of his lyrics and lush arrangements. He is one of our most gifted songwriters, and we can’t wait to hear what he does next.

Another hard-to-classify gem from Kranky, the latest from Adam Forkner’s one-man project, White Rainbow, is pure bliss: sprawling, meditative and hypnotic, full of rich textures and spacey electronics. Forkner, a fixture on the West Coast experimental scene who’s toured with the likes of Valet, Atlas Sound and Devendra Banhart, makes great use of guitars, vocals, percussion and synths in weaving a lovely fabric of sounds that’s equal parts psychedelia, ambient electronica and drone rock. The tracks are dense and long (the shortest is 12 minutes) but Forkner is a master of space and mood, creating sounds that complement each other. If spacey psychedelia is your thing, New Clouds hits pay dirt.

Pay little mind to the misdirecting names used here (“Black to Comm” being a blazing old MC5 psych-soul track, and 1968 being the most explosive year of the Sixties). This Black to Comm is the recording name of one Marc Richter, leader of the German label Dekorder and an electronic-music artist of soul-enveloping power. Which is to say Alphabet 1968 is ambient music in much the same way Gas is: The basic nature of the 10 tracks here is electronicsoftly insistent, often beatless but full of motion and emotion. What puts Richter in a class with Gas’s Wolfgang Voigt is that his music feels staggeringly alive, so haunting and lovely that it approaches some kind of wordless mysticism. If you want an experience (and you like bunnies), go and YouTube “Hotel Freund”—the best track on Alphabet 1968—then get this record.

The Crying Light is another heartbreakingly beautiful record from Antony Hegarty, at once complementary with his most recent full-length, 2005’s stupendous I Am a Bird Now, and wholly independent in its own right. The same unaffected vulnerability is there, and Antony again explores the topics of death and his fascination with the natural world, but this album is an even more subdued affair, its tone starkly contrasted from the downtown Manhattan aesthetic of Bird. Don’t mistake subdued for stripped-down, however; the arrangements, by Nico Muhly among others, are as intricate and compelling as ever, whether it’s a subtle use of wind, strings or percussion. Most compelling of all is Antony’s voice, as powerful as ever, never affected or hammy, always finding just the right tone. A stunning and lovely record, Crying Light is a bracing antidote to a world gone wrong.

Can I just tell you? I have had it up to here (here, see?) with the new wave of ambient. It’s all pretty, yes . . . pretty lazy. It is the one subgenre of music where so-called artists feel most free not to build on what’s been done before. So imagine the warm surprise felt upon hearing Mokira’s sublime Persona, which, after a good headphone listen, reveals itself to be not so much ambient anyway and rather a well-pitched return to the dubby, evocative, mainly beatless sub-techno sounds emanating from Europe with more frequency at the turn of the century (Gas and Pole are good referents). And finally, a peak around the Internetting shows that Mokira is in fact one Andreas Tilliander, a techno-versatile Swedish chap of wrist-flick virtuosity for more than a decade. Extra lush and nodding more than once to psych magi Spacemen 3, Persona will be a deeply satisfying listen for those feeling a bit Krank-ed out.

The Mountain Goats’ sixth album on 4AD finds them in trio formation: John Darnielle and Peter Hughes are here joined by Superchunk’s Jon Wurster on drums. It’s the most dynamic “full-band” Mountain Goats record to date: parts are as subtle as 2006’s Get Lonely, while others show off this lineup’s ability to cohesively head into uptempo realms. Lyrically, it’s Darnielle’s most devastating work since The Sunset Tree: The songs take their names from Bible verses, titles that are juxtaposed with brutally moving lyrics that don’t shy away from discussions of mortality. And while the two albums don’t have much in common philosophically, The Life of the World to Come dovetails eerily in places with David Bazan’s recent Curse Your Branches: Each explores the need for, and shortcomings of, faith — and creates some compelling music in the process.

Nisennenmondai is a Japanese group, as if you couldn’t tell from their name (which means Y2K Bug) and album title. Here at Sound Fix we greatly enjoyed their previous offering, 2008’s compilation of EPs, so this one went into the store’s stereo as soon as it arrived. They are definitely evolving into something more danceable — with the tracks stretched out to club length, but with real drums — yet also more daring. I guess this female trio plays “post-rock,” but to me it sounds like Neu! playing Philip Glass. Drummer Sayaka Himeno is amazing, motorik to start the long pieces and bashing through the increasingly dense crescendos with imagination and bravado without ever abandoning the prime imperative of the beat. Guitarist Masako Takada and bassist Yuri Zaikawa lock into complementary patterns, then pile on additional layers and swooshes with celestial clarity, achieving ecstasy through repetition and slight variation.

Across the almost 50 minutes and 23 tracks of this experimental “mini-album,” Birmingham’s suave mod-futurists Broadcast trade snippety notions with longtime album artist and Ghost Box Music founder Julian House (aka the Focus Group). As swirls of instrumental samples ebb and shift, the deadpan, singsong vocals of Broadcast’s Trish Keenan chime in sporadically, like distance markers along a dark, circuitous path. Though the album seems to lack any overlying structure, its music maintains a consistently ominous tone, echoing through itself as if through the chambers of an underground catacomb. Something to keep handy to soundtrack the wallflower room at your next Halloween party, or maybe as the inspiration for your latest experimental/occult film.

This London quartet’s cool, quiet ditties exude DIY charm. Sometimes, with their quiet male/female vocal tandem, they seem to be reworking the dreamy end of the post-punk spectrum, as if Young Marble Giants had reunited and taken advantage of current electronic beats and equipment to augment their low-key guitar pop. At other times, the XX fit neatly but imaginatively into the current dance/indie-rock miscegenation with their clicking, stripped-down beats and brightly pulsating guitar patterns. A pure delightand with the recent departure of a member (not to be replaced), we’re already anxious to see where their cool sound goes.

Sonic Youth’s return to the indie ranks resulted in no major changes from their previous song album, 2006’s Rather Ripped. The Eternal still features lots of moody mid-tempo grooves; the textures are still clearer and less cluttered than during their Jim O’Rourke period, perhaps very slightly messier and grittier than last time. The only thing here that’s a departure: the brief passages with tight vocal harmonies, such as on “Walkin Blue,” which also has more of a normal melody than usual. The fact that there are practically no surprises here is irrelevant though. What it boils down to is, SY has a great sound, and even when the lyrics are silly or lackadaisical, Lee and Thurston’s distinctive guitar timbres push all the right buttons. The brilliance and freshness of Evol/Sister/Daydream Nation are not going to be surpassed, so don’t expect that; just relax into the billowing waves of clangorous six-strings. They invented this sound and style, and despite all the bands influenced by it over the past three decades, they’re still the best.

Scot-pop outfit Camera Obscura is one of the few bands to whom we’ll give a pass on making the same record a coupla-few times. Which is good, because My Maudlin Career, the group’s fourth record and first for 4AD, breaks no new ground whatsoever in a way you will probably love. If you’ve decided you’ll only ever need one Camera Obscura album then hold tight to Let’s Get Out of This Country—it’s better than this one. But only a little. And if you’re anything like me (and you should be), you’ll always keep a few inches clear in your record collection for more of Tracyanne Campbell’s incredible vocalsleading scienticians have determined it is literally the sound of beautiful heartbreak—as well her group’s indie-pop, still the best thing for slow-dancing with that special someone. Except for the mid-tempo songs, which are best for mid-tempo dancing. You know.

What’s in a name? Here We Go Magic is the new nom de musique employed by indie singer-songwriter Luke Temple, whose previous work was solid if a bit unremarkable. Things have changed: The reborn Temple seems to have soaked up cues and hints from dozens of sources old and new, and this album is so personable and likable you might as well treat it like his second debut. Temple still does pretty much everything himself, so the synth textures and (apparent) electronic percussion shouldn’t come as a surprise; the record’s organic warmth and feeling of wholeness is. Catchy quasi-African rhythms crop up frequently without sounding too much like Vampire Weekend or Paul Simon (you know, the only two other Caucasian artists to ever use such an influence), but in the end, it’s Temple’s unique voice and understated pop wiles that make the Magic. Fans of Yeasayer and the aforementioned artists: Here you go.

This is no easy to review to write, as we’re all still stunned at the sudden passing of Jack Rose, who died on Dec. 5 at the age of 38. For those of us who value the beauty and wonder of the guitar, Rose was a treasure, a keeper of the John Fahey flame without being a slavish imitator. Earlier this year he was part of what we thought was the best roots album of 2009, by a country mile. This album featured Rose and the Black Twigs, and what chemistry they have! Rose long ago proved himself as one of the finest guitar pickers in recent times, bringing a variety of traditions to his ever pliable sound, from blues and ragtime to Eastern raga and the avant-garde. He played for years with Twig banjoist Mike Gangloff, but here the two are joined by the rest of the band, and the addition of strings, percussion and vocals gives the album a raw yet good-timey feel. Gangloff takes over lead vocals on a few of the tracks, and his gruff, personable delivery only adds to the album’s immeasurable charm. This is some of the most joyous, rollicking string music I’ve heard in ages, and it instantly became one of my favorite albums of the year. This is not Rose’s final record, it should be noted; that will come out in February on Thrill Jockey. But do yourself a favor and treat yourself to one of the most gifted musicians of the decade.

This Canadian duo’s ongoing fame and acclaim are due to the fact that, deep within their Internationalist techno-pop, you can still hear their early-period bedroom-beat sensibilities. Put Junior Boys on every big-deal DJ comp, fly them around the world, set them up with the highest-profile remixing gigs — doesnt matter. For every sly mid-tempo hip-shaker on Begone Dull Care (like “Work,” “Hazel” and “Bits and Pieces”) there’s another that sounds tailored for your nights in, makin’ easy love or just chilling/blissing out. As usual, there’s sweet contrast throughout between the faintly cool synth and rhythm textures and the Boys’ soulful-Caucasian vocals. Their first full-length since 2006 can be summed up simply: Formula — ain’t broke; fixin’ — unnecessary.

Kurt Vile may not be a star yet, but we expect that to change soon. In our little corner of the world, this Philly-based rocker took us by storm. On his third release and first for Matador, Vile stomps, snorts and sneers with great relish and style, delivering a pure rock gem that sounds retro and fresh all at once. Some tracks recall 70s-era Rolling Stones, while others the psych buzz of Spacemen 3. The FM-rock sound is offset by the album’s shambolic aesthetic and expansive song structures; Vile’s songs smolder at times with a steady Krautrock-ish intensity without delivering any anthemic release, just letting them cruise along in scruffy magnificence. Pure fun from start to finish, and we’re looking forward to hearing him top it.

A Broken Consort is one of several pseudonyms employed by U.K. artist Richard Skelton, who operates the Sustain-Release imprint, which issues music and other artisanal works that (in the accurate words of The Wire) trace out a “pastoral psychogeography” of Skelton’s Lancashire stomping grounds. Like much of Skelton’s work (apparently/presumably), Box of Birch is a swirl of memoryfaded, reclaimed, half-imaginedand evocative vibrations that at least partly concern the loss of his wife, Louise, who passed away in 2004 and to whom this recording of dreamy mysticism is dedicated. Working alone, Skelton blends moods and sounds nimbly: violin streams in multiple-helix patterns with acoustic guitar, subliminal percussion and an unbounded tonal palette. Fans of Godspeed and comparable acts will find much to love in these four long pieces.

Don’t blink: Between now and when you finish this paragraph, Real Estate, a young North Jersey quartet, may have released another album, an EP and a couple of side-projects. But before they become one of 2010’s buzzier bands, be sure to get this self-titled full-length debut, which hits the slacker sweet spot of late-era capitalism (also known as Autumn 2009), conjuring a sound of sun-bleached indie-pop beauty on a beach of postponed hopelessness. (Brief pause to let you chew on that one. Should I have just said, “The housing market continues to slide, but Real Estate is on the rise?”) The easy flow of their sound bears more than a hint of their admitted heroes, The Clean, but it’s because of the way Real Estate sounds quite domesticfamiliar, eventhat they’ve become the latest blogger’s delight. If they can continue to grow from this worthy debut, look out for more and bigger things from them.

Blog-rock of the most adorable stripe, the Antlers’ Hospice  originally self-released before being plucked by Frenchkiss and becoming a genuine indie hit — is full of highly anthemic songs by a trio of Brooklynites whose credits are revealing: Peter Silberman (vocals, guitar, accordion, harmonica, harp, keyboards), Darby Cicci (trumpet, bowed banjo), and Michael Lerner (drums, percussion). They are joined at times by golden-voiced folksinger Sharon Van Etten and bassist Justin Stivers. Obviously any band that has accordion, harmonica, and bowed banjo is not interested in operating by the standard formulas of indie rock, but they’ve got two of them down pat: quiet verse/loud chorus and epic crescendo. It’s lo-fi when they want fuzzy ambiguity but perfectly clear when they reach their climaxes, and always sweetly melodic.

One of Gertrude Stein’s keenest quotes: “For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts.” This year is when things pivoted for Cass McCombs; despite four affecting and unwaveringly excellent records this decade, McCombs seems to have glided at low altitude across the indie singer-songwriter airspace. But something is different with the release of Catacombs. Enough people (especially fellow musicians) have been talking about him for enough time that it just feels like he’s arrived at the tipping point to which Ms. Stein refers. Of course, none of this would matter to him; Catacombs finds this poetic Lionkiller older and wiser, examining and imagining in his lighter-than-air, heavier-than-life voice over perfectly uncluttered pop-guitar arrangements, tinted with pedal steel. Nothing here is quite so sublime as his last albums “Deseret,” but Dreams-Come-True Girl, with a stunning guest turn by cult actor-singer Karen Black, comes close. (She’s in the video too!) As an artist, the spectral McCombs seems to exist outside of time; in the world of fame and records bought and sold, his time isnow!

On the heels of last year’s well-received mixtape, Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and European production duo Radioclit hit 2009 with another diverse collection of infectious Afropop, Warm Heart of Africa, their proper debut. Mwamwaya’s compelling vocals (sung mostly in his native Chichewa) are at the warm heart of The Very Best’s music, backed by a combination of electronic beats and African instruments. The album features appearances by Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend (on the buoyant title track) and M.I.A. (on the electrifying “Rain Dance”). With other highlights including the summery anthem “Julia” and the ’80s synth sparkle of “Mfumu,’ Warm Heart of Africa is one of the year’s sleeper hits.

The greatest musicians are those that are not easily classified. As a solo artist, collaborator and producer, Jim O’Rourke has displayed an uncanny ability to create music that is at once familiar and exotic. On The Visitor, a nearly 40-minute instrumental composition, O’Rourke uses a variety of strings, woodwinds, percussion and some electric instruments to create a devastatingly melancholic atmosphere. Perhaps drawing from O’Rourke’s experience as an American living abroad, The Visitor invokes a spirit of total freedom familiar to anyone who has wandered from the front-porch into the great unknown of the outside world. As with much of his previous non-experimental work, The Visitor contains elements of folk, pop, jazz and a slew of other musical styles boiled down to their bare essence and presented in O’Rourke’s singular musical voice, a welcome sound in ’09.

Thee Oh Sees on In the Red: In this age of suffering and unenlightenment, finally, something just plain makes sense. John Dwyer & Co.’s latest follows in the style of their latest, The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Leaving Your Panties In—at least we think that was the title. Regardless, Help has an easier name and every last micron of the same echoey, reverby quasi-mod rawk thrills, from outright garage-punk (“Meat Step Lively”) to more canonistic turns on rock’s past (“A Flag in the Court” could be 1962’s best single). The boy-girl vocal interplay between Dwyer and Brigid Dawson is about the best you’ll hear in rock music—they go together way better than cameras and phones. Like an American Billy Childish (not just in thee name, either) but way more versatile, Dwyer is a national treasure, and if you don’t have Help, then you need help. Says me, that’s who.

Here comes the supergroup of our time, an indie Traveling Wilburys. With a name like Monsters of Folk, this could’ve gone either way, really bad or really great; thankfully it’s the latter. The group — made up of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jim James of My Morning Jacket and Mike Mogis, producer extraordinaire for Saddle Creek — has come up with a great collection of unpretentious songs featuring catchy melodies and hooky choruses. The album opens with the spacey soul-jam “Dear God” and then sets off, moving fluidly between genres, from soaring pop to indie-country-swing, brushing through gospel call-and-response and including a few lush ballads. Surprisingly for such a broad range of ideas, nothing feels forced. The four musicians play everything and switch vocal leads throughout — no need for special guests or studio musicians; a spirit of total collaboration carries the day.

Such a simple title for such a spectacular piece of music. Welcome to Mali is also a bit misleading, as the divine duo of Amadou & Mariam made an album that is so very much a product of Earth rather than any one arbitrarily formed nation-state. Leaving the production in the hands of a few talented gentlemen (including Mali music’s No. 1 man in the U.K., Damon Albarn), Amadou & Mariam spend Welcome to Mali doing what they do better than any African musicians I can think of: transport their homegrown sound and vibe, intact, into a set of musical styles that stretch out to the horizon. Sweet soul, blues, funk, hip-hop, dance music that swings and sways only under no flag or all of them — this record has to be heard. Other than a spate of fantastic reissues, no finer music emerged from Africa in 2009.

For months this record just flew out the door. For months after that, it walked briskly. Basically, Dark Was the Night has been the hottest indie-comp of the year — no real surprise considering the who’s who of a tracklist: The two discs feature new material by Antony, Arcade Fire, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver, the Books and Cat Power . . . and that’s just A through frickin’ C. Seriously this is simply as good a compilation as you’re going to find. And the money goes to the Red Hot Foundation, which raises funds to fight the AIDS epidemic. I believe politicians like to call this a win-win.

Lightning Bolt may be better known for their live “guerilla gigs” — just imagine a hurricane with two adrenaline machines pulsing in its eye — but make no mistake, when drummer/vocalist (if you can call his mutilated yelps “vocals”) Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson want to reach out through your speakers and grab you by the throat, they know how to get it done. Whether edging their brutally noisy rock towards the extremes of shreiking bass, frappé rhythms or swirls of sonics so warped that they melt into one another, Lightning Bolt increasingly do it with the sort of majestic composure that could only be acquired through repeated confrontations with pure human chaos.

The year’s best hip-hop album is also the crowning achievement of Mos Def’s recording career — no small feat, given that this is the man behind Black on Both Sides. After some recent missteps and overreaching, here the Brooklyn hero gets down to what he does best, meshing rap, rhythm and an array of sounds and styles, whether it be classic soul riffs or Turkish psych. The result is a hip-hop album unlike any other we can think of, 16 songs that flow with a beautiful spontaneity and renewed vitality. Backed by a cadre of Stones Throw artists (Madlib, Oh No, Georgia Anne Muldrow), Mos Def returns to relevance on The Ecstatic. Let’s hope he stays there.

The group’s name and album title seem like some sort of postmodern tip of the hat: take archetypes and reduce the rock album to its essence. It’s a fake-out, though: at its best, this is as emotionally taut and compelling as rock records get. There’s more than a hint of early Elvis Costello to the music made by Christopher Owens and JR White, but with segues elsewhere: the surreal, distorted interlude in the center of “Summertime” and the slow-burning heartbreak of “Hellhole Ratrace” both come to mind. Its moods move from blissful summertime pop to hard-earned epiphanies, and the end result is both eminently listenable and richly resonant. Add videos featuring naked young people and you have one of 2009’s most talked-about indie bands.

Everyone who fell under the spell of UK hippie-goth siren Natasha Khan’s 2007 debut, Fur and Gold, had the same worry: Would the attention paid to it (and its not very unattractive creator) spoil the naive magic for her followup? The answer is right after this colon: No. Two Suns is, though, a bit glossier in production and stylistic moves (“Pearl’s Dream” is one of a few songs that could send rippling ooh’s through your favorite alternaclub), but c’mon—she got Scott Walker to guest on a track! The Bat for Lashes dream continues, and somewhere, Danielle Dax is probably smiling.

This is not a reissue per se, since it was never released until this year, so call this mid-70s masterpiece one of the best debuts of 2009. Detroit has given us many hard-rocking but idiosyncratic bands. Add to that list this trio of brothers, who recorded seven songs in 1975 and then split over Columbia A&R man Clive Davis’s insistence that they change their name to something more commercial. Hey — tell that know-nuthin’ that some 30 years on, this shit was gonna get a big feature in the NY Times! This album is sufficiently wonderful to compensate for its brevity. Most often suggesting an American Eddie & the Hot Rods — born in metal à la KISS and Blue Öyster Cult instead of pub-rock but anticipating punk just as surely as The Dictators did — Death packed a surprising amount of variety into their sound, but the most crucial aspects are their minor-key brooding, alienated lyrics, frequently hurtling speed and concisely wailing guitar interjections. “Freakin Out“ would fit nicely on the Ramones’ first album, not recorded until a year later.

Artistically perhaps the biggest record of the year, Fever Ray’s self-titled debut is the sound of one Knife cutting. Of course, this isn’t your standard debut — Fever Ray is Karin Dreijer Andersson, the sister half of Swedish sibling duo the Knife. Like that outfit’s Silent Shout, Fever Ray is composed of primarily electronic materials and moods, but the vantage point is, to state the obvious, more singular. The first track, “If I Had a Heart ” (find the video online and watch it-now!), marks the charcoal depths of Andersson ’s m.o., but the ten songs cast their gaze around a wide world of shadows and illuminated nights. Together with a handful of hotly anticipated live shows, this album made Fever Ray one of the most talked-about artists of 2009. Highly recommended for fans of the early Mute and 4AD rosters, as well as Björk’s prettier moments and, naturally, the Knife.

Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power of Bristol-based electro duo Fuck Buttons are noisy experimentalists, but they are devoted to rhythm. On this gorgeously assaultive second LP, a typical track will build a tinny, frenetic club beat into a tower of crystalline static, washed through with nebulous melodies. The process generally takes about 8 to 11 minutes (with a few 5-minute exceptions) but never seems to drag as the drone and skitter push each other to stunning, futuristic heights. Expect relentless brain pounding, and don’t be surprised if your leg muscles can’t help but spasm happily.

It is very rare that a band returns from a 16-year hiatus and makes as much of an impact as Dinosaur Jr. have since reforming. Granted, J Mascis never went anywhere in the interim, but truth be told Dinosaur Jr. has always been J, Lou and Murph. Which brings us to Farm, their second album since reuniting and their best sounding record since the SST days. Mascis may be looking more and more like the white wizard from Lord of the Rings (fitting, considering the album cover depicts Ents) but Dinosaur’s sound remains youthful and vibrant, and Farm easily outshines the otherwise good Beyond. Dinosaur have only grown tighter over the years and the interplay between the three of them cannot be duplicated. As proved by the new single, “Over It,” the trio have not forgotten how to write catchy rock hooks; this album is full of them and with Farm, the band reaffirmed its continuing relevance. The crop was good this year.

Artists who’ve been around as long as Neko Case and who’ve been roundly celebrated by critics and cash registers alike, tend to get taken for granted after a certain point. Yet Middle Cyclone made the case for the ongoing importance and vitality of this sui generis artist. Here, Case shows she’s aging with stormy grace, and the fact that her gorgeous, powerful voice still conjures images of weather patterns is not lost on — well, her (album and song titles, lyrics, etc.). Middle Cyclone’s guest list is long (Joey Burns of Calexico, Howe Gelb, Kelly Hogan and even Kurt Heasley of the Lilys) and it includes covers of Sparks (“Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth”) and Nilsson (a lovely reading of “Don’t Forget Me”), but there isn’t a moment where you think of anyone but the divine Ms. Case. (Er, and some frogs.) A vital addition to her growing catalog.

St. Vincent (Annie to her family, the Clarks) returned this year to prove her debut was no fluke. On Actor, Clark leads with her cute, pointy chin, updating the ambitiously composed songs that made her Marry Me one of 2007’s surprise hits. Several of the songs on Actor have a curiously unresolved quality about them — not unfinished but rather just vaguely unsettled (not the same as unsettling, mind you) — that set off winning tunes like “Actor Out of Work” and the charming (not just in its title) “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood” marvelously. There’s plenty here for indie-sophisticate slow-dancing, as well as swooning and song-dissecting. The indie-rock discussion in 2009 must involve this fascinating, self-contained artist.

Only French people could do something so clearly unoriginal and yet make it seem perfectly right and natural and cool. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix sounded best during the warm months, but it’s a testament to Phoenix that the album still sounds fresh as we wrap up 2009. Whether it has to do with them reuniting with producer Philippe Zdar (of Cassius) or the cycles of the moon, the end result is the same. Bring the disc in from the car, this one’ll keep you moving all winter, too.

Words will never quite be enough for Woods. Not to suggest this Brooklyn outfit is The. Greatest. Thing. Ever!, just that when I tell you Songs of Shame is a collection of ramshackle floaty folk-rock songs, you won’t quite be able to grasp the spackle in their ramshackle, the vibe of their float, the worn-in alrightness of their lazily brilliant approach. That “dancing about architecture” crack applies only when music is actually art, is what I’m try’na tellya here—and Songs of Shame rates. It is psychedelic in nature, if not always in sound. And through this lousy year on Earth the record stayed cool when it was hot, warm when it was cold, giving your mind reason and license to wander. In fact, it was great to see this band enjoy a bit of deserved hype in 2009. Go out on a limb with the short and bittersweet “Born to Lose,” as well as “Down This Road” and the protracted simmer of “September with Pete,” which features righteous hombre Pete Nolan of Magik Markers and Spectre Folk.

What a year for the UK artist known as Bibio, a.k.a. Stephen James Wilkinson. Not long ago he hovered just under the folktronica radar as a Boards of Canada acolyte. This year he jumped from Mush to Warp and spread his electronic wings wide on what would be the second of his three (!) 2009 releases. On Ambivalence Avenue, he adds fo’-real beats to a more rounded mix of folk-flavored pastorals, vanilla-soulful vocals, twinkling soundscapes, and the colorfully jagged glitchy laptopisms that have become Warp’s stock in trade. While his music is all based in electronics, Bibio is at his best when he homes in on traditional songcraft: “Haikuesque (When She Laughs),” the lightly funky “Lovers’ Carvings” and “The Palm of Your Wave” are the songs you’ll remember (and sprinkle your mixtapes with), while the corkscrewy “S’vive” and “Fire Ant,” as well as the Curtis Mayfield-imitating “Jealous of Roses,” provide sharp counterpoint.

In a year when lo-fi guitar rock has made waves (and Wavves), Fake Surfers by Intelligence has to come under consideration as one of 2009’s best. Mainman Lars Finberg is (hmm, maybe was?) the drummer in Seattle’s best rock band (that I know of), A Frames, but he is clearly one of those modern polymaths. The cool rock styles and superb songwriting splattered across these 12 songs (in a tight, In the Red-style 32 minutes) reveal a knuckle-cracking grasp of the au courant style of underground-rock recording, but also a deep fondness and irreverent reverence for 60s-era Brit-mod moves, punk art of every stripe, and forms of rock that were never even properly invented. Fake Surfers, is the kind of record you can lean your entire existence against for a while — you feel like Finberg & Co. really get what’s going on, is what I’m saying. Nine thumbs up! (M.L. Thrope)

When Merriweather Post Pavilion arrived, we sold out of the vinyl pressing in about a day, and had to hear “Do you have . . . ?” for weeks. As if we needed any hint that this record would be huge. Merriweather picked right up where Strawberry Jam left off, continuing Animal Collective’s newfound penchant for mixing pop with international-flavored psych-folk. The production is crisp and the lyrics easier to decipher (though they are as cryptic as ever), but this is very much an Animal Collective record. Made as a trio (though absent fourth member Deakin would return to the fold before the end of the year), the group has pretty much left the singalong-campfire quality of earlier records and embraced electronics and heavier percussion, but the music is as buoyant as ever and the melodies have never been stronger. The wondrous interplay between Panda Bear and Avey Tare holds the album together, from the handclaps and thundering bass lines of “My Girls” to the Latin-flavored “My Brother Sport” — it’s an exhilarating ride. We’re not going to proclaim this Animal Collective’s finest hour, given the extraordinarily high quality of the band’s near-decade output, but this is certainly a sterling addition to their great oeuvre.

Bromst is one hour of the most thrilling and exuberant pop we heard all year, as well as one of the most fresh, exciting and inventive in the electronic-pop field. Deacon, of Baltimore’s aptly hyped Wham City collective, once again combines cartoonish hyper-electronica a la Raymond Scott with new-wave rock and dance rhythms, creating long, slow-building songs steeped in melody and the pop avant-garde. If you found Deacon’s previous effort, 2007’s Spiderman of the Rings, a little too over-the-top and mind-numbing at times, well, so did we. What makes Bromst so noteworthy is Deacon’s growth as a producer and arranger. He introduces new sounds and genres, from thumb pianos to female vocal cut-ups, and, most important, he shrewdly slows things down once in a while. In short, he’s kept everything that made Spiderman so daring but has revealed new depths as an artist. Don’t deny yourself this one: It’s a blast.

It’s hardly a revelation at this stage that Grizzly Bear had a good year in 2009. When a Brooklyn psych-folk act makes the Billboard Top 10 (we’re not kidding), that’s news. But it’s also no surprise. On it, Ed Droste sounds more assured of his place in the world, more confident in singing about the transient and ephemeral nature of love and relationships, while his bandmates show a learned restraint, saying a lot with space (and reverb!) and the songs’ stately pacing. Like 12 slow-burning matchsticks on a cool, dark night, these tunes will sear into your memory. We dig the classic popcraft of “While You Wait for the Others,” hiding out toward the end of the record, but you go ahead and find your own favorites.

Be right with you, I’m having a low-grade psychedelic experience with the cover of Yacht’s new See Mystery Lights. Wow, it’s — I see them, the mystery lights! Once you stop your day-tripping you’ll notice the sticker on the front that says “Music for a New Spirit” you may also have heard Yacht claim to be “a band belief system.” This is all a bit overblown, but only a bit, because as indie-dance sounds go, Yacht’s Jona Bechtolt (joined now by the very excellent Claire L. Evans) do seem to have the inside lane on freshness. Bechtolt’s a master arranger; his tracks may identify as techno or tech-house all while neatly wrapping straight-up pop vocals and guitar riffs around some chest-rattling momentum changes. “The Afterlife” is one of the best, catchiest tracks of the year; you’ll also see the lights with the tropical-vibed “Ring the Bell” and the somewhat flabbergasting workout of “It’s Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want.”

At War with the Mystics was a respectable placeholder, and instrumental soundtrack Christmas on Mars holds an auspicious place in the Flaming Lips’ catalogue, but to fans who’ve been waiting years for a proper follow-up to The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi: It’s here!! With this 70-minute bash in the head, the Lips explore a darker, more aggressive side of their own brand of psychedelic futurism. The album’s best tracks don’t warmly envelop so much as they attack the listener with growling bass rhythms and buzzing synth. There’s still plenty of room across 18 tracks for some sound collage hallucinations and static-y sing-alongs. Just don’t get too comfortable; a killer sonic barrage is waiting right around the corner.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart gave us the first great debut of 2009, an album exploding with hooks, energy and unabashed enthusiasm. The band’s name is no affectation: This local dream-pop quartet wears their emotions on their sleeves without sliding into anything resembling emo-esque self-pity. In short, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart (as acronyms go, even TPOBPAH is a mouthful) offer indie pop at its finest, bringing to mind recent acts like Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls and Cause Co-Motion while retaining a darker, heavier edge that brings me back to the halcyon days of the Wedding Present, My Bloody Valentine and early Jesus and Mary Chain. If you love boy-girl harmonies, you’re gonna flip: Lead singer and guitarist Kip Berman has an appealing vulnerability that’s only sweetened by Peggy Wang’s smooth background vocals, as the pair harmonize in front of a tight arrangement of crunching guitars, fuzzed-out keys and infectious jangle pop. Few records have helped maintain our collective spirits through this shitty recession than the Pains of Being Pure at Heart — without it, we’d have committed hari kari long ago. GET IT, your very survival may depend on it.

We were all expecting great albums from Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and Flaming Lips in 2009, but this record arrived with little fanfare and knocked us for a loop. Mulatu Astatke (born 1943) is a giant of Ethiopian music, a multi-instrumentalist pioneer of African jazz and one of the great arrangers. Reputedly the first African student at Berklee, he has blended jazz, Latin, and Ethiopian music into a truly distinctive, personal style. (His music was heavily featured in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, sparking great interest in his work.) Sound Fix has already turned people on to his artistry via volume 4 in the great Ethiopiques series and a pair of LPs; this brilliant collaboration with U.K. groovemeisters The Heliocentrics gives Astatke some of the funkiest beats of his amazing career. At the London recording sessions, Ethiopian masters who live there were also called in to make this multi-cultural creation even more authentically amazing. This darkly modal music is one of the best albums of 2009 in three genres: soul/funk, jazz, and world music.