2014: Favourites of Q2

Where does time go? 2014 is already half-way through, and having honoured the best albums of (roughly) January-March, we're back to honour the best albums of (roughly) April-June - this time, however, we decided to actually quantify why we like these albums so damn much rather than just straight up list them. As ever, expect a nice grab-bag of styles and sounds, from alien grime to dusty jazz-hop with a gangster rap edge; terrifying doom metal to shimmering psych-folk, and so on.

Shout-out time; many great releases from Q1 slipped through the cracks initially, along with the sleeper hits we didn't realise we liked so much until after the list was finalised. These include Isaiah Rashad's Cilvia Demo, New Balance's Formes De Viure, Kassem Mosse's Workshop 19, Sun Araw's Belomancie, Ana Caprix's For Seven Nights This Island Is Ours, Ekoplekz's Unfidelity, Migos' No Label 2, Magic Eye's Babylon and Kevin Gates' By Any Means.

More shout-out time; the past three months have been particularly kind to us, so here are a load of releases that barely missed the cut from Q2: BADBADNOTGOOD's III, Foodman's DRUM DESU, Valerio Tricoli's Miseri Lares, Traxman's Da Mind of Traxman Vol. 2, Life Sim's This Life, Gobby's Wakng Thrst For Seeping Banhee, Fear of Men's Loom, Dynooo's These Flaws Are Mine To War With, GFOTY's Secret Mix, Lil B's Hoop Life, Klara Lewis' Ett, Fushitsusha's Nothing Changes..., Mac DeMarco's Salad Days. Every single album mentioned above is worth checking out along with our top 20, and who knows, maybe they'll grow on us in the coming months.

2014: Favourites of Q1

We're just about 3 months into 2014, and the year is already shaping up tremendously well. As such, myself and Joe have decided to offload our favourites of this first quarter (as well as a couple of last-ditch efforts from December), with the second and third to follow before the overall year-end list. It's never easy to mash each of our respective tastes into one comprehensive guide, but at least it makes for an interesting list; it's actually quite heartening to see the likes of C L E A N E R S slot alongside Real Estate, or for Sicko Mobb to cosy up next to Have a Nice Life. As ever, there are a few honorable mentions to be made: Live at the Cairo High Cinema Institute (EEK), 37 Minute Workout (Russell Haswell), What's The Story? Brixton Glory (Big Narstie), Divine Ecstasy (Supreme Cuts), Beyoncé (Beyoncé), Lay-By Lullaby (Janek Schaefer) and Oxymoron (ScHoolboy Q). So, in no particular order, here is a rough idea of where we're at with 2014...

2013: Joe Gilbey's Favourite Albums

I like keeping my forenotices short and sweet, and so all I really have to say is that 2013 has been an absolutely fucking insane year in the world of music. Thank you to everyone that has made the year such a good one for //APEX, we promise to supply you with many more great features in 2014. But yeah, here's my long-awaited AOTY list. Enjoy.

2013: Joe Sherwood's Favourite Albums

When it comes to making these year-end lists, I always try to pick out trends in my listening habits, and I always come up with nothing. I'm not trying to say I have an amazingly diverse taste in music, because I don't particularly; only a few rock albums have made it onto my top 50, and unbelievably there are no representatives for metal. The lack of any real dominant focus in my music listening most likely owes to the increasingly fragmented state of music. We live in the age of information, and pretty much any record of one's choosing is available to stream, purchase or (perhaps) download for nothing within a few clicks. Moreover, a lot of the best records this year are available for free at the artist's choice, and it's telling that 3 of my top 10 albums can be downloaded legally without charge. And, the definition of what exactly an "album" is has become hazy of late, with mixtapes and EPs slotting alongside commercially available, full-length releases. The point I'm trying to make here is that this top 50 isn't some sort of vanity exercise to show how unique my tastes are, nor is it an overblown advertisement for independent labels. It's simply a showcase of my personal favourites from the past year, and any diversity is most likely down to the prominence of the internet rather than a conscious decision on my part to appear on trend.

As ever, there was some unpleasant culling that had to be done to keep this list at 50 records, and some really rather good albums are missing from this list. I would honor them here, but there are far too many to reel off, so I may make a separate post for the honorable mentions. I'll also include a Spotify playlist at the foot of this post with some of my favourite tracks from each album (provided the album is actually on Spotify, of course). Please, don't dwell on the rankings too much, because every single one of these 50 records is absolutely worth checking out.

Thanks for reading //APEX this year, and I hope you can find something you enjoy from this list.