This is a weird year for me, and I had a tough time putting together my list. I genuinely can't think which of the several albums that I thoroughly enjoy, I would like to put first. So I ruminated on it, and decided on the incomparably gorgeous lullabies of Vashti Bunyan and her second album (after a 35-year hiatus), Lookaftering. It is remarkable that someone who released something so vital in 1970, could go 35 years without practicing music as a craft, and then come back with this. It is everything you want folk to be, and everything the likes of Bon Iver, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom strive to be (although Newsom comes closest to it). It's like Nico, Judee Sill, Nick Drake, and Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes coming together, and turning the volume down. Which is absolutely, 100% my jam.
My top 10
Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering
The Newfound Interest in Connecticut - Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Mew - And the Glass Handed Kites
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Mogwai - Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003
The Drones - Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois