Since the mid-'60s, synthesizer and musique concrete experimentalist Asmus Tietchens has been an enduring symbol of artistically motivated musical work. This album, the 12th in an ongoing series of his works and the second in a four part series originally released on Hampster Records, sees Tietchens "recycling" previous pieces made between 1967 and 1970. Originally released in 1989, the album is intended more as a demonstration of the variety of techniques utilized than a presentation of new pieces culled from old works.

Germany's Analog Africa unleashes yet another amazing collection of long-lost African funk recordings. This, the follow-up to last year's uniformly beloved African Scream Contest, focuses entirely on Benin's staggeringly prolific (and largely unheard) Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.

Thanks to everyone who voted in this year's Readers Poll. Once again you, the Brainwashed readers, have voiced your opinion on the best and worst of the year and the Brainwashed staff and contributors have voiced our own—occasionally clashing—opinions. All the best wishes for 2009!

Ever since his breakthrough Endless Summer album, Christian Fennesz has been well regarded as an artist and composer in the world outside of the beard stroking listeners that labels like Touch and Mego cater to (myself included).  On this album, it's not hard to see how this crossover happened:  even with all of the odder and less decipherable digital elements, there is a core of melody that is beautiful and undeniable.

On his second full-length release, this young Greek composer continues refining his technique of meshing abrasive electronic noises, pure digital drones, and field recordings into small audio ethnographies that are more than happy to make jarring, unexpected transitions.

While the debut album from Loop stuck with a traditional use of psychedelia, by their second disc they had refined their own take on the subgenre.  Rather than using just the traditional wah and tremolo guitar effects, they created their own direction in space rock via brittle guitars, abstract studio effects and more avant garde instrumentation.  However, through all of this they still managed to make powerful, speaker damaging rock that demands to be played loudly, and Fade Out is perhaps their most fully realized work.

Criminally out of print for over a decade, Loop/Main leader Robert Hampson has finally spearheaded the reissues of the entire Loop backcatalogue, remastered and with the now requisite bonus tracks.  The most obvious things these reissues show is just how much of a force Loop were, how they stood out from the era's so-called "shoegaze" bands, and how they laid a blueprint for New York's loudest bands today—moreso than numerous other citations.

Some CDs beg to be played over and over again. This is one of those times when the disc absolutely refuses to go back into its case and demands to go back in the player. Normally I cannot listen to an album more than once a day but Larkin Grimm's third album makes for a rare exception. It is perfectly performed and the recording itself is flawless, this is one of those rare albums that impresses from every conceivable angle.

This duo of the classically and modern compositionally inclined Simon James Phillips and The Necks' less formal but equally brilliant Chris Abrahams have created quite an intriguing collection of improvisations. Every piece is a piano duet and the album crosses a wide spread of styles and quality; moving from cold, modernist works to pieces with a bit more swing and heat to them, Pedal are inconsistent in ways that both help and hinder their music. While there are a couple of less than stellar moments on this self-titled album, they are more than counterbalanced by the mesmerising and evocative pieces that make up the bulk of the music.

Matt and Erica Hinton spent seven years making their essential documentary about Sacred Harp hymn singing. This companion set comprises the soundtrack of gloriously raw a cappela music from the film, with a second disc of interpretations by artists such as Doc Watson, The Innocence Mission, Richard Buckner, Woven Hand, and John Paul Jones. It is a win-win situation.

Operating within and between the rather loose conventions that dominate electronic and rock music, Skye Klein continues to map out a musical style capable of putting equal emphasis on every genre it employs.

With this long player, Nigel Ayers has produced the musical equivalent of a sexual fever. Unbidden, while listening I became aroused by its somnambulatory exhortations and caressed by rhythmic undulations that continuosly excite.

Masami Akita sounds his most creative, dynamic, and colorful when he works with other accomplished musicians. Merzbow's collaboration with French pioneer Richard Pinhas features some of his best music and gleefully amplifies the psychedelic tendencies of both composers.

All the best love songs are about heartache and Windy & Carl have seized on that. The latest addition to their canon was recorded at the same time as Windy Weber’s solo album I Hate People (released earlier this year) and unlike the sentiments of Weber’s solo album, this is an album about love. Although this is the idea of love that Lord Tennyson famously wrote: “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Micah's third studio record seems a big departure from the old-time rag country blues styling of his jaunty debut. This time he has produced a series of dark ballads around the themes of faith, misfortune, trickery and wisdom.

The second release by Peter Christopherson under the Threshold HouseBoys Choir name is a collection of rough soundtrack works. These have been made in anticipation of a new film project he is working on about tattooing. Although the mixing and the mastering of these discs are less than stellar (they sound very much like the works in progress that they are touted as), the music is loaded with that magic that Christopherson always brings to whatever project he is involved in. The direction he is taking his solo music had been hinted on with the posthumous Coil releases and with the first Threshold HouseBoys Choir album yet here it is beginning to form fully.

Brian Foote, Honey Owens, and Paul Dickow's persistent evolution is unstoppable. Infinity Padlock documents another stage in Nudge's unending transformation; this time around the group flirts with rock 'n' roll balladry and noise jams quite unlike anything else in their discography.

All the luxuriant and sensuous curves that went missing on 2005's Geisterfaust have returned for Bohren's newest record. More than that, the band have sharpened their approach to "doom jazz" and solidified the power of their slow, crushing attack in the process.

It’s an odd combination, Soccer Committee’s delicate folk recordings handled by electronic composer Machinefabriek’s digital treatments would usually make for a questionable work, but instead the electronic elements are subtle, and rather than detracting from the fragile vocals and guitar instead give it a different, unnatural edge.

On his debut, this one-man electronic project from Norway seems to be wearing his influences on his sleeve and I would say he's coming from a similar background as me.  Throughout this release there are a lot of elements pretty consistent with mid to late 1980s industrial, along with some more techno and electronic inspired rhythms.  Rather than feeling overly nostalgic or dated though, these tracks filter the classic elements through a more modernized lens.