The Daily Swarm

PItchfork:

1. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino]

When Animal Collective traded up from FatCat Records to Domino in 2007, the label was flush with the recent successes of Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand—chart-topping artists that presumably helped underwrite the label’s more outré signings, like Kieran Hebden, Juana Molina and, well, Animal Collective. Even as their 2007 Domino debut, Strawberry Jam, dialed down the textural density and brought Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s vocal melodies higher in the mix, the cleaner, chiseled presentation seemed only to accentuate the band’s intrinsic weirdness.

2. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca [Domino]
3. The xx The xx [Young Turks]
4. The Flaming Lips Embryonic [Warner Bros.]
5. Raekwon Only Built for Cuban Linx… Pt. II [H2O/EMI]
6. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest [Warp]
7. Bat For Lashes Two Suns [Astralwerks/Parlophone]
8. Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [Loyauté/Glassnote]
9. Fever Ray Fever Ray [Mute/Rabid]
10. Girls Album [True Panther/Matador]
11. Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport [ATP]
12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz! [Interscope]
13. St. Vincent Actor [4AD]
14. Neon Indian Psychic Chasms [Lefse]
15. Japandroids Post-Nothing [Unfamiliar/Polyvinyl]
16. Antony and the Johnsons The Crying Light [Secretly Canadian]
17. The Very Best Warm Heart of Africa [Green Owl}
18. Atlas Sound Logos [Kranky]
19. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Pains of Being Pure at Heart [Slumberland]
20. Real Estate Real Estate [Woodsist]
21. Neko Case Middle Cyclone [Anti-]
22. Wild Beasts Two Dancers [Domino]
23. Memory Tapes Seek Magic [Sincerely Yours/Acéphale/Something in Construction]
24. Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle [Drag City]
25. DJ Quik and Kurupt BlaQKout [Mad Science]
26. Bon Iver Blood Bank EP [Jagjaguwar]
27. Various Artists 5: Five Years of Hyperdub [Hyperdub]
28. Micachu and the Shapes Jewellery [Rough Trade]
29. Yo La Tengo Popular Songs [Matador]
30. Röyksopp Junior [Astralwerks]
31. Sunn O))) Monoliths & Dimensions [Southern Lord]
32. Bear in Heaven Beast Rest Forth Mouth [Hometapes]
33. Bibio Ambivalence Avenue [Warp]
34. Passion Pit Manners [Columbia/Frenchkiss]
35. jj jj n° 2 [Sincerely Yours]
36. Dinosaur Jr. Farm [Jagjaguwar]
37. The Antlers Hospice [Frenchkiss]
38. Major Lazer Guns Don’t Kill People—Lazers Do [Downtown]
39. Jim O’Rourke The Visitor [Drag City]
40. Mos Def The Ecstatic [Downtown]
41. Baroness Blue Record [Relapse]
42. A Sunny Day in Glasgow Ashes Grammar [Mis Ojos Discos]
43. Cymbals Eat Guitars Why There Are Mountains [self-released]
44. tUnE-yArDs BiRd-BrAiNs [Marriage/4AD]
45. The Mountain Goats The Life of the World to Come [4AD]
46. Dan Deacon Bromst [Carpark]
47. Zomby Where Were U in ‘92? [Werk Discs]
48. DOOM Born Like This [Lex]
49. Cass McCombs Catacombs [Domino]
50. Woods Songs of Shame [Shrimper/Woodsist]