Top 5 + 5 - Spencer Doran 

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• by Various Artists
• Shangaan Electro

Shangaan Electro -- V/A - Honest Jon's

Life-affirming electronic dance music from South Africa with a 180 bpm synth-marimba blur that unknowingly refracts current trends in international club music (namely, Chicago juke and UK funky house) back into the global dancefloor ether...amazing YouTube videos to boot.

Florine -- Julianna Barwick -- Florid

Kickstart-funded a cappella EP of range-defying vocal loops in a cathedral-esque reverb pool (sounds great at both 33 and 45). Quite possibly New Age music in disguise.

Ali and Toumani -- Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté -- Nonesuch

Posthumously released (Touré passed in 2006) duet recording of two of the world's greatest musicians communicating on a near telepathic level.

Classical Music -- Family Fodder -- The State51 Conspiracy

Kitchen-sink pop from these former associates of This Heat (now based in France and multigenerational), cutting up post-punk, African highlife, French café music, dub and whatever else in order to reassemble it in the same kind of sharp, meta-pop structures they have been making for 30+ years.

Klavierwerke -- James Blake -- R&S

Completely alien 12" EP of minimalist post-dubstep musings, arranging shards of transmogrified voice and piano into stark, otherworldly grooves.

Real Life is No Cool -- Lindstrom & Christabelle -- Smalltown Supersound

Gita Pon Yeik -- Su Wai -- (self-released in Burma)

Nuojuva Halava -- Ous Mai -- Preservation/Forced Exposure

Songs -- Privacy -- Marriage Records

Ullakkopalo -- Kemialliset Ystavat -- Fonal Records