Tanya Tagaq
1. Tanya Tagaq
Animism
It does a soul good to see a hugely experimental album built on Inuit throat singing and a reverence for the natural and animal worlds snag the Polaris Prize while also lighting us on fire creatively.
Sharon Van Etten
2. Sharon Van Etten
Are We There
The year's most unflinchingly emotional album is also the most darkly majestic of the Brooklyn singer/songwriter's career.
Run The Jewels
3. Run The Jewels
RTJ2
Conscious, funny and technically on-point rhymes over an unrelenting assault of industrial, electronic, experimental, rumbling and riff-peppered beats. Today's turn-up music.
D'Angelo and the Vanguard
4. D'Angelo and the Vanguard
Black Messiah
The reclusive star's third album brilliantly distills gospel, hip-hop and funk into a personal and politically potent sound that carves out its own space between rhythm and melody, humanism and spiritualism.
War On Drugs
5. The War On Drugs
Lost In The Dream
Adam Granduciel reworked the tunes on his atmospheric, propulsive third album - about loneliness and paranoia - at length, and the long hours paid off. It reveals more with every listen.
St. Vincent
6. St. Vincent
Annie Clark inserted an unexpectedly muscular sense of rhythm and funk into her idiosyncratic art pop constructions while still leaving just enough room for her guitar heroics to shine.
Azealia Banks
7. Azealia Banks
Broke With Expensive Taste
A fully realized, bold and assured (long-awaited) debut. No-holds-barred rhymes and a singing voice as versatile as her rapping one. Dance-floor gold.
Perfume Genius
8. Perfume Genius
Too Bright
Mike Hadreas amped up his vulnerable piano dirges with pop production touches that brought a new sense of power to his emotionally wrenching songs.
Jennifer Castle
9. Jennifer Castle
Pink City
On her fourth album, Jennifer Castle's ethereal folk tunes were elevated by subtly lush string arrangements and richly detailed production without ever losing that deeply personal touch we love her for.
Flying Lotus
10. Flying Lotus
You're Dead!
It's a jazz record… It's an IDM record… It's Flying Lotus! FlyLo sure seems like Superman on his latest, most nuanced effort of swirling, layered, darkly themed but never depressing tracks.