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Patrick Topping
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Song: When A Fire Starts to Burn
Artist: Disclosure
Album: Settle
Label: Island
Released: June 4, 2013
From the most blogged about techno act of the year, an incendiary track to kick from their debut album. A rounded sine-wave hook parsing the four-to-the-floor pulse with hi-hat shots, and a brazen vocal sample delivered with attitude make this song utterly catchy.
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Song: Cherry
Band: Chromatics
Album: After Dark II
Label: Italians Do It Better
Released: June 25, 2013
The breathy Ruth Radelet paints a chilled neon-noire portrait of restless troubled city-girl “Cherry”, as the ebbing reverb-soaked track flickers with a lilted plucked bass groove and pitter-patter hi-hat rhythm, amidst swaying iridescent guitar licks and swirling synth arpeggiations.
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Song: Wings
Band: Haerts
Album: Hemiplegia EP
Label: Columbia Records
Released: October 8, 2013
A shimmering pop-ballad from indie pop group Haerts featuring rawly emotive vocals, channelling a heartbroken Stevie Nicks, that soar over a near-disco rhythm, spirited bass grooves, and incandescent synth-laden guitars.
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Song: The Fall
Artist: Rhye
Album: Woman
Label: Polydor
Released: March 5, 2013
At the outset of Rhye’s resplendent piano-grooved “The Fall”, a whispered falsetto vocal swoons “make love to me” in a warmly initmate tone. The track reveals itself to be cooly adorned with viola and cello curves, violin plucks, and a rasped muted trumpet – a true dose of scintilating sentimentality.
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Song: KV Crimes
Artist: Kurt Vile
Album: Walkin on a Pretty Daze
Label: Matador Records
Released: April 9, 2013
Kurt Vile’s 2013 album Walkin on a Pretty Daze was a triumph for the young Philadelphia guitarist – his hometown even hosted a parade to celebrate the release of the album.
The sunny windmill-strummed guitar anthem “KV Crimes” captures that exuberance, in the browed manner one would expect from King Kurt. Plus… more cowbell!
Aesthetic Magazine | Album Reviews, Concert Photography, Interviews, Contests 
Wow Sasha this list is pretty bad. Four songs? Seriously dude…You couldn’t even include a Jhene Aiko song? She’s killing it this year.
Posted by Patrick Lucas | December 16, 2013, 11:13 pmSorry that I couldn’t satisfy you with an inherently subjective list that makes me shorten a year’s worth of music into five songs. Jhene Aiko and so many other people that didn’t make this list were awesome this year.
Posted by Sasha | December 17, 2013, 11:18 am