Best of 2013 - #9 - The Besnard Lakes - Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO (Jagjaguwar)

The Besnard Lakes are fronted by a husband and wife team from Montreal. Their music is spacy, melodic and more than a touch menacing. They remind me a lot of Mogwai, if Mogwai dropped most of the guitar noise and added more vocal harmonies to their work. I picked their album Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse as my favourite album back in 2007. Their follow up, 2010's Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night, I found lacking and uninspired. It wasn't til this past year that I felt they had reclaimed the greatness they had in 2007.The album's name comes from a mangled foreign language to English translation of a review of one of their past albums. Here's the soaring "Colour Yr Lights In":

Best of 2013 - #10 - !!! - Th!!!er (Warp Records)

We begin taking a closer look at some of my favourite music of 2013, beginning with my #10 pick, !!!. !!! (usually pronounced chk chk chk), are a New York based band that seems to show up on my annual top ten lists whenever they produce a record. Their sound is a high energy mix of rock, electronics and funk. 2013's effort, Th!!!er (perhaps a tribute to Michael Jackson there?) was a more melodic effort than previous albums, much less percussive and in your face. Only a couple of tracks really bust out with pounding funk rhythms. Perhaps the band is getting softer with their age? Who knows. Th!!!er was an enjoyable listen, even if a step behind their previous albums. Here's "One Boy/One Girl":