Alva Noto—Xerrox, Vol. 2 (Raster-Noton)
An incredibly immersive album sure to appeal to fans of what we used to call glitch or microsound in olden times as well as folks who like their ambient music with meat and volume. Raster-Noton also released Atom™’s fine Kraftwerk homage, Leidgut, which almost made this list.

Papercuts—You Can Have What You Want (Gnomonsong)
I guess you could call this indie rock, but what does that even mean any more? It’s kind of similar to what Beach House are doing, though a little more on the hypnotic drone side of things. Spaced themes, plenty of reverb, and a faded-out sixties vibe. I played this one incessantly.

The Church—Untitled #23 (Second Motion)
They’re my favorite band, sure, but I wouldn’t put them on the list if I didn’t like the music (example: the execrable Shriek soundtrack they did last year). See my full review here.

Ducktails—Landscapes (Olde English Spelling Bee)
This LP-only release was a breath of fresh air to me this summer. I can’t say I’m convinced that “glo-fi” or “chillwave” is the next big thing in trendy indie music (if it is, I hope they give it a new name)—it’s just too hypnotic, and that never sells records to the kiddies, in my experience. Anyway, this had some great post-punk guitar tracks amidst Tang-Dream mandala sequencing and even some Ariel Pink inspired goodies.

Oneohtrix Point Never—Rifts (No Fun Productions)
The Russian Mind LP would have been on my list had it not been contained inside this mammoth double-CD compilation of most of the rest of the Point Never catalog. I love the new “classic” electronic music coming out right now. We who’ve been into it for years think it’s about time Schulze and Göttsching and Hoenig started getting some credit for making brain busting space drones years and years before many of us were born. Now if Steve Roach and Michael Stearns began getting some press, we’d really be going places….

Mokira—Persona (Type)
I found this album length paean to Spacemen 3 wholly bewitching. It runs the gamut from classic Fax Records style ambient, to William Basinski/Wolfgang Voigt classical loop echoes, to full-on Sonic Boom guitar phasing. This record is a classic from start to finish.

Animal Collective—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
I know, I know, this one was everywhere, and it doesn’t need me adding to the hype. Look, I’m thirty-three years old and I was the oldest guy at their local concert last year. I did not belong amidst the robo-tripping teens and the afrobeat text-dancing. I had no idea about any of this. But I sure played the latest Animal Collective CD a lot in 2009, even if it did make me a little more “NPR” inside. I’m not positive how much real longevity this record will have, but it would have been disingenuous for me not to include it on this list.

Sleepy Town Manufacture & Unit 21—No Traces (Infraction)
This one dwells in the hinterlands of ambient, all spooky samples and Biosphere-esque imaginary landscapes for films that never were (you can also insert your own overused stock description for ambient music here). Infraction is the ambient label to watch—classic material reissued, acclaimed artists supported, new and wonderful music unearthed. They deserve your support.

Celer—Engaged Touches (Home Normal)
Celer just got better and better last year with a string of memorable ambient releases on a variety of new and interesting labels. While several of their works were great in 2009, this was undoubtedly my favorite, two thick slabs of ambient classical vignettes, sad and haunting and eternal. Unfortunately, this CD went out of print, but those who are curious to know the unique sound of Celer are directed to their other fine 2009 albums on Low Point, Slow Flow, and Sentient Recognition Archive.

Tim Hecker—An Imaginary Country (Kranky)
Tim Hecker is probably the best way to get your wayward friends into listening to ambient and electronic music. His records have a backbone and it’s a great taster for those who can’t seem to initially find interest in the harmonic tone float background music of a lot of other material. While An Imaginary Country doesn’t represent the great stylistic leap forward of Hecker’s previous album, it still proves that he’s one of today’s best in “the field”—this one’s a titanic swath of cleansing distortion that suggests impressive alien vistas.

The B12 Records Archive; (7 volume, 14 CD set on B12 Records)
I used to dream about getting this music when it was all rare 12″ vinyl back in the grand old days of Warp. Who could afford the £200 price tags on that crap? The generous B12 guys come through with a vast set of everything they ever released on the label. All fourteen CDs are essential purchases for those who love Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, GPR, the A.R.T. stable, and the sound of Detroit techno …

Belbury Poly—From an Ancient Star (Ghost Box)
The hauntology “genre” seems to be a bit hard to pin down, though the Ghost Box label is determined as the core source for the scattered sounds of library music, Ron Grainer, 70s supernatural TV programming, original Doctor Who or The Tomorrow People, and BBC logotones. Belbury Poly are my favorite Ghost Box act and this album is perhaps their best—a zippy and fun collection of themes to British shows about psychic detectives that never were. If you grew up in the seventies and early eighties, and were a total nerd, you’ll know just want I’m talking about within a few minutes of putting From and Ancient Star on the player. You can almost see Jon Pertwee board his hovercraft …

Black Moth Super Rainbow—Eating Us (Graveface)
BMSR are hard to pigeonhole and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy their stuff so much. Too poppy to be experimental, too weird to be indie rock … it’s a little of both and not really either. There’s a decidedly Electric Company PBS vibe about what they’re doing—maybe it’s all the vocoders and patently false hippy lyrics. I think they’re a love-it or hate-it affair. Check out my last podcast and see what you think.

Adam Pacione—2009 “Still Life” 3″ series
I think the most incredible ambient music of 2009 came out of Adam Pacione’s archives this year, in the form of his fourteen volume Still Life series of 3″ CDRs. Every last one of them was good, and some were downright transcendent, like “Ending Titles.” This guy has my full attention, and if you like traditional ambient, he should have yours too.

White Rainbow—New Clouds (Kranky)
Adam Forkner was on a fake “shit list” in the back of my mind for talking a slight amount of trash about Steve Roach on his shareblog. Kids have some nerve dropping a deuce on the masters of a genre of music they owe total allegiance to, is the way I see it. It’s like those new age vs. ambient wonks going around the internet a few years back. That kind of discussion is just preposterous. Nevertheless, this latest album of four solid White Rainbow tracks is quite excellent, if perhaps a bit too indebted to Ashra here and there. It’s still a mighty fine listen, and way more new age than ambient, in a good way.

Animal Collective—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
The new Animal Collective is really good, enough to make me sit at Ticketmaster with my hand over the button to get tickets that sold out near-instantly (Grouper‘s opening, too). I don’t understand the hype—what is it about this band that makes the press and people on NPR interested in electronic, mildly experimental music? Did ambient just need Beach Boys vocals to get that recognition? Another baffling element: the claim that this record makes electronics and samples seem “organic.” This is one of the most inorganic recordings I’ve ever heard, which is, in my opinion, a kind of strength. Organic is Alio Die recording the sound of mushrooms decomposing a tree trunk in Italy. This album is about as organic as its cover art (which looks like more of an optical illusion on the internet than in real life—surely an important message about the former, right?). Anyway, this has been a terrific album to swim laps to, and it’s something Mom might like. It peters out a little bit at the end, but I love it.

Deerhunter—Cryptograms, etc. (Kranky)
I basically bought all of the Deerhunter stuff on Kranky and I am obsessed. I haven’t been this excited with a new “rock band” in like forever; probably since the future sound of Bristol in the early 90s, of which this is tangentially, sonically related. You can trace a direct path from Flying Saucer Attack and AMP to here, walls of blissful noise with pop songs somewhere inside. Basically I think they’re incredible, and it’s rare that you find a pop-oriented outfit that does ambient tracks so well (i.e. “Tape Hiss Orchid” from Cryptograms). Side projects Atlas Sound (on my best of ’08 list) and Lotus Plaza are very fine as well.

Fleet Foxes—s/t (Sub Pop)
In my continuing trend to be faintly “relevant” by reading Entertainment Weekly and watching Lost (I’m totally hooked), I stumbled across Fleet Foxes almost everywhere. When some of you had it on your best of ’08 lists, I figured I’d give it a try. I have played this CD so much since I got it back in December. What wonderful music, it’s like folk-flavored candy (Ricola?). I don’t know if I’m sold on the current spate of bearded folk masters, but this one was a winner for me.

Mountains—Choral (Thrill Jockey)
Mountains came out with their best album thus far, and they are now on Thrill Jockey. I bought the double-vinyl because it has extra tracks and instantly regretted it as I’m always getting up and flipping over the platters to hear more. Four sides of vinyl is not enough for this music; they could have filled six and remained as potent. I’m not sure that this is a contender for best ambient album of the year, but it’s top-five worthy, for sure.

Atom™—Leidgut (Raster-Noton)
Finally Uwe gets his act together and releases a solid album, and on Raster-Noton, too. This one is undoubtedly an acquired taste (like most on Raster), but if you like Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, especially the vocoder parts and Franz Schubert fixation, this is the post-electronic album for you. A robot vocalist and radio static orchestra perform polka hits. The packaging is, as ever, brilliantly clever.

Yagya—Rigning (Sending Orbs)
Finally, a new Yagya album. Though it doesn’t achieve the sublime heights of Rhythm of Snow (admittedly an almost impossible act to follow for me), it’s very nice stuff. The melodies are a little tamer, but the atmospheres are strong and totally three-dimensional. This is probably the fullest recording Yagya’s done so far and it made for perfect brunch music last Sunday morning. There’s a clear reason this guy takes two or three years between albums, there’s terrific care taken here.

The Church—Shriek–Music from the Soundtrack (Unorthodox Records)
I never thought I’d find a Church record lousy, but in this case, I just do. This is the soundtrack to a movie of a book (they screened the movie during the last concert tour, so I’ve seen it) so it isn’t exactly a Church album per se, so I guess it can be excused. I have not read the book, but I can say with certainty that the lines they use in the recording probably read better on the page than they do spoken aloud with nebulous musical enhancement. There are a few almost-Church tunes inside here somewhere, but, in the immortal words of Garfield the cat: inside all of this horse meat, I’ve yet to find the pony. The new album sounds incredible (drops next month, I think), but this is half-baked stuff.

Sleepy Town Manufacture & Unit 21—No Traces (Infraction)
Another incredible ambient release on Infraction, and certainly a contender for 2009′s best. Sleepy Town Manufacture (also known as Beautumn) takes Unit 21′s LP collection and cobbles together a Tarkovsky-esque trip through the Zone. If you liked last year’s Parks album, imagine that mixed with samples from 1950s stereo-test records and obscure soundtracks. This whole record is a tour de force, from the ample packaging to the bonus disc.

Also really fine:
Black Moth Super Rainbow—”Don’t You Want to Be in a Cult” picture 12″ (Mexican Summer)
Grouper / City Center split 7″ (definitely look for this one) (no label)
Pop Ambient 2009 (finally) (Kompakt)
Richard Pinhas & Merzbow (!)—Keio Line (Cuneiform Records)
Of—Rocks Will Open (Digitalis) (another fine tectonic ambient release by Loren Chasse)
Night Control—Death Control (Kill Shaman) (interesting avant-pop, sometimes has a Suicide feel)