Totally re-did my list. Integrated the Japanese music and re-ordered the whole thing.
Top 30:
Caboladies - Earth canal (USA) Noise
Encompassing; but not comfortably a part of; the genres of ambient, noise, and drone. It basically sounds like a bunch of rocket ships taking off over and over again.
Dengue Fever - Venus On Earth (USA) Pop
Friendly, warm, and intelligent pop music.
Wavves - Wavves (USA) Punk
Catchier than all hell. The best punk album of the year.
にせんねんもんだい - デスティネーション トーキョー (Japan) Dance/Post-rock
Simply sublime dancefloor jams of epic construction
ZAZEN BOYZ - Zazen Boyz 4 (Japan) Post-punk
Seemingly disjointed at first glance. Slowly reveals itself to have the same intelligence, passion, and daring as everything else the Zazen Boys have ever done.
Quinka, with a Yawn - Field Recordings (Japan) Folk
Flat out heartbreaking. Stunningly beautiful.
IMAHORITSUNEOYOSHIDATATSUYA - Dots (Japan) Prog-rock
Faster and more technical than anything else released this year. This gets on the list through the sheer number of plays it managed to rack up. Totally insane, partially nonsensical, and perhaps actually terrible prog-rock.
Idea Of A Joke - We Are All Making History (Japan) Pop/Rock
Catchier than the plague. And twice as funky.
LSD POND - LSD Pond (Japan) Psychedelic
Drugged-out insane stoner rock jams. Ranging from free-form rock to blasts of feedback and noise. Surprisingly patient and sensitive.
Fred Frith - To sail, To sail (USA) Free-improv
Quiet and strange solo album from one of the worlds great masters of the guitar. I'm not entirely sure how he made some of these sounds.
Lantern Parade - Tokyo Eye and Ear Control (Japan) Trip-hop/Hip-hop
A strange and unbalanced album. Becoming in turn everything from trip-hop to funk to rap it constantly retains a level of dark intelligence and introspection even in it's most schizophrenic moments.
Ricardo Villalobos - Vasco (Germany) Techno
Minimalist electro-funk. Hypnotizing and deep.
Shing02 - 歪曲 (Japan) Hip-hop
As groovy and tight as humanly possible. The best Hip-hop album of the year.
A.M - Rag Red Reverie (New Zealand) Noise
Loud and strong psychedelic blues noise. Powerful in it's individuality and single mindedness.
Boredoms - 77 Boadrum (Japan) Psychedelic
Boredoms keep up their winning streak. Pounding, primal beats and wild, strong melodies clashing together in the open sun.
Li Jianhong - 三生石 (San Sheng Shi) (China) Noise
A vicious horrible wall of sound. Beautiful and ugly in equal measure, nearly incomprehensible.
TWIN TAIL - すべては許されている (Japan) Post-rock
Tatsuya Nakamura from losalios and Katsui Yuji from Rovo collaborate to make one of the most groovy and well structured albums of the year.
SITAAR TAH! - Semimimimimin (Japan) Drone/Folk
Beautiful 43-minute long symphony of flutes, cicadas, voices, and sitaars.
Buraka Som Sistema - Black Diamond (Portugal) Dance
Ass-shakingly good dance music. Not much more to say than that really.
Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker - Fantasma Parastasie (USA) Ambient/Drone
Big shocking thunderclouds of sound. Surprisingly "active" for a drone album.
Sparta Locals - Leecher (Japan) Pop/Rock
Twisty impassioned pop songs performed at breakneck speed. Catchy as hell.
Chris Watson - Cima Verde (UK) Field recordings
I had forgotten this came out this year. Gorgeous, quiet, and full of surprising detail.
Burning Star Core - Challenger (USA) Noise/Pop
A series of beautiful pop ballads. . . . as performed by a noise artist.
The Magic I.D. - Till My Breath Gives Out (Germany) Pop
Another series of beautiful pop ballads. This time deconstructed to their bare skeleton and put back together haphazardly. Hard to describe, but very beautiful.
accidents in too large field - New Buildings (Japan) Post-punk
Funk/psychedelic/hardcore/hard to describe. Sort of hard not to listen to multiple times in a row.
Rovo - Nuou (Japan) Funk
Another fantastic record of shining and spiraling walls of electric space funk from the peerless Rovo.
Coh - Plays Cosey(Germany?) Glitch
Jittery and calm all at once. Loops and beats constructed entirely out of vocal samples.
El Guincho - Alegranza (Spain) Dance
An insane smile-happy dance party.
Fabio Orsi & Valerio Cosi - We Could For Hours (Italy?) Ambient/Drone
Beautiful and overwhelming walls of light.
Sawako - Bitter Sweet (Japan)Ambient/Drone
Shining, glittery tones and soft, offhanded interjections of field recordings, violins, cellos, and vocals. Gorgeous and bright.
I'm so terrible at describing music.