What a fucking year...

These are CD/LP’s, and I've not heard everything released this (last) year, so this list is not necessarily definitive. Just damn close. Expect a shorter “best of” of limited CD-R type things in the next day or two.

25 in 05:

25. Jackie-O Motherfucker “Flags of the Sacred Harp” (ATP)
24. Franklin’s Mint “Gold” (Sunburned)
23. Oneida “Secret Wars” (Jagjaguwar)
22. Major Stars “4” (Twisted Village)
21. Todd Tamanend Clark “Nova Psychedelia” 2CD (Anopheles)
20. The Directing Hand “Bells for Augustin Lesage” (Secret Eye)
19. The Iron Kite “No Eyebrows” (Twilight Flight Sound)
18. Skullflower “Orange Canyon Mind” (Crucial Blast)
17. Earth “Hex: or Printing in the Infernal Method” (Southern Lord)
16. The Goslings “Between the Dead” (Self-Released)
15. Simon Finn “Magic Moments” (Durtro/Jnana)
14. Boris “Pink” (DIW-Phalanx)
13. Corrupted “El Mundo Frio” (H.G. Fact)
12. Om “Variations on a Theme” (Holy Mountain)
11. Josephine Foster “Hazel Eyes I Will Lead You” (Locust)
10. Jack Rose “Kensington Blues” (VHF)
9. Mirror “Still Valley” (Die Stadt)
8. Marissa Nadler “The Saga of Mayflower May” (Eclipse)
7. Windy & Carl “The Dreamhouse / Dedication to Flea” (Kranky)
6. Steven R. Smith “Crown of Marches” (Catsup Plate)
5. Sunn 0))) “Black One” (Southern Lord)
4. The No-Neck Blues Band “Qvaris” (5RC)
3. Angels of Light “Sing Other People” (Young God)
2. Michio Kurihara “Sunset Notes” (Pedal)
1. Damon and Naomi “The Earth is Blue” (20/20/20)

Debut of the Year:
Akron/Family "S/T" (Young God)

Other albums thoroughly enjoyed in 05: Antony and the Johnsons "I Am a Bird Now" (Secretly Canadian), August Born “S/T” (Drag City), James Blackshaw “Sunshrine” (Digitalis), Cobra Verde “Copycat Killers” (Scat), Lightning Bolt “Hypermagic Mountain” (Load), Øyvind Holm “The Vanishing Act” (Camera Obscura), Xiu Xiu “La Foret” (5RC), The Harvestman “Lashing the Rye” (Neurot), Nick Castro & The Poison Tree “Further From Grace” (Strange Attractors), Twilight “S/T” (Southern Lord), Lurker of Chalice “S/T” (Southern Lord), Thralldom “Black Sun Resistance” (Total Holocaust), Kinski “Alpine Static” (Sub-Pop), Sleater-Kinney “The Woods” (Sub-Pop), Khanate “Capture and Release” (Hydrahead), Current 93 “How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon” 2CD (Durtro/Jnana), Wooden Wand “Harem and Sundrum” (Soft Abuse), Eyes and Arms of Smoke “A Religion of Broken Bones” (Cenotaph), Six Organs of Admittance “School of the Flower” (Drag City), Badgerlore “Stories for Owls” (Free Porcupine Society), Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice “Buck Dharma” (Time-Lag), Urdog “Eyelid of Moon” (Secret Eye), Mike Tamburo “Beating of the Rewound Son” (Music Fellowship), Mahjong “Raydongcong” (Cold Crush), M. Ward “Transister Radio” (Sub-Pop), Espers “The Weed Tree” (Locust), Miminokoto “Orange Garage” (Last Visible Dog), High on Fire “Blessed Black Wings” (Relapse), Sigur Ros “Takk…” (Geffen), The Soundtrack of Our Lives “Origin, Vol. 1” (Republic), Outrageous Cherry “Our Love Will Change the World” (Rainbow Quartz), Broadcast “Tender Buttons” (Warp), Gravenhurst “Fires in Distant Buildings (Warp), Thuja “Pine Cone Temples” 2CD (Strange Attractors), Nels Cline/ Wally Shoup/ Chris Corsano “Immolation/ Immersion” (Strange Attractors), Cold Bleak Heat “It’s Magnificent, but It Isn’t War” (Family Vineyard), Hototogisu “Green” (Heavy Blossom), Residual Echoes “Phoenician Flu and Ancient Ocean” (Holy Mountain), Disembowelment “S/T” 2CD (Relapse), Castanets “First Light’s Freeze” (Asthmatic Kity), Fursaxa “Amulet” (Last Visible Dog) and Lepidoptera (ATP), Nagisa Ni Te “Dream Sounds” (Jagjaguwar), Black Mountain “S/T” (Jagjaguwar), Subarachnoid Space “The Red Veil” (Strange Attractors), Islaja “Palaa Aurinkoon” (Fonal), Boduf Songs “S/T” (Kranky), Birchville Cat Motel “Firepower Fragrant Cloud” (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon), Spires That in the Sunset Rise “Four Winds the Walker” (Secret Eye), Sunroof “Silver Bear Mist” 2CD (VHF), The Volebeats “Like Her” (Turquoise Mountain), Mirror “Viking Burial for a French Car” (Plinkity Plonk), Goblin Market “Haunted” (Camera Obscura), Salamander “Bent Hemlock” (Camera Obscura), Tetuzi Akiyama “Pre-Existence” (Locust), Mountain Goats “The Sunset Tree” (4AD), Paul Metzger “Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo” (Chairkickers Union), Jesu "S/T" (Hydrahead), Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Worn Copy" (Paw Tracks), Animal Collective "Feels" (Fat Cat), Black Dice "Broken Ear Record" (DFA/Astralworks), Angels of Light and Akron/Family Split (Young God), Pelt Untitled (VHF)

Reissues:
5. Judy Henske & Jerry Yester “Farewell Aldebaren” (Radioactive)
4. The Nether Dawn “Whiskey Mute-Down” (Last Visible Dog)
3. Omit “Tracer” 2CD (Helen Scarsdale)
2. George Brigman “Jungle Rot” (Anopheles)
1. Current 93 “Thunder Perfect Mind” 2CD (Durtro/Jnana)
...and mustn't forget the entire Can back catalog, Stooges "Funhouse" 2CD on Rhino, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and Dino Jr.'s classic early albums.

Compilations:
3. “Gold Leaf Branches” (Digitalis)
2. “By the Fruits, You Shall Know The Roots" (Time-Lag/Eclipse)
1. “Invisible Pyramid Elegy Box” (Last Visible Dog)
Honorable Mention: “Wailing Bones Vol. 1" Tom Carter, Alligator Crystal Moth, Keijo & The Free Players, Drona Parva (Digitalis)

Music Related DVD or Program:
The Flaming Lips “The Fearless Freaks”
Bob Dylan “No Direction Home”
Ghost "Metamorphosis: Ghost Chronicles 1984-2004"

Live Space-Prog Blast from the Past:
Robert Wyatt & Friends “Theater Royal Drury Lane” (Hannibal)