Artists' rankings

Dark, shambolic songs of life and death from a New Zealand underground music legend (The Terminals, The Renderers).

I’m not ashamed to admit I recently stood atop a shaky barstool in a crowded bar in Amsterdam and proclaimed the BT’s as the best band ever to come out of the Netherlands. This album, the first in six years from the lo-fi, home-tape pioneers, is another masterpiece.

This collects virtually everything Laughner did outside the famous Cleveland bands he was kicked out of before dying in 1977. It apparently took years to compile and it’s worth the wait. One of my favorite songwriters and guitarists (and rock critics). I don’t know how many songs I’ve written after listening to “Baudelaire”, “Cinderella Backstreet”, “Sylvia Plath”, or “Amphetamine”. There will be plenty of talented people dying young, as long as the world turns, unfortunately, but there will never be another Peter Laughner.

A collection of incredible unreleased songs and early singles from the 40-year career of the NZ artist who’s enjoying a renaissance due to reissues of his groundbreaking bands, Nocturnal Projections and This Kind of Punishment. His solo records are really important to me. This one is as good as his 90’s records, “Electricity” and “The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World”, in my opinion.

A collaboration of brooding voices and electric guitars create a haunting, cathartic symphony on this under the radar album. It’s as if Branca and Nico made an album together.

Another hero who died too young and whose many various essential releases have yet to be reissued. This album gathers unreleased songs from the private collection of one of Shepard’s close friends and it should be a revelation for any fan of V-3, Vertical Slit, or Columbus underground music in general.

A blistering and trance-inducing psychedelic Saharan rock album from the Tuareg guitarist and his band. Mdou might be the best rock guitarist on the planet right now and he makes it look effortless.

A gripping, trance-inducing psychedelic Saharan rock album from the Tuareg guitarist and his band. Mdou might be the best rock guitarist on the planet right now, and he makes it look effortless.

“Love is Overtaking Me” is one of my favorite albums and “Iowa Dream” continues where that one left off. More posthumous, heartfelt and surprising singer-songwriter pop songs from the avant-garde cellist.