Top 5 Labels of 2005!

CocoRosie
5. The Leaf Label
See: Caribou and Colleen

4. Young God Records
See: Akron/Family, Mi and L'au, and Angels of Light

3. Asthmatic Kitty Records
See: Sufjan Stevens and Castanets

2. Fat Cat Records
See: Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan

1. Voodoo-EROS
See: The Enlightened Family and Diane Cluck
Started by CocoRosie's Bianca Casady and her friend Melissa Shimkovitz, Voodoo-EROS is quite new with only two releases under their belt: The Enlightened Family compilation and Diane Cluck's Countless Times. The Enlightened Family is my favourite compilation of the year because it captures the innovative and unique projects we can expect from this label in the future - "rare and secret music compiled in NYC and scattered around the world... [the compilation] is like the blueprint of a loosely bound family, heritage unknown, generations melting into one another." Tracks from Jana Hunter, Diane Cluck, Vashti Bunyan, Patrick Wolf, and Devendra Banhart stand out Also, tracks from CocoRosie's two side projects are a welcome addition: the "baby metal" of Metallic Falcons (Sierra's sideproject) and the loose, and tropical hip-hop of Island Folk Lore (Bianca's sideproject).

Listen to some tracks from both releases at the Voodoo-EROS website.

Label to watch out for in 2006: Gnomongsong (formed by Revolver USA, Devendra Banhart and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic). Their first release is Jana Hunter's Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom. Read an article about the label here.