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1-DARK WAS THE NIGHT (4ad)

Two various artists’ compilations stood up far above the rest: The veteran Red Hot organization – a charity that specialized in collecting funds for the fight against AIDS through the release of records- offered what’s probably its best effort since the beginning of the series with the Rober award winner “Red Hot & Blue”. Produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, the pair got together the cream of the contemporary crop (Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Sufjan Stevens…)curating an excellent collection of unreleased material for the cause. The year’s second heavyweight was the Hyperdub label’s fifth anniversary CD. The imprint that brought dubstep to the world, one of the few groundbreaking genre’s this decade has produced, called all the pioneers (Burial, Joker, etc.)and celebrated in style.

Many other label’s partied for their anniversary with noteworthy releases -Warp; Topic; Ze; Daptone; Luaka Bop and Warners among others-; The Numero Group kept on exploring the darkest corners of retro soul and tried and tested vault digging specialist such as Rhino, Soul Jazz and Ace kept on delivering the right goods. Full list after the jump Read the rest of this entry »