The contemporary King of the MPC, AraabMUZIK is set to drop his new album For Professional Use Only on February 15th. For now, this new single “The Prince is Coming…” What? You thought it was going to suck?

List time, for ’tis the season! We don’t claim to be all-knowing music journalists here at TNC – we just write about the things that move us, and that hopefully move you as well. So what we’ve done is simple: put together the 12 albums from the past year that we dug the most, along with a couple of honorable mentions. These are the albums that got us through what was one of the best years for new music of all varieties in a long time, in one piece. This is our opportunity to take stock of the year that was, to get some perspective, and to thank you for sticking with us through it all. Hope to see more of you in the weeks, months, and hopefully years to come. Without further adieu, click on after the jump for our list, in no particular order, of our favorite albums of the year. And if you like it, share it! If not, tell us why in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to hear your thoughts, as always.

Frank Ocean: channel ORANGE

Bad Religion

It’s hard to say something new about this album, or shower it with more praise than has already been heaped upon it. Almost universally lauded, it’s managed to find its way onto best-of lists of almost every major music blog, from the indie champions Pitchfork to 2DopeBoys. All we can add is that this album is really something special, and that the buzz generated around it was rightfully deserved. What’s more, Frank Ocean has an incredible story, and in a year marked by several major political victories for gay rights, Frank Ocean’s and his music represented part of a much broader national acceptance and tolerance, all while bravely refusing to be neatly categorized or placed in someone else’s pre-defined box. It’s hard to deny that politically, musically, and socially, this album is one of the best of the year, and of the decade thus far. If you still haven’t heard Channel Orange, make it your priority to do so in the very near future.

Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, mA.A.d City

The Art of Peer Pressure

Good Kid m.A.A.d City is Lamar’s second studio album, and is certainly his biggest project to date. Though he has slowly been building up acclaim in hip-hop circles for a few years, this brilliantly conceived musical “short film” about his teenage life in Compton, framed through short skits that break the album up into pieces, serves as his true debut: as incisive a statement by a young emcee as we’ve seen in years. GKMC features a host of big-name producers such as Just Blaze, Pharrell Williams, and Hit Boy as well as first class work from Top Dawg in-house beatmakers like Sounwave, but Lamar’s meticulous beat selection ensures that it captures a cohesive sound that melds perfectly with the story he is telling. With such a stacked cast it was impossible for the world not to take notice, but listeners will find this attention to be fully warranted, because what Kendrick Lamar produced was one of the most poignant West Coast rap albums of all time.

Dirty Projectors: Swing Lo Magellan

03 Gun Has No Trigger

For the first time, The Dirty Projectors produced an album that was not (as) clouded by conceptual framework. Indeed, perhaps beleaguered by accusations of intentional obfuscation, David Longstreth spells his feelings outright: “In my heart there is music, in my mind is a song/ But in my eyes, a world: crooked, fucked up and wrong.” That quote, from the final track, “Irresponsible Tune,” about sums it up as straightforwardly as you could want. But that’s not to take away from the musical beauty and complexity that this album offers: it’s meticulously orchestrated, and the cohesion in the band is palpable, which means that there’s more to delve into on every listen. It’s one to return to again and again for months, and years to come.

Miguel: Kaleidoscope Dream

Adorn

This is Miguel’s breakout album. An up-and-coming R&B singer before this LP, “Adorn” was a smash hit that catapulted him into the spotlight. But that wasn’t the only great tune he had up his sleeve; the title track is a showpiece of vocal layering and delicate singing. What’s more, this album really demonstrates Miguel’s versatility as a singer and songwriter. He tears apart the pop sounds while simultaneously demonstrating that he really does have the dance moves and voice to back it all up. We can’t wait to see where this kid goes next.

Flying Lotus: Until The Quiet Comes

Getting There feat. Niki Randa

Flying Lotus has been a busy man. Masquerading around town as Captain Murphy, running a record label, and incessantly touring can take its toll on some, but FlyLo’s creativity never seems to rest. Coming off the back of Cosmogramma little more than a year ago, Until The Quiet Comes carves a more minimal yet equally powerful place in his work, and continues to take us to new sonic atmospheres never before imagined, while still retaining the lilting, Dilla-influenced beat that brought him to notoriety in the first place. Featuring a host of Brainfeeder artists (including the now-deceased Austin Peralta), Flying Lotus combines acid jazz, hip-hop, and experimental electronic layers into an increasingly unique and dynamic catalogue of a music that is all his own.

Aesop Rock: Skelethon

1,000 O’Clock

Aesop Rock’s sixth studio offering sees him delve deeper into himself, so off the grid that he even references a self-made language in one verse. This is no scattered set of songs, it’s a veritable journey into his psyche. And the dark, interweaving beats, produced entirely by the rapper himself, are finely tailored to accompany the lyrics perfectly. It’s a deep journey, and certainly not for the faint of heart. But Aesop leads you down the rabbit hole with aplomb, and if you follow his lead through this volatile landscape, you won’t regret it. The rapping is top class, a dark scattershot freeverse that weaves with purpose through the beats. Typically defying specific explanation or classification, Aesop Rock leaves you wondering how some rappers and beatmakers get away with so little when something this nuanced exists.

El-P: Cancer 4 Cure

Drones Over Bklyn

El-P has been silent for some time, and here he is, treading back into very dark territory. This album was made in the midst of dealing with death, and treading into the question of what it means to be alive ultimately reaffirms the rapper’s desire to push onwards and live. Still using the industrial, garage-y sound that brought him to the forefront of the New York underground more than a decade ago, El-P delivers some of his best work in this ambitious return to prominence.

TNGHT: TNGHT EP

Higher Ground

Hudson Mohawke and Lunice teamed up for this EP, and boy was it something special. HudMo (for short) has been at the forefront of the hip-hop/trap crossover for a few years, and now that it’s finally taken off, he went all in for this short but very sweet EP of five bangers. Featured on the Captain Murphy LP (and in clubs across the world), it fits perfectly into the libraries of both hip-hop beat-heads and forward-thinking EDM aficionados alike. Serve it any way you like, this music’s fire regardless.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: The Heist

Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert)

For many, this album was a mixed bag, with songs coming out here and there in drips and drabs over a period of more than a year, so by the time the entire album came out some felt it was more of a compilation than a proper LP. But Macklemore surprised us with not only an honest and compelling narrative, but songs that can stand alone as party bangers (“Thrift Shop” is but one example). We love his straight-forward sincerity on this, and his all-around fun personality that shows through it all. To be so candid about the struggles he’s been through is bold, and certainly songs like “Same Love” are a refreshing and necessary commentary for our times. He hits the nail on the head with this one.

P.O.S.: We Don’t Even Live Here

Bumper

On his fourth studio album, P.O.S. seems more gleefully combative than ever: “They on some nonsense/We on some non-stop.” And when both Doomtree (his crew) and Rhymesayers (his label) have had the year that they’ve had, why not? The kid they used to call Pissed-Off Stef has been going hard for some time now, and it’s about time he’s broken into the larger hip-hop consciousness both with and without the rest of his Doomtree family. Though this album ventures into more electronic terrain at times with four-to-the-floor beats (“Get Down”) and crunchy synth sounds (“All Of It”), P.O.S. still remains as committed as ever to the raw, candid DIY aesthetic that has always set his music apart from the rest of the pack.

Robert Glasper Experiment: Black Radio

Cherish The Day (Feat. Lalah Hathaway)

Robert Glasper has been making noise in jazz circles since two albums ago, with his crossover blend of hip-hop and modern jazz influences. This combination has been a longtime coming, as underground rappers have been sampling jazz tunes for years. But it’s fair to say nobody quite expected this: a virtuoso jazz pianist with an equally virtuosic backing band bringing the two polar extremes together in perfect harmony. Though jazz purists may write this album off as a money-grabbing pop piece, they’re truly missing out. This is a landmark album that just might endear jazz music to a younger generation to whom it was thought long lost. This album is a must-have not only because of the stacked cast of guest stars and musicianship on hand, but because it represents a coming together of musical movements that have been on a collision course for decades. That Glasper pulled this album off as effectively as he did is a testament to his skill and to the still-bright future of this musical genre.

Brother Ali: Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color

Letter To My Countrymen feat. Dr. Cornel West

Alt-J: An Awesome Wave

Click here to view the embedded video.

Young Man In America

Burial: Truant/Rough Sleeper

Truant

Lest you enter the new year without a fresh beat to step to, LA club bangers gLAdiator just dropped a new album — the aptly titled New. Trappy and glitchy in all the right places gLAdiator’s new tape also features friends and TNC partners in crime Bastille. Listen to the whole album below, then download it. You won’t need someone pretty to kiss at midnight. You’ll be dancing too hard.

Standout Track: Kambuja

Hit the jump to hear the whole album!

Big Boi – Mama Told Me (feat. Little Dragon)

Alicia Keys‘ “Girl on Fire” is a lovely contemporary R&B album. A good mix of soft crooning, hard hitting 4 on the floors, and, of course, some baby makin’ love jams, with more than a handful of run-that-back moments. She’s got a long list of friends on “Girl on Fire” that help make it that way: Frank Ocean, Maxwell, Swizz Beats, Dr. Dre, Salaam Remi… even Jamie XX leaves his mark. Hit the jump to listen to the whole album for free whenever you’d like. Yeah, we did that for you kids.

With a 2012 Slamdance Festival Selection already under its belt, the cast and crew (many of whose projects you have read about on TNC before) are looking to put the final touches on a truly amazing project. Take a look at the video above and then head over to Kickstarter and support great, independent art.

Click here to view the embedded video.

LA’s Nosaj Thing is an electronic producer and beatmaker whose enigmatic stylings are often hard to pin down. His forthcoming album, Home, is the widely anticipated follow-up to Drift, released in 2009. “Eclipse/Blue” is the lead single off of the LP, and its a spacey, glitchy glimpse of a new, more intimate soundscape for Nosaj Thing. The video above is the accompanying visual conceptual piece, presented by The Creators Project (I’ve got my own issues with TCP, but I’ll put those aside for the minute) in conjunction with Daito Manabe, a visual artist whose innovative use of technology has garnered a small but intense following. In his interview with The Creators Project, Manabe explains how the video was made, revealing its surprisingly simplistic beauty.

With support from The Creators Project, and collaborating with Perfume choreographer MIKIKO, Manabe created a dynamic virtual environment to serve as the backdrop for two dancers whose movements across the stage are amplified by the graphics behind them, making each action feel larger and more emotive.

When watching the video, it’s hard to tell if we’re seeing a live dance performance with a projection onto it or if the graphics and dance footage were combined in post. How did these components really come together?
It’s all a live dance performance. We used a Point Grey high-speed camera for tracking the dancer and then beamed onto the dancer’s body.

Is there a story, if any, behind the choreography and visual aesthetic of this video, and how does it relate to Nosaj Thing’s track?
We were inspired by the structure of an eclipse of the sun. One dancer who dances in front of the screen is the sun, and the other who is behind the screen is the moon. Also the setup of “projector—dancer—screen” is inspired by the structure.

Via.

Alicia Keys x Maxwell… One word: boner. Off her upcoming album “Girl on Fire”, which we are EXTREMELY excited to buy, download, listen and re-listen, and make sticky, dripping, disgusting…

Listen and Download: Alicia Keys – Fire We Make ft. Maxwell

There are many ways that you may have heard of Menahan Street Band in the past; they’re so prolific it’s hard to know where to begin. If you’re hip to the Daptone/Soul Revival scene, you’ll recognize the band as the inimitable sound behind the raspy singer-songwriter Charles Bradley’s LP, No Time For Dreaming. If not, though, many members of Menahan have been involved in producing other artists in the Dunhill/Daptone family. And many of the musicians in Menahan are closely involved with the several other bands under the Daptone umbrella, from the Dap-Kings to The Budos Band. Oh, and, you know, many of them toured with The Black Keys and Wu-Tang.

So you could say they’ve been a busy group. Which is why it’s taken four years to record, mix, and master their follow up to Make The Road By Walking, which initially catapulted them to fame when Jay-Z sampled the title track in his song “Roc Boys.” The initial album was envisioned as a breed between Funk, Soul, and African influences, which could be said to describe the general aesthetic of the entire Daptone Label. But Menahan puts their own spin on the somewhat-clichéd genre, and place one foot firmly in the Stax/Motown/60′s vibe, and the other in the 21th century’s emphasis on beats, grooves, and the underground hip-hop aesthetic. It’s part soul, part groove; it’s totally idiomatic yet always forward-facing.

Their sophomore effort, however, is even better than the first… The Crossing finds itself in a distinctly darker place than the more upbeat freshman LP: where MTRBW features triumphant, ascending horn melodies, The Crossing’s groove is just a little slower, just a little more lilting, like the band decided to move from the epic, Rocky feel into a downstairs, smoky club in an after-hours set. Maybe this is a product of the band’s maturation, that they no longer feel like they need to make music that lifts and can instead focus on music that drives, and pushes. Maybe it’s a product of the usually post-midnight recording sessions fit between rehearsals, gigs, and tours. Or maybe it’s a coming to grips with the reality of the grind.

Either way, it results in an album that moves hard and fast from start to finish. The dark mood suits the band better than some might anticipate – there’s a sense of urgency about the sound that wasn’t present in their first album, and it works. It drives the music that boils over with thick, vibrato organ and intricately woven melodies. Where Make the Road By Walking is content to lay back with one horn line as the song’s focal point, The Crossing dares onwards, never at rest, and whether forward into the eerie, textured ether of Wu-Tang’s darkest hours or onwards to mournful, reverb-drenched waltzes, the band stays impeccably tight, moving together as one. Make no mistake: this is some heavy, heavy sugar. Well-worth the four year wait, The Crossing is on a level that a lot of music today can’t even think about getting to.

If you don’t believe me, listen to the track below, “Lights Out.” And if you like what you hear, the album is available on iTunes, the Daptone website, Amazon, and anywhere else you could possibly buy music. Do these guys a favor and support them. They absolutely deserve it.

The Menahan Street Band – Lights Out

inc. are dropping their debut album no world on 4AD in February.  Stay tuned.