I’ve probably tried everything bar doing it by the colour of the sleeve, but I currently arrange my LPs by record label. Admittedly, if someone put a gun to my head and demanded that I locate every LP by every member of Emeralds currently in my possession, I might have a problem, but I’m banking on that being a highly unlikely thing to happen. So many labels have such a strong ethos, from the sort of music they release through to sleeve design, that to an extent that these labels feel like a canon of work, as much as the cumulative catalogue of any individual artist could. I would no more separate my Olde English Spelling Bee LPs than I would split up my Impulse! jazz LPs, for example. Here we celebrate those labels, those curators, who have done so much to shape The Liminal’s record collections in 2010.

Arbor
Synth-based drone and so-called hypnagogic pop have been Arbor’s stock in trade for some years now, it was almost like they were waiting for fashion (and genre name-minters) to catch up with them. They took in Emeralds solo projects and the stately Eno-esque ambience of boss Mike Pollard’s Pale Blue Sky concern in 2010, but peaked with the deep ultra-minimalism of Sun Circle’s gong and tamboura-soaked Lessness double LP.

Editions Mego
This really was the year eMego hit the big time producing two albums of stellar quality with the latest long players by Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds. The latter catapulting them from the left-field into the near reaches of the mainstream. There was also the return of Fenn O’Berg and returns for stunning efforts from Mark McGuire and Mark Fell. They might have their niche, but what a wonderful place to find yourself.

Honest Jon’s
2010 saw Honest Jons once again pull off the near impossible by placing themselves at once at the vanguard of cutting edge electronic music (the Actress LP Splazsh, new releases from T++ and Moritz von Oswald) whilst also releasing some of the year’s most essential global compilations. From Shangaan Electro to early Turkish folk music, they educated as much as they entertained – and they entertained plenty. With a new MvO Trio LP imminent, it looks like we can expect more of the same high quality next year.

Important Records
Merzbow. NHK. Jon Mueller. Robedoor. Mugstar. Acid Mothers Temple. The Skull Defekts. Nadja. Aun. Grails. Master Musicians Of Bukkake. The New Blockaders. Bitchin Bajas. JD Emmanuel. Cluster. Smegma. Matmos. Nurse With Wound. Barn Owl. Eleh. Eleh. Eleh. I don’t need to add much to that; in 2010, Important just got on with the important business of releasing bloody brilliant records.

Night Slugs

Virtually every time Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990’s newly formed imprint dropped a 12” this year it was proclaimed (at least in my head) single of the year…until the next one came along. Dashes of dancehall, dubstep and juke/footwork/ghetto house alongside huge dollops of grime, crunk swagger and R&B sass are thrown into their recipe for vanguard club music, joining the dots across a bass-driven global network. From Lil Silva’s flawless frontline funky to body and brain-bending alchemical anthems from Jam City, Kingdom and Girl Unit, pretty much everything bangs here.

Not Not Fun
Another label which seemed to catch a prevailing wind in 2010 was Britt and Amanda Brown’s Not Not Fun. Their own Robedoor, Pocahaunted and LA Vampires projects slotted hazily into the fuzziest of release schedules, which included compelling virtual soundtracks from Umberto and Brian Pyle’s Ensemble Economique, along with the more “regular” tribal-space-psych-trip-like-what-the-fuck-dude jams from Sun Araw and High Wolf.

Olde English Spelling Bee
A label on genuinely stellar form in 2010, Olde English Spelling Bee seemed to be at the centre of so many vital things. They were something close to a nexus for the hypnagogic pop scene, with releases from James Ferraro, Ducktails and the peerless Rangers; and they also seemed to locate bands that orbited this sound, beaming in distant messages in the form of the dubby soundscapes of Forest Swords and the skewed psych-FM pop of Julian Lynch. What will 2011 bring?

Pan
The first thing you notice about a Pan LP is that it just looks and feels like a quality piece of work. Then you hear the music. From Keith Fullerton Whitman’s magnificent Disingenuousness/Disingenuity (one of The Liminal’s records of the year) to the beguiling plunderphonics of Joseph Hammer’s I Love You Please Love Me Too, via some choice modern composition and improv reissues, this really was work of supreme quality. Pan are already amassing a most impressive catalogue.

Room40
The latest solo CD by Necks pianist Chris Abrahams, Play Scar, may have stolen the plaudits in year end polls such as ours, but when this is added to the turntablism of Marina Rosenfeld, the resonant spaces of Richard Chartier, the noisescapes of Tim Hecker and Rafael Anton Irisarri, and the balladry of Alasdair Roberts, it was clear that the tenth year of their existence really was a vintage one for Lawrence English’s Room40 label all round.

Thrill Jockey
There’s something enlivening about the fact that Thrill Jockey have managed to maintain such an astonishingly high standard of releases over so many years. And 2010 was no different. Just look at the roll call: the desert-wide sounds of Barn Owl and the expansive psych of White Hills; the glitch-shards of Oval’s O; the frazzled wash of Fennez Daniell and Buck; not to mention the gentle honeyed ambience of Koen Holtkamp’s Gravity/Bees and the summer-long hoedown that is the Black Twig Pickers. Another year to be proud of.

Tompkins Square
As well as continuing with the excellent archival projects relating to the American Primitive folk, blues, gospel and, er, murder ballads that the label has become famous for, Tompkins Square’s latest Imaginational Anthem compilation (volume 4 in the ongoing series) saw it celebrating newer and somewhat less familiar solo folk guitarists. Releases by the likes of William Tyler and Richard Skelton backed up this increasing confidence.

Type
A label that has released albums that are as great and as disparate as Richard Skelton, Yellow Swans, Jon Mueller, Rene Hell and Altar Eagle, to name but a few, deserves your ultimate attention. Not one of their 2010 releases has disappointed, each slab of vinyl a perfect place in which to lose oneself in and escape from your current surroundings. The only problem being, can they top it in 2011?

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