Best Of 2012 • Our Albums Of The Year #50–26

50: Mirel Wagner • Mirel Wagner

A 2011 release in the rest of Europe, word of Mirel Wagner’s trance-like takes on sparser-than-sparse folk and blues spread gradually further afield through low-key shows and rave reviews, making 2012 a banner year for the Ethiopia-born, Finland-raised artist. Recorded in just two days with producer Jürgen Hendlmeier, the unadorned simplicity of her self-titled debut wields an intangible, almost spiritual power that grows ever more compelling with each fresh listen. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Bone Voyage/Shellshock Records, January 2012

49: Martha Wainwright • Come Home To Mama

After wrong-footing herself with a patchy and unfocused second album, Martha Wainwright regained her poise as an interpreter of Piaf with 2009’s Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, à Paris. Returning to her own material, Come Home To Mama finds her tackling the big themes of marriage, death and motherhood, with Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda as producer introducing some welcome, albeit subtle, electronic elements. The standout may be a cover of her late mother’s final song ‘Proserpina’ but the performance is so gut-punchingly immaculate in its raw emotionality that it once again proves that when Wainwright really means what she’s singing, she’s utterly unbeatable. (Alan Pedder)

Released on V2/Co-operative Records, October 2012

48: Woodpecker Wooliams • The Bird School Of Being Human

Discarding the neo-medieval folk of her 2009 debut Diving Down, Gemma Williams embraced the thrills of discordance and noise on this short but bold, thematically cohesive record. Aggressive electronics circle the more delicate harp-based pieces like hungry buzzards, while Williams herself does her level best to rend the secrets of her projected bird world apart in a brutal, honest fashion. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Robot Elephant Records, September 2012

47: Ragana • All’s Lost

Hard-rock duo Ragana are a band keenly aware of their Olympia heritage but not content to revel in it. Over the course of the seven gut-wrenching tracks that comprise All’s Lost, the pair nod to grunge, garage rock, metal and riot grrrl, combining and exploring them with a feral and pummelling intensity to create a visceral, gripping noise all of their own. (Odhran O’Donoghue)

Self-released, June 2012

46: Micachu & The Shapes • Never

Mica Levi seemingly delights in twisting abrasive synths, droning noise, and chaotic beats around one another to create sounds that are challenging yet eminently listenable. Never sees Levi, together with her Shape cohorts, take their kitchen-sink approach to music making and run with it, creating a frenetic, mercurial cacophony, the surface ramshackleness of which belies an intelligent deconstruction of the confines of pop. (Odhran O’Donoghue)

Released on Rough Trade Records, July 2012

45: Melody’s Echo Chamber • Melody’s Echo Chamber

Melody Prochet treads a fine line between the pure and the debauched with this debut album, but the contrast between her sweet, impassive style and the raucous arrangements of collaborator Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) makes for a warm and solid record, rich in sumptuous tones and kicking hooks. Prochet often wears her influences on her sleeve, but her relative newness to the genres she currently employs makes sure things don’t get clichéd so that even when things are getting a little bit MBV, or a little bit Stereolab, there’s enough to keep the ear keen. (Rob Tamplin)

Released on Weird World Records, September 2012

44: Jessica Bailiff • At The Down-Turned Jagged Rim Of The Sky

Jessica Bailiff has been on the scene for long enough that you might think she has run out of surprises, but At The Down-turned Jagged Rim Of The Sky summarily rejects that notion. There’s not much in the way of major revelations, it’s true, but there’s a focus and character to this wonderful record that puts it at the forefront of her catalogue. Stirring stuff. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Kranky Records, October 2012

43: Mary Epworth • Dream Life

Paired with the depth of her knowledge of psychedelic folk and rock recordings, Mary Epworth’s innate appreciation of a good pop melody makes this long-awaited debut an absolute pleasure. Dream Life strikes a wonderful balance between the soft, feminine mystery and valerian haze of songs like ‘Two For Joy’ and ‘Six Kisses’ and the more direct singles ‘Long Gone’ and ‘Black Doe’. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Hand Of Glory Records, June 2012

42: Aimee Mann • Charmer

Laced with reflections on failed relationships and told in vivid, three-minute vignettes like only she can, Aimee Mann’s ninth album is pretty much business as usual. Though it’s arguably her feistiest record in a long while, Charmer doesn’t exactly push the boundaries of her idiom. Perhaps we need another concept album along the lines of The Forgotten Arm for that. Mind you, when she can still come up with such thrilling, novel ways to narrate the intricacies of human relationships, why should Mann strive for anything more? (Peter Hayward)

Released on SuperEgo Records, September 2012

41: iamamiwhoami • kin

iamamiwhoami’s core duo of Jonna Lee and Claes Björklund pulled off quite the coup with their “audio-visual” debut kin, a project which, in less confident hands, could so easily have ended up an uncomfortable anticlimax to the long reveal. Deliberately icy in texture and opaque in meaning, kin is nevertheless a nuanced and revealing listen, dragging dance and R&B beats through a Swedish forest backwards to form a riveting and thoroughly modern aesthetic. (Alan Pedder)

Released on To Whom It May Concern/Co-operative Records, September 2012

40: Jessica Sligter • Fear & The Framing

Jessica Sligter is fast becoming a essential artist, both in her work with avant genre-benders Sacred Harp and in her evolving solo recordings (having dropped her former stage name, Jæ). Fear & The Framing is a gutsy, anxious record wherein stark and borderline industrial passages rub shoulders with experimental, rangey jazz, inventive vocal arrangements and the kind of simpler folk-pop found on her earlier releases. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Hubro Records, December 2012

39: Poliça • Give You The Ghost

A lot of time with this album will be spent listening in a slight state of fascinated befuddlement: how do they get that atmosphere, how are they managing and manipulating these emotions? With highlights like the suitably visceral ‘Violent Games’ and album standout ‘Dark Star’, where the disorientating lollop of the rhythm finds its perfect pairing in Channy Leagh’s vocal, Give You The Ghost contains so much that is compelling and darkly alluring to the jaded musical palate that it deserves to be marked as one of 2012’s must-haves. (Jude Clarke)

Released on Memphis Industries, April 2012

38: Bat For Lashes • The Haunted Man

Natasha Khan’s third album The Haunted Man certainly divided opinion (and not just among our editors) so consider this position as a compromise. Doubtless you already have your own opinion on the record, so where it falls in this list is hardly important, but hopefully we can all agree that the middle half of this album is somewhere close to perfection. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Parlophone, October 2012

37: White Lung • Sorry

This second album by Canadian thrash punks White Lung clocks in at under twenty minutes, but its maniacal energy and punishing fury linger like a badge-of-honour bruise won at a basement hardcore show. Not a second is wasted as Mish Way and her cohorts barrel through each number, shrieking, yelping and brutalising their instruments with a bloodthirsty passion. Likely to leave you breathless, sweaty and hungry for more. (Odhran O’Donoghue)

Released on Deranged Records, May 2012

36: Iris DeMent • Sing The Delta

Sonically, Sing The Delta is warm and inviting but never cloying: it expands Iris DeMent’s palette subtly and sympathetically without the jarring flourishes that marred her last album of all-original material, 1996’s The Way I Should. There’s no fiddle, hardly any harmony parts, a little less twang, more swing and sway. Sparsely employed horns and organ, as well as some fine guitar work, add texture. Front and centre, though, is DeMent’s simple, elegant, churchy piano playing, which provides intimate, apt accompaniment for her stories of family, loss, homecoming and endurance. (Alex Ramon)

Released on Flariella Records, October 2012

35: Screaming Females • Ugly

You don’t need us to tell you that Screaming Females’ Marissa Paternoster shreds and howls with the best of them. Her live reputation is universally acknowledged and often spoken of in hushed tones usually reserved for ritualism, but the trio’s recorded output hasn’t always inspired such devotion. Ugly fully realises the brilliance that has been hinted at on the band’s four previous albums. The volume is seldom less than cranked, and the rhythms have a driving, corporeal thrill, as Paternoster stands front and centre, holding court with her virtuosity. (Odhran O’Donoghue)

Released on Don Giovanni Records, April 2012

34: Anaïs Mitchell • Young Man In America

Anaïs Mitchell’s fifth album had the tough job of following up her breakthrough folk-opera, Hadestown, which crowned our Best Albums list two years ago, and rose to the challenge with flair. From the staggering opening theme ‘Wilderland/Young Man In America’ onwards, Mitchell examines themes of loyalty, love and, above all, family with a poet’s nous and some absolutely magical arrangements. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Wilderland Records, May 2012

33: La Sera • Sees The Light

On this sweetly wise second album, Katy Goodman succeeds by dint of the simplicity of her song construction. There are no unnecessary self-indulgences, segues or flights of fancy on these tracks – just well-structured, charmingly sung, honestly stated and presumably cathartic articulations of tenderness, resolution, loss and optimism. Rarely has a break-up sounded so sweet, and so right. (Jude Clarke)

Released on Hardly Art, March 2012

32: Jessie Ware • Devotion

Unlike poor Emeli Sandé, whose Olympic overexposure did perhaps as much harm as it did good, 2012 was the year in which the down-to-earth Jessie Ware proved impossible to not warm up to. Perhaps the best thing about Devotion was that no one really saw it coming, in terms of it becoming such a broad-spectrum hit. Freed from the pressures of saturating mega-hype, the way was open for Ware to develop her sophisticated brand of post-Sade soul-pop at her own pace. And thank goodness for that. (Alan Pedder)

Released on Island Records, August 2012

31: Hildur Guðnadóttir • Leyfðu Ljósinu

Recorded live without audience, interruptions or post-production, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s third album is more focused and abstract than her previous work. Her concept is tough, complex, but at the same time open to any interpretation that the listener might bring to the music. In short passages Leyfðu Ljósinu may evoke minimalism or repetitive meditation over nothingness, but over the wider horizon Guðnadóttir applies dynamic evolution. Not interested in unnecessary experimenting, it’s clear that she intends for something greater. (Tomas Slaninka)

Released on Touch Records, March 2012

30: Alex Winston • King Con

If there’s anyone out there who still thinks modern pop is all superficial and/or hypersexualised tat, do us all a favour and point them towards this excellent debut. Alex Winston’s cast of unnamed characters has its roots in documentary films, their stories reconfigured into detailed, offbeat soundtracks whose charms increase with every listen. Who knew themes of polygamy and objectum sexuality could make for such addictive songs? (Alan Pedder)

Released on Island Records, March 2012

29: Corin Tucker Band • Kill My Blues

Moving on from the self-professed “mom rock” of 2010’s 1,000 Years, Corin Tucker’s second post-Sleater-Kinney release found her reconnecting with some of the political fire and revolutionary zeal that so ignited her previous recordings. Tucker’s bandmates took greater roles in the creative process for Kill My Blues, and it shows, with energetic, dynamic arrangements providing the perfect counterfoil to that legendary falsetto. (Odhran O’Donoghue)

Released on Kill Rock Stars, September 2012

28: Frankie Rose • Interstellar

When Frankie Rose sings of “surfing on the interstellar highway” on Interstellar’s title track, it’s a canny semiotic slogan for her musical reinvention, a formula that sends the girlgroup pop-punk of her Vivian Girls days up beyond the stratosphere for a space-age transformation. With ascending keys creating a panoramic, light-dawning-over-planets feel, ‘Interstellar’ heralds the album’s retrofuturistic sci-fi soundtrack from the outset. And when the rush of pummeling percussion and ringing guitar notes breaks across the synths, it’s clear that Rose has fixed her ambitions on turning the dark cosmos into the new aquatic surf. (Charlotte Richardson Andrews)

Released on Memphis Industries, March 2012

27: U.S. Girls • Gem

It’s difficult to tell where Meghan Remy’s comfort zone is on this third full-length release. At her best, it’s as if she’s using her primitive equipment to muster emulations of studio trickery (a swell of synths or a cymbal rush), reclaiming the techniques for lo-fi. In any respect, Gem is certainly a lot of fun, full of postmodern tricks and feelgood tunes that are ripe for bedroom dancing. Any attempts to work out the logic of her pop magpieing may only confuse you further, but it seems that might be at least half the point. (Stephen Wragg)

Released on FatCat Records, October 2012

26: Soap&Skin • Narrow

Hewn from the same dark-blue cloth of calm, sepulchral suffering as Anja Plaschg’s 2009 debut, yet somehow even darker and more oppressive than that dark, oppressive record, Narrow’s contrasting moods may be confusing, even disturbing, to some. Ultimately, though, Plaschg succeeds in combining her antagonistic elements into a coherent and symbiotic relationship – albeit a murky and uncomfortably intimate one. (Tomas Slaninka)

Released on PIAS, March 2012

Tagged aimee mann, alex winston, anja plaschg, bat for lashes, channy leagh, corin tucker, corin tucker band, frankie rose, hildur gudnadottir, iamamiwhoami, iris dement, jae, jessica bailiff, jessica sligter, jessie ware, jonna lee, katy goodman, la sera, marissa paternoster, martha wainwright, mary epworth, meghan remy, melody prochet, melody's echo chamber, mica levi, micachu, micachu and the shapes, mirel wagner, mish way, natasha khan, polica, ragana, sacred harp, screaming females, soap&skin, u.s. girls, white lung, woodpecker wooliams