Andy Peterson's Picks Of The Year 2014

10) Illum Sphere - Ghosts of Then & Now
Former occasional turntablist for those funky divas Radiohead, Ryan Hunn created a record that blended jazz, drum & bass, hip-hop and soul amongst many others, channelling his famous live sets into an always fascinating whole.

9)  Downliners Sekt - Silent Ascent
Fabrizio Rizzin and Pere Solé echoed everyone and no-one on this, their third album. Others made comparisons to Autechre, Burial and Booka Shade, but the reality was the duo were obsessively working their own deeply underground but still magical groove.

8) Objekt - Flatland
I'm not even sure we know definitively what "Dark Techno" is, but this second album for TJ Hertz under the Objekt banner proved to be far less dystopian than some anticipated. Flatland in truth was just as indebted to Detroit as Berlin, but it's sleek, clear lines were a lesson in intelligent design.

7) East India Youth
Masterstroke: Will Doyle breaks up always doomed indie pop vehicle Doyle & The Fourfathers and trades guitars for keyboards. Result? The darker end of synth pop, redefined.

6) Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Having been the magus behind the Brainfeeder co-operative that catalysed cosmic hip-hop and post r&b, Stephen Ellison now duly set off to make his Sgt.Pepper. Utterly bonkers and full of risks (Even by his standards) You're Dead is the sound of a man ignoring everything else but his art, in the process finally becoming the Miles Davis of his generation.

5) Clark - Clark
Finally, a début album from (Chris) Clark, one that skipped genres compulsively, but all the while remained locked into a dazzling undertow, that being his cerebral and esoteric flip on old lady techno.

4) Lone - Airglow Fires
Or how Matt Cutler finally nailed his own influences,  from dreamy house to old skool hip-hop, and turned them into his most inclusive album yet: Warm, soulful and casting a long shadow,   

3) Diplo - Florida (10th Anniversary Edition)
Even we have to admit that re-issues are frequently a chore, but this two disc reworking of Diplo's first album is a reminder of it's off-the-cuff invention, cavalier beats and enduring quality. Few releases have earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as DJ Shadow's Entroducing, but there, we just did.  

2) Sleaford Mods - Divide & Exit
No album in 2014 split opinion more than this, Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn's first high profile release and one that deservedly brought them to the very fringe of the mainstream. Impossible to describe to the novice, their street language and Bontempi invective was either chattering class vomit or proletarian genius. We go with the latter.

1) Aphex Twin - Syro
The year's biggest nice surprise, Mr James re-emerged after thirteen years a seemingly changed man from the one who begrudgingly last gave us Druqs. If that was a stark, post millennial head f*ck, the new Twin was positively avuncular and Syro a heady, almost Balearic splurge of bubbling melodies that made it accessible to even the mildly curious. And the even better news? His five year old son we hear has also joined the family business.