Ten 2010 Albums You Probably Didn't Listen To But Should Have

It's safe to say that 2010 was a pretty incredible year for music. While you're catching up on all the 2010 albums you haven't yet listened to, might we throw a couple more obscure ones on the queue? You won't be disappointed.

French house music played behind, around, and through a mix of vibrant African singing, funky guitar, and bouncing conga drums. The entire album is a masterfully done collaboration between live music and electronica that creates a brilliant reinterpretation of both. It's joyous, it's alive, and it continues to put a smile on your face, even after you've listened to the album for months and months.

A dark chocolate of strange electronic tunes, wrapped in a sticky taffy of catchy hooks. Immediately familiar and inviting for fans of atmospheric electronica, while slyly sneaking up on those of us who aren't. This is one of those albums you play on repeat without noticing. Humbly one of my favorite finds of the year.

A gateway drug into black metal for indie kids? A slippery slope into mainstream for black metallers? A post-black-metal-shoe-gaze blah blah genre love-fest...? Whatever it is, it's fantastic! Beautiful guitars and quietly sung words rise over the bleak thunder of drums to create a surprisingly thoughtful study in contrasts. If you normally don't dig through the metal crates, this might get you started. This is for anyone who likes to turn things up in the car.

A folky-blues collection of the late Abner Jay's work that reaches out of the past to smack you between the eyes and stop you dead in your tracks. Close your eyes and you'll swear he's standing right there behind the speakers telling you stories of love, cracking jokes, and spilling his guts about the deepest loss and the loneliness of despair. You'll find yourself coming back to this one.

Leave a tape recorder on in the sound room or side hallway during the recording of the latest Cocorosie album and you'll get a close proximity of Drivan's sound. Well, if Cocorosie sung in Swedish... Okay, tortured similes aside, the voyeuristic nature of this album makes up for its lack of grandeur or theatrics by drawing you into its intimacy and understated emotion. Definitely something out of left field to be enjoyed on those quieter nights or mornings.

The ever-improving and -innovating bluegrass outfit continues to impress on this their second full-length album with the fuller, five-person lineup. Arrangements sparkle and glitter: violin and cello intertwine, bass and banjo fly forward, and Aoife O'Donovan's icy-morning voice crackles through the splendid mix. "Turning Away" perfectly (and briefly) pulls the reins on the album's forward drive; biggest treat is the clever little cover of Keith Richards' "You Got the Silver." Keef'd love it.

A slippery sucker, this one–you're never certain how serious the young Ghost Bones is, or thinks he is, fading in on mock-tribal drums and a ghoulish "Don't be scaaaaaared" refrain, then re-purposing President Jacob "Jay-Zed" Zuma's themesong as the cocky statement of intent of a "14-year-old boy with Kalashnikov gun / AK-47 like a toy for the fun / Shoot you where you stand if you want to act dum / Parum-pum-pum-pum."

In its breezy, Empire Strikes Back violence, Mshini is younger brother to M.I.A.'s fluorescent brutalisms. Like M.I.A., Mathambo is an indifferent rapper, per se, but he's only interested in the form as incitement to his buoyant productions, which are not troubled to have their seams, political proclivities or magpie borrowings on display. In the latter half of the set, Mathambo makes free with Joy Division's "She's Lost Control," playing with it like a bauble from a flea market, to be cast off as soon as he gets bored, which is never far off.

Besides having delicious Spanish accents and the Best New Name of 2010, what else does the Triangulo have to offer you? Only the densest guitar assault of the year, a song deserving of the title "Super Castlevania IV," and the best boy-girl dynamic since whenever. They never slow down, and the entire thing is done in less than half an hour. I can't imagine tiring of this album.

Cellist Zach Miskin invited an impressive group of friends—including Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong of the Books and Padma Newsome and Bryce Dessner of Clogs and the National—to produce this lovely collection of strings compositions. While most of these minimalist pieces are playful and often improvisational, others offer a more lush, layered sound. Together, For Your Safety is a compelling meditation for fans of the cello and modern classical music.

Kids & Explosions does for skipping discs what Girl Talk did for party rap; where Greg Gillis builds bangers on flow, Kids & Explosions uses the ebb, chopping up samples until they are completely abstracted from the original meaning. This music is built on mounds of tension, tempered by sweet seconds of relief, the perfect hit for mash-up users looking for a dirty fix that doesn't come courtesy of the Hood Internet. Kids & Explosions is Four Tet glitch meets the crack of pop cooked up to taste delicious. Be careful, though, this shit is addictive.

Listen to the whole thing, and get it for whatever you want to pay, at www.kidsandexplosions.com