#2 Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra
I got UMO’s 7-inch in the mail at the turn of the year, making this my most anticipated release of 2011. The EP is basically half the album and I figured the rest of the tracks wouldn’t hold up. They do. They burn slower and cut deeper. It’s exactly what I wanted to like in 2011: smeared lo-fidelity, a seamless mix of samples and recorded instruments, wild guitars, earworm melodies, and funk borrowed from crate-digging compilations. I will party to this right now, actually.