Listener Poll results give My Bloody Valentine’s mbv the most fervent love. Perhaps because they waited nearly twenty years for it. No internet release besides Beyonce caused nearly as much instant twitterpation, and quite understandably.

Ultimately it was a watershed year for great releases in both shoegaze and dream pop genres, and probably generated as much great music as could be heard in 1992, if not more.



1. My Bloody Valentine – mbv 2. Solar Powered People – The Scars We Own 3. No Joy – Wait to Pleasure 4. Soft Shadows – Reverb is for Lovers 5. Medicine – To The Happy Few 6. The Stargazer Lilies – We Are the Dreamers 7. Dead Leaf Echo – Thought & Language 8. Orange Yellow Red – A Rose Made of Galaxies 9. Tape Deck Mountain – Sway 10 Drowner – You’re Beautiful, I Forgive You



Staff Picks for 2013

We don’t play albums, we play singles, so we’re not about to rank a darn thing here. We will, however, give away our own album of the year award, and list some of the great achievements we heard in the past year.

DKFM Album of the Year: Candy Claws, Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time

For sheer chutzpah, consistent inventiveness, rule-breaking and all-around tunefulness, we couldn’t find a better full LP than the new offering from Candy Claws. From the opening bars of “Into the Deep Time (One Sun)”, you immediately recognize you’re not in Kansas anymore. Call it a concept album, call it a musical adventure from beginning to end. We call it a masterpiece that nobody else in 2013 could come anywhere close to.

To recap some of the best albums not mentioned above, we list some of the truly impressive LPs which graced our airwaves this past year, in no particular order.

Dråpe – Canicular Days

The History of Apple Pie – Out of View

Silver Swans – Touch

Black Hearted Brother – Stars Are Our Home

Weekend – Jinx

SULK – Graceless

skip skip ben ben – Sacrifice Mountain Hills

유카리(Yukari) – Echo

Panda Riot – Northern Automatic Music

Edweena – Solar Days and Lunar Nights

Toy – Join the Dots

Decades – Decades

Winkie – One Day We Pretended To Be Ghosts

きのこ帝国 (Kinoko Teikoku) – eureka

White Poppy – White Poppy

Yuck – Glow & Behold

Picnic – The Weather’s Fine

Waldo & Marsha – Zoo

True Widow – Circumambulation

SPC ECO – Sirens and Satellites

Lovesliescrushing – Ghost Colored Halo

Jesus On Heroine – Tremolo Eastern Salvation

The Fauns – Lights

IO Echo – Ministry of Love

New Canyons – Everyone is Dark

The Sorry Shop – Mnemonic Syncretism

Lorelle Meets the Obsolete – Corruptible Faces

Jetman Jet Team – We Will Live the Space Age

Pure Bathing Culture – Moon Tides

Crocodiles – Crimes of Passion

HollAnd – Happiness Falls & The Bitter Blue

Screen Vinyl Image – 51:21

Tripwires – Spacehopper

Bored Nothing – Bored Nothing

Splashh – Comfort

Violens – True

Blouse – Imperium

WL – Hold

The Besnard Lakes – Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO

Bleeding Rainbow – Yeah Right

Exit Calm – The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be

Nightmare Air – High In The Lasers

Joanna Gruesome – Weird Sister

Eros and the Eschaton – Home Address for Civil War

Power Pyramid – The God Drums

Slowness – For Those Who Wish to See the Glass Half Full

Baby Formula – Baby Formula



And even that’s just a partial list of the impressive sounds we were treated to this year. We can only hope next year will be even half as impressive (and abundant).



