Out of all the amazing records that came out this year, we found Laurel Halo’s Quarantine to be the most exciting (and can’t help but feel sorry for the people who have a problem with those vocals). Julia Holter misses the number one spot second year in a row, but I don’t think she’d mind since we both loved Quarantine. Speaking of which, another cool thing about 2012 is that we got to hang with a couple of our favorite acts. Anyway, there were a lot of cool records we enjoyed but just hadn’t spent that much time with them, and then there were, of course, a lot of records that we thought sucked – we’ll leave you to ponder on which of those categories whatever you think we missed falls into. These are the albums and mixtapes we’ve found ourselves returning to the most this year, listed in a somewhat particular order:
Laurel Halo: Quarantine
Carcass
Julia Holter: Ekstasis
Marienbad
Actress: RIP
Serpent
Litanic Mask: Litanic Mask
Kabuki
SpaceGhostPurrp: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp
Osiris of the East
Death Grips: The Money Store / NO LOVE DEEP WEB
Artificial death in the west
Vatican Shadow: Ghosts of Chechnya / Ornamented Walls
Voices Came Crackling Across a Motorola Hand-Held Radio
Light Asylum: Light Asylum
Pope Will Roll
Purity Ring: Shrines
Saltkin
Le1f: Dark York 
Infinity
Tamaryn: Tender New Signs
Violet’s in a Pool
Andy Stott: Luxury Problems
Numb
Holy Other: Held
Held
Chairlift: Something
Met Before
Scott Walker: Bisch Bosch
‘Epizootics!’
Haleek Maul & Supreme Cuts: Chrome Lips
M00N
Chelsea Wolfe: Unknown Rooms
Sunstorm
Vessel: Order of Noise
Lache
Trust: TRST
Sulk
Bruxa: Victimeyez
Roll Sharp
Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland: Black Is Beautiful
Raime: Quarter Turns Over a Living Line
Jeremih: Late Nights with Jeremih
Holly Herndon: Movement
Cooly G: Playin Me
Grimes: Visions
Chromatics: Kill for Love
Evian Christ: Kings and Them
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange
Sand Circles: Motor City
Swans: The Seer
Recondite: On Acid
Silent Servant: Negative Fascination
X-TG: Desertshore/The Final Report
Human Teenager: Animal Husbandry
Dreamers: Dreamers
Palmistry: I Swear
iamamiwhoami: Kin
Samara Lubelski: Wavelength
Lee Noble/Ensemble Economique: Motion Forever
