We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next few days.
Favorite Tracks of 2013:
01 My Bloody Valentine: "Only Tomorrow"
02 FKA twigs: "Water Me"
03 Haxan Cloak: "The Mirror Reflecting Part 2"
04 The Knife: "Full of Fire"
05 Disclosure: "Latch" [ft. Sam Smith]
06 Youth Lagoon: "Mute"
07 Pharmakon: "Crawling on Bruised Knees"
08 Sophie: "Bipp"
09 David Bowie: "Where Are We Now?"
10 Factory Floor: "Fall Back"
Favorite Albums of 2013:
01 The Haxan Cloak: Excavation
02 Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven
03 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
04 Majical Cloudz: Impersonator
05 The Knife: Shaking the Habitual
06 These New Puritans: Field of Reeds
07 Mountains: Centralia
08 Kurt Vile: Wakin on a Pretty Daze
09 James Holden: The Inheritors
10 Broadcast: Berberian Sound Studio:Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Most Played Song of 2013: Lady Gaga's "Dope". Particularly after seeing her perform it on the YouTube Music Awards, where she resembled a hybrid of Meat Loaf and an unhinged lounge singer about to knock a tray of drinks into an expensive piano.
An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: A tie between the future gazing of Craig Leon's Nommos and Kevin Ayers' wonderfully tender and scrappy Shooting at the Moon.
Musical Highlights: Singing Majical Cloudz songs in the shower. Watching a Swans set where Christoph Hahn reached into his suit pocket, pulled a comb out, slicked his hair back a couple of times, then carried on playing. Inspiring labels: Superior Viaduct, RVNG, Livity Sound, Software, Death Waltz, Numbers, Umor Rex. Many insights gained from the Fuckin' Record Reviews tumblr. Seeing Goblin's Claudio Simonetti get lost in a Minimoog odyssey at a show in Brooklyn. My one-year-old son dancing to "Here Again" by Factory Floor.
Musical Lowlights: DJ/Rupture bringing his WFMU show Mudd Up! to a close. The shuttering of the Mutant Sounds blog, for so long a vital outpost for lost/forgotten music.