As 2010 bows out, it is time to look back on a year that has been rich in new music, some from very well established artists, and some from entirely new comers. Here are themilkfactory’s twenty favourite records of the year, and this year for the first time, this list is augmented with thirty other records that have marked the year.

With no less than four albums in the top 20, the year belonged to Rune Grammofon, and more particularly to Supersilent, who occupy two places, including the top spot. Room40 also place two albums in the twenty best records on 2010, while new imprints Desire Path, Hibernate and Textura also feature with some strong releases.
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SOLO ANDATA
Ritual
PATHWAY001
Desire Path Recordings 2010
04 Tracks. 39mins34secs

Norman Records: LP

This inaugural release from Desire Path Recordings sees Australian duo Solo Andata delivering, with their third opus, one of the most striking records heard this year. On their debut, Fyris Swan (Hefty, 2006), Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin combined beautiful textural soundscapes and acoustic instrumentations, but on their self-titled follow-up, published last year on 12K, the melodic aspect was partially withdrawn in favour of stark and dense formations. With Ritual, the pair continue to develop the textural aspect of their work to create impressively spacious and evocative sonic vignettes.

Comprising four tracks, the longest one spanning a healthy twenty minutes, Ritual is a record all in shades and delicate touches, evoking at times the finely detailed sound formations of Substrata-era Biosphere or the sombre undertones of Miasmah. Continue Reading »

SOLO ANDATA/SEAWORTHY/TAYLOR DEUPREE
Live In Melbourne
12k2008
12K 2008
03Tracks. 49mins.37secs

Photographer, sound artist and label manager Taylor Deupree took to recording the festivities housed under the Social Club one April night in Melbourne, Australia. With good reason, too, for the night displayed here bristles with a vast array of events, too numerous to catalogue. The sonic endeavors of Solo Andata, Seaworthy, and Deupree himself, are filtered through a refined sensibility, resulting in a work of coherent flow and balance, and, perhaps most importantly, an ephemeral elegance bound to a very real sense of time and place. Continue Reading »

SOLO ANDATA
Fyris Swan
HEFTY057
Hefty Records 2006
10 Tracks. 62mins13secs

Electronic music was never meant to be warm and pastoral, but Solo Andata are the latest in a long list of musicians to use computers to do just that. Not that Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin, the men behind the project, limit themselves to artificial sound forms. Right from the moment they met, almost six years ago at the end of a gig in Perth, Australia, they opted for a much wider scope, involving the pair’s respective instrumental expertise. While Fiocco combines electronics with occasional drums and piano, Ikin, who has spent most of his formative years playing in a variety of bands, adds generous swathes of acoustic guitars. Since they formed, Fiocco has moved to Sweden, and the pair have been communicating and creating music using the Internet. It was therefore almost logical that they should choose to release their music on Chicago-based Hefty. Continue Reading »