the wire: "To illustrate our 50 Records Of The Year Chart 2005 we've collated 10 tracks for your listening pleasure from a selection of labels and artists. The tracks are all streamed at 40kbs mono."

• Ariel Pink - Immune To Emotion
  
• CocoRosie - Noah's Ark
  
• Edan - I See Colours
  
• Konono No1 - Kule Kule
  
• Tetuzi Akiyama - Fast Machine (for Alan Licht)
  
• The Books - Be Good To Them Always
  
• The Chap - Woop Woop
  
• The Focus Group - You Do Not See Me
  
• The Lappetites - My Within
  
• Thuja - Fit The third
  
  
• Listen here

- The Books: Lost And Safe - [Downloads]

• MIA: Arular - [Downloads]
  
• Animal Collective: Feels - [Downloads]
  
• Richard Youngs: The Naive Shaman - [Downloads]
  
• The Lappetites: Before The Libretto - [Downloads]
  
• The Focus Group: Hey Let Loose Your Love
  
• LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem - [Downloads]
  
• Tetuzi akiyama: Route 13 To The Gates Of Hell: Live In Tokyo
  
• Cocorosie: Noah'S Ark - [Downloads]
  
• Boards Of Canada: The Campfire Headphase - [Downloads]
  
• Antony & The Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now - [Downloads]
  
• Ariel Pink: Worn Copy - [Downloads]
  
• The Chap: Ham - [Downloads]
  
• Black Mountain: Black Mountain - [Downloads]
  
• Isolee: We Are Monster - [Downloads]
  
• David Behrman: My Dear Siegfried - [Downloads]
  
• The Sealed Knot: Unwanted Object
  
• Konono No1 : Congotronics - [Downloads]
  
• Edan: The Beauty And The Beat - [Downloads]
  
• Jackson & His Computer Band: Smash - [Downloads]
  
• Lightning Bolt: Hypermagic Mountain - [Downloads]
  
• Lau Nau: Kuutarha - [Downloads]
  
• Thuja: Pine Cone Temples - [Downloads]
  
• Sunburned Hand Of The Man: Wedlock - [Downloads]
  
• Kanye West: Late Registration - [Downloads]
  
• John Fahey: The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick - [Downloads]
  
• Mouthus: Slow Globes - [Downloads]
  
• Sufjan Stevens: Illinoise - [Downloads]
  
• Rova::Orkestrova: Electric Ascension - [Downloads]
  
• John Wall: Cphon
  
• Jamie Lidell: Multiply - [Downloads]
  
• Susan Howe & David Grubbs: Thiefth - [Downloads]
  
• Broadcast: Tender Buttons - [Downloads]
  
• Om: Variations On A Theme - [Downloads]
  
• Low: The Great Destroyer - [Downloads]
  
• Akron/Family: Akron/Family - [Downloads]
  
• John Coltrane: One Down One Up:Live At The Half Note - [Downloads]
  
• Brian Eno: Another Day On Earth - [Downloads]
  
• Josephine Foster: Hazel Eyes I Will LEad You - [Downloads]
  
• Prurient: Black Vase - [Downloads]
  
• Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney: Superwolf - [Downloads]
  
• Sightings: Arrived In Gold - [Downloads]
  
• Masayuki Takayanagi: Action Direct
  
• Einstürzende Neubauten: Grundstück - [Downloads]
  
• Pelt: Untitled
  
• Matthew Herbert: Plat Du Jour - [Downloads]
  
• Buck 65: Secret House Against The world - [Downloads]
  
• Six Organs Of Admittance: School Of The Flower - [Downloads]
  
• Keiji Haino: Global Ancient Atmosphere - [Downloads]
  
• Eliane Radigue: Elemental II

pickled-egg: "Volcano the Bear was formed in May 1995, in Leicester, England, by Daniel Padden, Laurence Coleman, Nick Mott and Aaron Moore. These four musicians encountered frustrations with the limitations of traditional musical endeavors and sought an outlet that could defy convention. Volcano the Bear quickly became the platform for their total artistic freedom and personal expression, where they could explore collective ideas and interests in a new and inventive manner.

The music that came forth from this collective ideology was a beautiful cross-section of the English underground of years past (Robert Wyatt, This Heat, Nurse With Wound) alongside the rhythms of Can, the trickery of Faust and a Residents-like surrealist bent. Volcano the Bear adapt these lofty inspirations into a sound that is distinctly their own creation, one that blurs the lines between songs, composition, noise and improvisation." More

• Official homepage with lots of mp3 downloads
  
• Picture taken from mordentower.com

allmusic.com: "One of free jazz's more enigmatic figures, alto saxophonist Noah Howard was documented so infrequently on record and spent so much time living in Europe that the course of his career and development as a musician remain difficult to trace, despite a late-'90s renewal of interest in his music. Howard was born in New Orleans in 1943 and began playing music in church as a child. He started out on trumpet (the instrument he played in the military during the early '60s) but subsequently switched to alto, and got in on the ground floor of the early free jazz movement." More

Official homepage
Interview from the WIRE 263
3 Big mp3 files

younggodrecords.com "Their music is bare and austere, made with simple instrumentation - voice, acoustic guitars, and other very sparse orchestrations. I wouldn't say it compares at all to the current crop of neo hippy "weird folk" etc. It has the naked quality of certain early Nico recordings, or Chet Baker...soulful and elegant, without being touchy-feely or confessional. Their music reminds me of how one might imagine a winter Finnish landscape - haunting and pure." More info

• Two mp3 files here