My Albums Of 2010 (an out of band post)

We interrupt your normal service to bring you my Albums Of 2010. I seem to have bought 29 records released in 2010 so far, and reviewed 26 of them here, so I decided to allow myself a top 5. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• ANBB: Mimikry (Raster-Noton, September 2010)
• Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek: Bird, Lake, Objects (Faitiche, March 2010)
• Jóhann Jóhannson: And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees (Type, April 2010)
• Pan Sonic: Gravitoni (Blast First Petite, May 2010)
• Scott Tuma: Dandelion (Digitalis, October 2010)

I sort of regret restricting myself to 5. I regret having to leave out the Senking and Philip Jeck records, both omitted as much on grounds of variety as quality. I regret having to leave out extraordinarily inventive records like Matthew Herbert's take on Mahler. I'm a little sorry there wasn't any proper techno or house in there, but it didn't seem to be a vintage year, as far as I heard.

More seriously, I feel bad about the fact that of the 8 individuals represented here, 7 are white and all 8 are male. (For the record, Hildur Gudnadóttir was the one woman to make the short list.) I suspect this says a lot about the people who make these sorts of music, or at least the people who get widely enough released for me to come across them. Nevertheless, I resolve to try to think about this more in 2011.

P.S. Somewhat later, I have noticed that the Margaret Dygas record came out in 2010, and I'd failed to tag it. It would totally have made the shortlist, and possibly the final cut. (This changes the stats on both techno and women, for what it's worth.)