Like so many musicians, critics, fans, and bloggers these days, I’m obsessed with texture.  While previous years of the decade might have been marked by a certain amount of genre “discoveries” (especially for forms popular outside of the United States, like dance hall, dubstep, grime, baile funk), this year the buzzed-about “new” genres weren’t really new at all: they were merely aestheticized versions of pretty familiar formulas.  On one hand we had lo-fi electronic music (“glo-fi,” or, more comically, “no-Wavves”), and on the other hand we had lo-fi rock (“shitgaze”).  (Of course, there were also lots of other kinds of music made this year!)

If we agree with the premise that these are, indeed, new genres—and I’m not convinced that they are—they we can at least say about them what we say about every other genre: some of it rocks, and some of it sucks.  This is a given.  And while I think many of the bands lumped into these categories have made great records and done sonically interesting things, one band this year showed the ability to not only combine many of these techniques (Reverb! Synth patches! Fuzz!), but also craft something that to me feels truly unique, compelling, and catchy: Micachu and the Shapes, with their album Jewellery.

Founded by classically-trained UK mastermind Mica Levi, Jewellery shares many of the descriptors I would give to Roisin Murphy’s work: quirky without being gimmicky, daring without being pretentious, melodic without being formulaic.  While the two clearly operate using different sonic palettes, it’s no coincidence that electronic musician and all-around sound geek Matthew Herbert produced both of these women’s works.  For Micachu, Herbert has let the clean squeak of electronic music, the comfort of acoustic music, and the sonic chaos of noise-rock coexist, creating a sound that is frequently surprising, often disarming, and occasionally downright hilarious.  Opening track “Vulture” captures all of this, opening with an acoustic guitar, moving to a “Planet Claire” synth-line, and ending up in a furious drum barrage—all in the first 46 seconds.  The second track, “Lips,” captures the tongue-in-cheekiness of the album, literally, by being structured around the sound of a wet kiss.  And really, if music is like the tongue of your lover in your ear, then this whole album is a big, sloppy, glorious, guilt-free make-out session.

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Download: Micachu & the Shapes – Vultures

The rest of my personal year-end list happens after the break:

2. Woods – Songs of Shame

3. Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away

4. Fever Ray – Fever Ray

5. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

6. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country

7. Girls – Album

8. Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…pt. 2

9. Memory Tapes – Seek Magic

10. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone