Once again here is a roundup of what I thought were the best releases in the last twelve months. I bought more cassettes than anything last year. I think it boils down to the fact that the bands I like the best are often only releasing their music on tape. Also my cassette player is at work and I'm there 40 hours a week so you can see how that comes together. I sort of didn't buy a lot of albums in 2014, almost to the point where making a list to twenty was difficult without including everything I bought. It makes me wonder about those individuals that have longer best of the year lists. I know I missed a few things, but that will happen. I mostly tried to keep it one item per label, but Drag City, Not Not Fun, and Spectrum Spools dominated things this year. I did keep it to one tape per label and one tape per artist. There were a few bands that were extra prolific in 2014.
As always any item had to be released in the calendar year and I had to listen to it a lot.
The list goes band/album/label for those with questions of that nature.
Top 20 Albums Of 2014
01. Bitchen Bajas - s/t - Drag City
02. Child Abuse - Trouble In Paradise - Skin Graft
03. Dan'l Boone - s/t - Drag City
04. Daughters Of The Sun - Ride To Die - Not Not Fun
05. Del Paxton - Worst. Summer. Ever. - Secret Audio Club
06. Donato Dozzy & Nuel - The Aquaplano Sessions - Spectrum Spools
07. Form A Log - For The Record - Bathetic
08. Gang Wizard - Important Picnic - MIE
09. Good Willsmith - The Honeymoon Workbook - Umor Rex
10. Grouper - Ruins - Kranky
11. Mesa Ritual - s/t - Sige
12. Mincemeat Or Tenspeed - Waiting For Surfin' Bird - Decoherence
13. Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Ballades - Hooker Vision
14. Brett Naucke - Seed - Spectrum Spools
15. Pharmakon - Bestial Burden - Sacred Bones
16. Profligate - Finding The Floor - Not Not Fun
17. Prostitutes - Petit Cochon - Spectrum Spools
18. Puce Mary - Persona - Posh Isolation
19. Telecult Powers - Black Meditations - Experimedia
20. Timeghost - Cellular - Load/Chondritic Sound/Nexykl
Top 25 Cassettes of 2014
01. Alterity Problem - Doing My Rounds/Checking Some Rounds - Brian's Tape Label
02. Andrew Kirschner & Waterword - tour tape - self released
03. Ancst & D/A A/D - split - Yehonala Tapes
04. Jeremy Bible - The Journey Of Enoch - self released
05. Sindre Bjerga - Future Jazz Loops - Fabrica
06. Matt Boettke - Richmond Tape Club Number Eight - Richmond Tape Club
07. Bromp Treb - Abuse. Abandon. Abort. - Yeay! Plastics
08. Chapels & VWLS - split - House Of Alchemy
09. Corporate Park - Engineered Obsolescence Vol. 1 - self released
10. Ford Foster & William Watts - split - Opal Tapes
11. Fluxbikes & Quidditas - split - Hausu Mointain
12. Khaki Blazer & Quicksails - tour tape - self released
13. Ligature - The Stranger - Chondritic Sound
14. Millions - The Message - 905 Tapes
15. Mincemeat Or Tenspeed & Unguent - Haunted Haus Tour split - Refulgent Sepulchre
16. Mutwawa - s/t - Ormolycka
17. Pulse Emitter - Alien Vacation - Expansive
18. Radio Shock - Romanse Is The Death Of Intellect - Suite 309
19. Regional Curse - s/t - Not Not Fun
20. Static Park - Until Then/What Net - Turmeric Magnitudes
21. Timeghost & Laurie Amat - Pattern Emerges From Putrid Sludge - Nexykl
22. Topdown Dialectic - Topdown Dialectic - Further
23. various - Ohio Volume One - A Soundesign Recording/SKSK
24. White Resin - Spirit 1992 - Vaald
25. Zaïmph & Yek Koo - I'interieur De La Vue - Obsolete Units
