WHITE RAINBOW - Prism of Eternal Now

Like many experimental indie noisemakers--the many projects of Toronto's own Aidan Baker come to mind here--Adam Forkner's White Rainbow began with a series of CD-R releases. After 2006's 5CD/1DVD Box compilation, he has gone on to release three CDs in 2007. Prism of Eternal Now, however, is his first one with respected label Kranky. This Chicago label is the perfect home for Forkner's music, a mixture of electronics, drum circles, chants, psych pop and primal noise manipulation. Constantly evolving music that's a late contender for one of the better experimental titles of the year.

NIFTY - A Sparrow! A Sparrow!

As one-third of Les Mouches, Matthew Smith joined drummer Rob Gordon and Owen "Final Fantasy" Pallett in making noise-folk songs that teetered between cascading abrasion and soothing caress. Smith's solo work as Nifty is equally diverse but uses very different elements. Pulling from the worlds of African percussion, grimy electro-soul, patchy big band horn blasts and overlapping instrumental layers, A Sparrow! A Sparrow! is possessed with sonic wanderlust. His instincts rarely steer him wrong, creating the sort of album which becomes more memorable and intriguing the less you try to pin it down.

GRIZZLY BEAR - Friend EP

Following Yellow House--one of 2006's most enduring releases--and well over a year's worth of touring, the Friend EP arrives to fill Grizzly Bear's studio gap. A collection of covers (both by them of others and others of them), remixes, and new tunes, this EP is naturally a little hit-and-miss. Still, the highlights are a stellar rendering of their rich sound; equally indebted to both ambient/electronic sensibilities and the classic sounds of doo-wop and Phil Spector. Their cover of "She Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" is a revelation, while a cutting run through Yellow House standout "Little Brother" is a feast of ever-evolving energy.

SIGUR ROS - Hvarf/Heim

Interesting what a few years can change in how you listen to a band. In 2000, import copies of Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun were sought after like the Holy Grail. Now that we've grown used to the group's key sonics—omnious bowed guitars, steady crescendos, and a craning falsetto—their later discs have felt a bit rote. This double EP seeks, successfully at times, to rejuvenate their catalog. Hvarf is a electric recasting of past tunes and live faves, while the more interesting Heim uses an acoustic setting to make a case for strong writing underneath all those effects. Essential? No, but it is very beautiful.

KITES - Hallucination Guillotine/Final Worship

This is possibly my favourite album of the year. Kites' Chris Forgues does extremely well with producing distinct harsh noise records. Forgues refrains from using any digital effects, instead focusing on building his own noise insturments. One of my favourite things about his work is that the production value is pristine; you can actually hear everything that's going on. It's nice to hear the harsh sounds he's making, not losing them in a lo-fi squalor that is common to a lot of records of the same ilk. This album is pleasantly cold and I approve of its overall shape.

ROBERT WYATT - Comicopera

Wyatt's ability to walk a very thin line between timeless pop and artful divergence is a masterful gift; one made more spectacular by his unassuming way with that gift. This music shrugs its shoulders and finds the quiet corner in the room. It takes a certain amount of initiative to even get a conversation going, and once you begin talking, things don't come easily either. As its title suggests, Comicopera balances in close proximity images of humour and touching commitment with plainly brutal isolation. You can't often truly call an album brave and beautiful, but that's a distinction this record earns.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Strawberry Jam

When a band member has already made one of the year's defining releases (Panda Bear's breakout Person Pitch), you know the bar is set high. So it's with great pleasure/relief that we can confirm that Strawberry Jam is a great record: wildly accessible, yet fiercely loyal to the group's spirit of noise and chaos. New fans of Panda Bear's soaring Beach Boy-isms may take a spell to appreciate Avey Tare's coo-to-a-scream vocal style, but this juxtaposition is only one of the things that makes Jam so thrilling. Bookended by two exceptional albums, 2007 is Animal's Collective's year.

MICK TURNER/TREN BROTHERS - Blue Trees

I could go on and on about the vitality, peerlessness and plain beauty of the music of The Dirty Three, but above all else, their greatest contribution to music is their inversion of the traditional roles of their instruments. In particular, Mick Turner's ability to take the most obnoxious and familiar instrument in modern music (the electric guitar) and turn it into something so amorphous and secretive is nothing short of brilliant. This collection of rare solo material (along with duo collaborations with D3's drummer Jim White) is instrumental daydreaming of the highest order.

NO AGE - Weirdo Rippers

Offering up a killer, just-under-the-radar platter of non-sequitor indie rock, No Age are an L.A. duo (plus friends) making exactly the kind of record you'd expect (and hope for) in 2007. This means Weirdo Rippers covers walls of white noise, floating clouds of ethereal drift, geeky Sebadoh-esque trash-pop, and all points in between. These musical wanderings stay connected by the home-baked, tossed off charm of it all. To be sure, these recordings were well-considered, thoughtfully planned, and executed to an exacting standard. It just doesn't really sound like it.

THE FOR CARNATION - Promised Works

As the Slint reunion continues to roll on, it's appropriate that singer Brian McMahan's other project, The For Carnation, gets a much needed reissue. Promised Works collects Fight Songs and Marshmallows, the two EPs which introduced the group to the world. TFC removed Slint's indie-rock edge to distill a pure ether of unsettled calm. Spoken rather than sung, implied rather than played, these songs float, drift and possess with such amorphous grace that they take time to reveal themselves. The end product is a body of work that, while short-lived, is lasting and singular.

G*PARK - Seismogramm

"Marvelously organic close-mic'd sounds (a cat mewling, the branches of a tree twisting in the wind) are spaced and rearranged with a tranquility, clarity and focus that's sadly uncommon in musique concrète made in the wake of widely available sampling technology. There's a kind of autumnal elegance to G*Park's restrained, low-key filtering and EQ work which bathes each sound in a warm mid-range glow. Somebody has just got to reissue this." -Drew Daniel (Matmos)  

URDOG - Garden of Bones

This band from Providence, RI is no longer together. This is unfortunate because they are great live and I would have liked to have heard a new album. They're a great example of contemporary prog-psych from the states; creepier, weirder and more lo-fi than trad psych/prog. They run with the likes of other Providence favourites like Lightning Bolt and Papperad, Kites, et al - and it shows for the fact that the music is interesting and a little strange, yet ultimately very enjoyable.

AMIINA - Kurr

This Icelandic quartet gained quiet fame as the string players on albums by fellow countrymen Sigur Ros. Despite a long history with that group, Amiina had up until now only released a pair of EPs. Their debut full-length, Kurr, proves to be worth the wait. This album draws from a palette wider than that of your typical string quartet. In fact, the strings rarely assert themselves; the most obvious voices here are that of bells, water-drop keys, flute, horns, singing saw and classical guitar. The result is an ambient instrumental record which sits bewitchingly between eras: both modern and ancient.

BATTLES - Mirrored

Say hi to the new prog-rock! Boasting members whose alma maters include such 90s experi-metal luminaries as Don Cabellero and Helmet, Mirrored is a full-length debut whose sound finds four players woven into each other's fabric with the most careful precision. Despite the premium paid toward virtuosity and exact electronics, Mirrored is highly playful and unpredictable. Complex and polyrhythmic but still catchy, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it rains like manna from heaven on those who can't stomach yet another introspective singer-songwriter.