Here are my personal choices for top 9 things of the year. Click on the pictures for links to respective websites.

Timber Timbre getting respect

As a concert promoter, there’s a wringing in your gut when you see amazing things going unnoticed. Timber Timbre was one of those bands, creating some of the most original and haunting blues-folk albums. His newest self-titled effort opened a floodgate of respect, touring, and press for the humble and quiet Taylor Kirk, and deservedly so. His previous album, 2007’s Medicinals, still stands as one of my favourite albums. While the new release is noticeably more polished and refined, it retains that rickety and haunting atmosphere with a vocal drawl that creeps into your bones.

Romo Roto

Romo Roto gets my vote for best new Toronto band. It’s simple, it’s inventive, and it’s awesome. (As is this wicked video by Exploding Motor Car.)

Dan Deacon - Bromst

Dan Deacon does what I wish every band realized they could do. He takes full advantage of his agency and conducts the audience, breaking down social barriers and creating a blissed-out social playground that makes the audience the performer. His newest album Bromst is densely layered and meticulously composed; it’s a much more adult experience than 2007’s Spiderman of the Rings, but it retains a whimsical and spastic energy that makes you feel downright joyous. Deacon builds a trust with his listener, trying your patience only to pay off huge, and this translates to a live show that’s part kid games and part trust fall. All the while he’s playing songs that revolve around the themes of living with mistakes and dealing with change. What better way to end the decade?

Peter Project - Fresh EP album packaging

Peter Project, formerly known as The Lolo Project, is the solo effort of guitar salesman and beat slut Peter Chapman. How does an overlooked Avalanches-meets-Mr. Scruff non-ADD electro-glitch-pop turntablist get attention for himself? By making easily the best album packaging of the year. The album comes on a download-card only -- no CD, no vinyl -- nestled in the middle of an iPod-shaped bar of soap in a beautifully screenprinted retro-styled box. You have to use the bar of soap to get at the card which contains the download code for the album. That is awesome. I would’ve bought it even if the EP contained wasn’t his best work to date.

Circus School at the Cameron House

It’s a great feeling to go to a show with low-to-no expectations and have something awesome smack you in the face. A set by Circus School at the Cameron still stands out to me at the most surprised and delighted I’ve been at a show all year. I thought lo-fi conceptual performance bands died with the whole “bad bands” thing a few years ago. Apparently not, and for that I’m glad. This guy-girl duo wear housecoats, they pretend to make eggs, they throw bones to a stuffed but occasionally barking dog, and they feed the audience cookies. The highlight was, at the end of the set, an Easy-Bake Oven in the middle of the stage unexpectedly dinged and a balloon popped out, floating to the ceiling. It was adorable, and a fine reminder that music doesn’t always have to be so serious.

Daps All Ages Concerts

There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done building the all ages scene in this city, but the Daps All Ages Concerts are a great example of what it could be. Great lineups, interesting venues and fun without being pandering. Check out their next show on January 16th and you’ll see what the fuss is about.

Think About Life at Pop Montreal

At this year’s Pop Montreal I had the luck to see Think About Life play in a huge warehouse-like room at a video game production studio, seemingly in the middle of the warehouse-and-train tracks district of Montreal. I’ve been to Think About Life shows in Toronto and they’re typical dance party affairs, lots of dancing and a bit of moshing up front. It doesn’t compare to their home shows. This was wall-to-wall dancing, a sardine can of sweat-soaked t-shirts and mussed hair, a sea of people swaying in unison and happily, endlessly cheering. There’s nothing like seeing a town loving their own, and being an outsider I felt like I’d been let into a something I wasn’t suppose to see, something wholly singular and potentially momentous. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Snowblink’s song “Rut and Nuzzle”

I spent a lot of this year reading about Tea Parties, violent protests in Iran, Canadians dying in Afghanistan, ripped off elections in Iran and Afghanistan, Canada’s awful environmental reputation and loads more things that are a big fucking downer. This is just one of those songs that for its two minutes and 46 seconds everything else fades into the background.

Gobble Gobble at Wavelength 476

Combine the feeling of surprise I mentioned regarding the Circus School show, and the I’m-in-on-a-secret feeling of the Think About Life show, and you get the Wavelength 476 set by Edmonton’s Gobble Gobble. Gobble Gobble is a live electro party band that’s a bit like a cross between Woodhands and Dan Deacon. There’s a charismatic, high kicking front man who stays behind a pile of keyboards and peddles, and three members in dresses fiddling with more pedals, banging on frying pans and an upside-down snare, and pounding a giant, heavy sack on the floor of Sneaky Dee’s, the audience going nuts the whole time. We’re going to be hearing a lot about this band in the near future.

Notable mentions

Best new bands to just move to Toronto: ‘It It (from Victoria), Evening Hymns (from Peterborough)

Other best new Toronto band: Magic Cheezies

- Ryan McLaren