Kid Koala, "The Observable Universe"
Oh, sure, "music to draw to", huh? Well, what about music to blog to? How come nobody ever writes that? Huh?
U.S. Girls, "Rage of Plastics"
I'm not sure how U.S. Girls flew under my radar for as long as they did. They've been around for ages, and on paper seem to be right up my alley. And check that wailing sax! And yet, I haven't gone back and explored other records, because I am a sloth.
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, "Case of the Missing Lady Fingers"
God, this makes me so happy. I love this album so much. I can just play every note in my head, every beat, every melody. I'm instantly back in college, arguing with idiots on Usenet.
Liturgy, "Generation"
Liturgy is a case study in how avoiding learning anything much about artists can sometimes be a good thing. There's an entire philosophy behind Liturgy's work, treatises and everything, and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's writing about music is just so overblown and leaden. But I didn't really learn about any of that before listening to this record, which is a good thing, because Aesthethica smokes. Meditative and abrasive, it's drone-y, metallic, and bracing. A genuinely interesting variation on some of the musical tropes of black metal, and a total breath of fresh air, but I might never have tried it if I'd read Hunt-Hendrix first.
DJ Q-Bert, "Redworm"
Oh, hell yeah. Fuck shit up, DJ Q-Bert!