Recommended music: 'Late Night Tales - Jon Hopkins'

Even by Late Night Tales pretty faultless standards, this album is exceptional. Jon Hopkins has curated an immaculate collection of tracks. There's 5 or 6 on here that I already have and love, but every single one of the others sounds like something I should have heard and loved before. From Four Tet to Letherette, from Bibio to Helios, it's a stream of musical consciousness that ebbs and flows on an aural tide.

And you don't only have to listen to it at night either; staring out of the train window, or curled up in an armchair in a cosy corner, or walking across the windswept moors - this is a collection that just works whatever your circumstances. It will soothe and revive you, comfort and inspire you, and just leave you in a better place than it found you.

In the process of putting this together Mr Hopkins has shown that not only does he make great records of his own but that he can recognise greatness in others as well - a true skill.

Sheer perfection.

Recommended music: 'Erased Tapes Collection VI'

Another great compilation from the Erased Tapes label summing up their brilliant 2014.

If you've already bought something from them then you might have been sent the link to download this for free. If not you can head to ddc.erasedtapes.com and enter the code MY-FREE-ERATP060 to get yourself a copy. It's well worth it and really shows off the quality of the releases that they've put out. Here's the tracklist:

1. Lubomyr Melnyk - Pocket of Light (excerpt)
2. Peter Broderick - A Snowflake
3. Rival Consoles - Odyssey
4. Douglas Dare - Swim
5. Nils Frahm - You
6. A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Atomos VI
7. Kiasmos - Burnt
8. Greg Gives Peter Space - That I Am
9. Michael Price - A Bridge
10. Nils Frahm - Hammers
11. Nils Frahm - Peter (Clark Remix)

Albums of the Year 2014 - top 3 compilations

As a prelude to my full list of albums I've decided to call out some records in a few different categories that might have slipped under your radar. So here's my favourite three compilation / various artist records of the year. Each one of these is really special, and if you bought all three your music collection would have improved immeasurably.

1. What?! - William Onyeabor / various (Luaka Bop)

One of my favourite purchases on Record Store Day this year, which was subsequently given a full release by Luaka Bop. The album features a rang of cover versions, re-interpretations and remixes of tracks from the 'Who is William Onyeabor?' album, With the artists involved as diverse as Hot Chip (who made my favourite track here), Scientist, The Vaccines and Daphni (a,k,a, Caribou) the record manages to expand the sonic frequency of Onyeabor's music while still retaining the essence of who he is and what he does.

2. The Time and Space Machine presents The Way Out Sound From In - Richard Norris / various (Ample Play records)

A collection of some of the best remixes Richard Norris has produced over the past few years in his Time & Space Machine guise. If you don't recognise his name then you might be more familiar with him as being half of both The Grid and Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve, The standout tracks for me here are his mixes of Jagwar Ma and A Mountain of One, but he also does great stuff to Temples, Warpaint and lots more. (full review here)

3. Bleep: 10 - various (Bleep / Warp)

Bleep is the online store originally set up to sell Warp releases, which soon expanded to sell all manner of great music. They celebrated their 10th birthday this year, and as well as having the obligatory birthday bash (which I reviewed here) they also put out this excellent album of tracks from artists who are have been favourites in the store. Featuring exclusives from Autechre, Fuck Buttons, Lone, Modeselektor, Machinedrum and loads more, if you've ever bought anything on the Warp label then you're pretty much guaranteed to like this (full review here).

Recommended music: 'The Bedroom Club II'

Having released the first Bedroom Club combination back in 2012, No Pain In Pop have now gathered a fresh collection of tracks for the second installment. My attention was drawn to this album when the track by Karen Gwyer appeared on Soundcloud (see my blog post here), but you couldn't really say that its a good indicator of the album as a whole, as the seven acts here have each done things in their own way (in their own bedrooms).

The album starts with 'Five to Three' by Ukkonen, where washes of keyboards soon give way to a dark bassline and a hypnotic rhythm. Next up is 'bd' by John Ola, a warm and melodic track which (whisper it) might even contain a real guitar. Buffalo Tides 'Madchen Amick' features a snatch of dialogue (I assume from the lady herself) over some glitchy beats.

'Reveal Secrets (The Processes)' by Beams is probably my least favourite of the tracks here - there are some interesting loops but the track never seems to go anywhere. Then it's the Karen Gwyer track, which as I said before builds up layers and layers of sound to create a hypnotic groove.

'Bantha Fodder' by Ornine doesn't sound particularly Star Wars-esque; instead it's a maze of noises, sounds and beats that's quite threatening and not at all the sort of thing I'd like to find in my bedroom. The album closes with 'Hunger' by Dyymond of Durham which is definitely one of my favourites - the keyboard reminds me a bit of the Twin Peaks riff, over which there's a host of snatched sounds and sampled vocals which combine to make a thoroughly satisfying concoction.

'The Bedroom Club II' is out on 28th January - you can order it here.