It has been another big year with a music calendar filled with quality releases by new artists and old hands. The Arts & Life team take a look at the albums that got them buzzing.
Art Angels Grimes
Any doubt that Claire Boucher is a visionary was crushed to dust with Art Angels, her first record as Grimes since 2011's equally stunning Visions. Boucher is a true auteur who meticulously perfects every facet of her art in studio, and delivers it to the world via a persona that's as bubbly as it is abrasive. Art Angels mixes pitch-perfect pop like California with pound-your-dashboard electro-scuzz like Kill V. Maim seamlessly. In one track you can easily see her being the world's biggest pop star, while in the next you realise that she's way too talented to ever be so. No one else is making music like this, and there might not be anyone else even capable.
* Kevin Jeffers
At Least For Now Benjamin Clementine
Poet, pianist, busker, balladeer – Benjamin Clementine's debut album signalled the arrival of a most singular talent. Years spent honing his craft on Paris Métro platforms meant the 27-year-old arrived fully formed, a holistic artistic voice both fresh and familiar. Backed fleetingly by beats and strings, At Least For Now captures Clementine's ample gifts as composer, musician, vocalist and lyricist in an unforced environment – his freewheeling piano cascades rawly, moving between musical passages of his mini-opera with a spontaneity compared to Nina Simone. On top Clementine's soaring, soulful voice urgently pours considered, crafted verse, packed with the power to twist emotion and thought alike. Don't just believe us – he won the Mercury Prize last month for a reason.
* Rob Garratt
Beauty Behind the Madness The Weeknd
While many of the year's finest records were motivated by world-changing intent or life-altering events, Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, hit the A-list with an album primarily pushed by his, ahem, love for the ladies. Although the word "love" might be over-legitimising things a touch. The two hit singles the album birthed could scarcely have been more different: I Can't Feel My Face was a jaunty pop romp; while The Hills was a dark, late-night journey. You wouldn't want to leave your partner alone with him for five minutes, but somehow Beauty Behind the Madness slapped its potential sleaziness down for a set of arresting R&B.
* Adam Workman
Carrie and Lowell Sufjan Stevens
With his seventh release, Carrie and Lowell, Stevens proved that no one is better at finding beauty – and melody to spare – in the quietest shadows of our darkest thoughts. He's written and performed about his complicated relationship with his late mother before, but this record full of elegies is his first since the eponymous Carrie's death in 2012 (the deathbed recollection Fourth of July would move anyone to tears). A truly personal deep dive into his psyche, Carrie and Lowell is a hauntingly gorgeous work, and a return to form for a man once considered the poster boy of hushed indie-folk.
* Kevin Jeffers
Chasing Yesterday Noel Gallagher's Highflying Birds
It's quite infuriating how Noel Gallagher does it. The 48-year-old takes familiar chord progressions – and in some cases lifts a whole bunch of lyrics – from classic songs and transforms them into something new and vital. This is partly the reason why the music slowly grows on you and refuses to be branded as trite. His second solo album, Chasing Yesterday, should put a stop to rumours that Oasis may reform anytime soon. The fact is that Gallagher has too much to express on his own. Tracks such as Riverman and Ballad of the Mighty I demonstrate he hasn't lost his knack for majestic choruses. The driving In The Heat of the Moment and the delicious groove of The Mexican show that swaggering spirit first displayed in Oasis hasn't been lost. None of it may sound remotely innovative, but then again, it's only rock'n'roll.
* Saeed Saeed
Compton: A Soundtrack Dr Dre
The hip-hop genre achieved another milestone with Dr Dre's third album Compton: A Soundtrack dropping unexpectedly in August. Inspired by his home city in Southern Los Angeles, the super-producer and rapper sounds positively revitalised with a thunderous and cinematic set of songs reminding the younger set to pay homage to the good doctor, all the while setting another benchmark for hip-hop production. As is the case with Snoop Dogg in The Chronic and Eminem in 2001, each Dre album elevates an artist from the underground to the mainstream. In the case of Compton, rappers Anderson Paak and Jon Connor have generated serious buzz from their appearances. In the case of Connor, the Michigan artist's crushing verse in One Shot is one of the best rapping performances of the year.
* Saeed Saeed
Déjà Vu Giorgio Moroder
Perhaps the most surprising comeback of the year arrived in the shape of 75-year-old producer Giorgio Moroder. Once recognised as disco's king, Moroder has been on hiatus for the best part of 30 years, turning his back on pop and dance at the very moment the world appeared to adore everything he put out. He returned to the fold this year with Déjà Vu, an infectious collection of pop, EDM and retro disco. Moroder always did keep good company and Déjà Vu is no exception, stringing together collaborations with artists including Sia, Charli XCX, Kylie Minogue and Foxes. The ensemble cast delivers an album that seems to drop the very best kind of mix tape into a mildly riotous house party. This is dance music to make you smile and laugh uproariously.
* Nick March
Depression Cherry Beach House
There comes a stage when memories once acrimonious take on a sepia glow courtesy of time and distance – those who experienced heartbreak know what I am talking about. Baltimore dream-pop duo Beach House perfectly crystallises those deep emotions in Depression Cherry. The fifth album finds them dialling it back somewhat to produce a sound revelling in its vastness as opposed to its volume. Victoria Legrand's bewitching vocals and haunting organ work blends seamlessly with Alex Scally lyrical guitar passages. Such sweeping sounds help cushion some of the lovelorn lyrics such as in Blue Birds: "If there should come a match before you, I would not ever try to capture you ... things change before they are over."
* Saeed Saeed
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Florence + The Machine
What an adrenalin-fuelled and gratifying year Florence Welch carved out for herself. From taking Glastonbury by storm in the summer to running with abundant energy around the stage in Abu Dhabi last month, it's been one heck of a career high. Her extraordinary success has been underpinned by How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Florence + The Machine's best-selling third album, which is a brutal confessional on which Welch spares no one, least of all herself. This is the sound and the fury of a mind in turmoil and a performer approaching the peak of her powers. From the opening moments of Grammy-nominated Ship To Wreck onwards, Florence delivers a faultless collection of stirring, evocative songs that refuse to be subdued.
* Nick March
Mundo Mieu Flavia Coelho
Discovering a new favourite artist is akin to meeting someone you instantly get along with. Such is the case with Flavia Coelho's Mundo Mieu. The irrepressible Brazilian singer has long been a darling of the world music circuit, but her second album deserves an even greater audience. A restless curiosity abounds in Mundo Mieu. Power of Money is sprightly, with gypsy and Balkan folk arrangements. Pai de Santo incorporates flamenco guitars with African percussion, while the vibrant Fora da Lei sounds like Coelho and her band indulging in a carefree jam session on a street corner. The end result is a heady collection of tunes suitable for any mood from soundtracking a beach side barbecue to a late night drive.
* Saeed Saeed
Vulnicura Björk
When Icelandic chanteuse Björk broke up with avant garde artist Matthew Barney in 2013, the resulting turmoil all went into her ninth album. As break-up LPs go, Vulnicura is not an easy listen: songs are ordered chronologically according to Björk's cycle of heartbreak, neatly dated in the booklet ("3 months before", "11 months after"). Lyrics are plain-spoken ("without love I feel the abyss"). An artistic statement as interesting at it is indulgent, Vulnicura is framed by a juxtaposition of the electronic and organic. It is full of wanderlust beats and glacial strings that are as fragile and cold as a broken heart.
* Rob Garratt
To Pimp a Butterfly Kendrick Lamar
President Barack Obama's favourite song of the year was the To Pimp a Butterfly cut How Much a Dollar Cost. Good choice, sir, but something of an amusing one given that it's drawn from an album with cover art depicting a low-level revolution on the lawn of the White House. Kendrick Lamar's razor-sharp mind probably allowed him a short chuckle at such knowledge, before returning to his focused mission of kicking mainstream hip-hop square in the pants until it bucks up its ideas for good. Up for more Grammys than anybody else in next year's February ceremony, he is poised to be the most-deserving multiple winner in living memory.
* Adam Workman
The Epic Kamasi Washington
Saxophonist Kamasi Washington's major label debut was more than just an album; it was an event. Much like Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly rewrote the hip-hop rule book for 2015 – which, incidentally, Washington helped out on – The Epic dragged jazz kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. The title is no exaggeration, the fearlessly ambitious set clocking in at close to three hours; an exhausting collection of stratospheric small-group improvisations augmented by orchestra, choir and gospel vocals, moving from hard and post-bop workouts through swing, soul, funk and – even – Debussy's Clair de Lune. Perhaps Washington should have done more conceptually with such a long runtime, but what he has done – introduce jazz onto thousands of playlists for the first time – can be described as nothing short of game-changing.
* Rob Garratt
No Cities to Love Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney released No Cities to Love to a bigger, more appreciate audience than the seminal American band ever found during their prolific 1990s run. Even though the Portland trio never found much fame then, their first record in 10 years was an event because it showed what an entire generation of radio-weary new listeners were missing. The gap left by Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein (whose unlikely comedic run on Portlandia assuredly added to that newfound fame) was a sizeable one, and Cities was a satisfying fix. It's a record full of no-frills rock anthems to stand alongside the best in their impressive catalogue.
* Kevin Jeffers
Music Complete New Order
Over the past 25 years, New Order albums have arrived less frequently than leap years and when they have turned up, they've rarely been altogether satisfying experiences. Music Complete appeared this year offering mixed signals: the band were both replete with the return of founder member Gillian Gilbert and incomplete following the departure of bassist Peter Hook, who was always so much an anchor point of the New Order sound. No matter, as Music Complete rolls back the years, being at once true to the band's rich legacy of dance floor-friendly indie and somehow managing to sound contemporary as well. The special guests – notably, La Roux's Elly Jackson and Killers's Brandon Flowers – deserve special mention for helping New Order deliver their best album since 1989's Technique.
* Nick March
