Best albums of 2011

7 All India Radio – The Silent Surf

It seems appropriate that the cover artwork for The Silent Surf features a huge moon hanging above a tropical looking sea, as this is undoubtably late at night music. Whereas Burial is to me the sound of after midnight in London, All India Radio are late into the night on warm Melbourne summer streets, just enough breeze to make having the windows open worth it, the sound of distant sirens and occasional boy-racers.

Their music is languid and rolling, with gentle percussion, warm enveloping guitars and occasional fragments of vocal rolling in from next door's radio. On first listen it sounds simple and delicate, but concentrating a bit harder you notice how much depth there is, how many layers need to be accumulated to create such a beautiful balance between all the different elements. As Dean Wareham once said about Galaxie 500's music, it isn't the notes you play it's the space between them.