Top shit i heard in 2010

So, a lot of places list their best or favorite albums of year XXXX around this time. We should probably do that too. Personally, I don't really care enough about keeping track of what year an album came out in, beyond generalities such as "new" (it came out 0-2 years ago), "pretty new" (2-5 years) and "not new" (5+ years). There are lots of exceptions such as, in my opinion, "Wreath of Barbs" is" new" Wumpscut, since he has no releases beyond Bone Peeler. Anyway who the hell cares. Instead of giving you a top 10 releases in 2010, here are my top 10 albums heard in 2010, quasi-according to my last.fm charts:
(*numerical order is just for organization, not necessarily rank)

1. Raison d'etre - "In Silence, Sadness, And Solitude" . still one of my favorite dark ambient albums of all time. 13 years later and nothing tops it. it got remastered in 2006, which i managed to finally get this year, hence why it is arguably my #1 album of the year.  raison dropped "Stains of the Embodied Sacrifice" in 2009 and people were sort of like 'hmm, he hasn't released anything as raison for awhile. is he back?' and the answer is yes. the new album is fantastic.

2. Gridlock - "Formless". best industrial/idm album ever, nothing tops it. still my yearly most listened to album.

3. Visions - "Lapse" and "Summoning the Void". amazing deep, droning dark ambient. "lapse" is the first visions album and it is goddamn amazing, as much so now as when it was released. "summoning the void" is the new one in 2010 and it carries on the visions legacy as would be expected. absolute must haves for dark ambient fans.

4. Yen Pox - "Blood Music". 2cd re-release of this album and various 7in. fucking amazing droning dark ambient. never heard these guys before i bought it and was blown away.

5. Inade - "Incarnation of the Solar Architects" . more great dark ambient. Inade are masters. I was blown away by the production and depth of this album.

6. Herbst9 - "The Gods Are Small Birds But I Am The Falcon" and "Through Bleak Landscapes". "the gods are small..." is an amazing jungle ambient album. i say that because it sounds like the damn south american jungle; i'm not trying to coin a new genre. "through bleak landscapes" is with z'ev and is one of the pinnacles of industrial ambient. both discs saw lots of plays from me this year.

7. Phelios - "Astral Unity". fucking great space-y dark ambient. I liked the previous album and this one didn't disappoint at all. Huge sound.

8. False Mirror - "Derelict World". pretty cool drone album. ultra crisp production. absolutely amazing packaging that all releases should aspire to be like. loved that it incorporated actual occult elements

9. Proem - "Til There's No Breath" and "Enough Conflict". "til there's no breath" is an amazing dark ambient album from a guy who typically does sombre idm. it is a surprise, but an amazing album for sure. even has a hidden bonus ep. "enough conflict" is his return to IDM and it is as great as ever. very encouraging to see that he has not stagnated at all on during his history.

10a. Tzolk'in - "Tonatiuh". This one blew me away. HUGE sound, great atmosphere and tribal bits. must buy for any fans of tribal industrial

10b. Geomatic - "64 Light Years Away". similar to above; amazing tribal electro. a must own for fans of that style.

11. Svartsinn - "Elegies for the End 2xCD" - great melodic droning dark ambient and a cd of remixes from top acts. This got quite a lot of plays from me.

12. Svasti-ayanam - "Sanklesa". not so new. got re-released and re-mastered in 2007. took me a while to track down the remastered version, but I got it this year. this is raison d'etre doing tibetan buddhism inspired ambient, and man let me tell you it is goddamn stellar.

13. Famine - "Nature's Twin Tendancies". last minute addition, as i am just now finally hearing this album. it's fucking stellar and was worth the wait. idm with the tech proficiency of richard devine, but more melody and actual song. of course (if you know famine) some insane glitchy black metal shit too. the idm is seriously fucking insane and destroys pretty much every other idm album of the last several years.

14. Roel Funcken - "Vade". forgot about this one too. glitchy jazz idm madness on ad noiseam. must have for fans of glitchy complex idm.

see, i didn't do too badly. most of those are from 2010, yeah? ok thats all for now. keep in mind that i obviously did not hear every single album released in 2010 so i might have left some awesome shit out of the aforementioned list. enjoy