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As previously reported, two of Denver's most psychedelic acts, Woodsman and Tjutjuna, are about to hit the road on a huge Spring tour, from the Midwest to the Northeast then back down South and to Texas for the Austin Psych Fest. To fund this massive excursion and the van to carry them the way, the bands have set up a Kickstarter project. With 13 days to go, the project is about 75% funded, but the bands still need your help with those last couple hundred bucks. To whet your pledging appetite further, Tjutjuna has handed over a download of "Rise/Set" from their self-titled album to share with all you potential pledgers out there. The track's a huge, nine-minute onslaught of pounding drums and shimmering guitars that bursts into sprawling fits of shredded noise. Download the "Rise/Set" MP3, check the KickStarter vid below, and kick a few dollars into these guys' pockets. Oh, and don't forget to check 'em out this April at a town near you.

MP3: Tjutjuna: "Rise/Set"

[Woodsman]
It's hard to take your rig on the road when you don't have wheels to get you there. Thanks to the democratic self-empowerment of the Interweb, there may be a solution to this all-too-common band conundrum. Woodsman and Tjutjuna are prepping a national tour together April, and are raising money via Kickstarter for a van big enough to haul 8 guys and their equipment. For a number of different pledge amounts, you get a bundle of Woodsman and Tjutjuna items, ranging from cassettes and LPs to handmade art booklets and personalized tour documentaries. That's a lot of psychedelica.

If that isn't enough of an incentive, listen to this Woodsman track from their recent Rare Forms LP on Lefse. The spindly guitar line at the opening of "Inside/Outside" wanders through a gauzy landscape of driving drums, incantations, and ebbing synths, exemplifying the rich instrumentation we've come to expect from Woodsman, and what you can expect from this awesome tour. --Daniel Gottlieb, Altered Zones

MP3: Woodsman: "Inside/Outside"

Woodsman's Rare Forms LP is out now on Lefse, and Tjutjuna's self-titled LP is out now Fire Talk, an imprint by Woodsman's Trevor Peterson

As 2010 draws to an close, Altered Zones brings you its collective year-end recap. Today, we list our favorite tracks of the year, with favorite albums due tomorrow. You can also check our list of the year's favorite music videos here, and don't forget to stay tuned through the holiday break for daily year-end mixtapes from our favorite artists.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round" [4AD]

MP3: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round"

Balam Acab: "See Birds" [Tri Angle]

MP3: Balam Acab: "See Birds (Moon)"

In a year when many artists explored the meaning of image and identity in an age of faceless, over-abundant information, Balam Acab was initially lumped in with a wave of internet-dwelling producers who put more weight on artifice and presentation than substance. "See Birds" (and the ensuing EP) quickly dusted off any scene associations, and distinguished itself by actually owning a deep-rooted, intoxicating groove. From the triplet sway and watery reverb of the beat, to the the ghostly keyboard stabs, to the feedbacking, echoing sample that drives it, "See Birds" stood out by employing dub for it's sonic palette. Its use of vocal samples as an independent instrument rather than a reference, besides resulting in one of the years most bizarrely memorable "hooks," also strips it of any sense of irony, coming off rather like a heartfelt transmission from someone who, at the moment, would really rather be left in the shadows. --Noam Klar

Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan" [self-released]

MP3: Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan"

Baby Jazz's very first track, "Michael Jordan" is a 12-minute megamix collaboration between Golden Chow (Samuel Cooper of Sunglasses) and Teen Wolfe (Elgin Braden of Aux Arc). The track starts with a cacophony of angular, glitchy samples and reversed female harmonies. But after 80 seconds of rising and waning sonic patterns-- usually lost the moment they are grasped-- a beat finally organizes the chaos. From there on in, Baby Jazz skips from genre to genre and sample to sample like a mini pop culture role call of feel-good cues. We hear Chris Tucker screaming on the phone in Rush Hour, some rando screaming "NOBODY TURNS DOWN DRUGS", orgasms, and the intro to Dolly Parton's "Don't Drop Out". A hilarious and joyful musical rendition of my YouTube history. --Ric Leichtung

Blondes: "You Mean So Much to Me" [Merok]

MP3: Blondes: "You Mean So Much To Me"

Along with Teengirl Fantasy, Brooklyn electronic duo Blondes pretty much led the pack this year in re-envisioning the electronic music pioneers of the 20th century as music the rock kids could get down to. “You Mean So Much To Me,” the  9-minute opener of the duo's Touched EP, sounds like something Juan Atkins, E2-E4-era Manuel Göttsching, and Cluster might come up with if they convened for a late-night bump-and-grind on an autobahn ride to nowhere. Sam Haar and Zachary whisper synth ribbons and ethereal vocal samples into a delicate cymbal patter until they unleash the eternal techno 4/4. You can read it as an invitation to dance or permission to sink deeper into your beanbag; either way, it's proof that the millennial generation is making headway on a new, glitch-free strain of intelligent dance music. --Emilie Friedlander

Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home or I Die Alone" [Fire Talk]

MP3: Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home Or I Die Alone"

Cole Furlow, aka Dead Gaze, has been churning out one fantastic jam after another this year, but few tracks anywhere have struck me the way this one does. Through the first half, Furlow sounds like he's pleading with someone. More importantly, it sounds like he really means it. As the track progresses, the song gets brighter, leaving us to believe that someone must have finally taken him home. --Jheri Evans

Games: "Planet Party" [Hippos in Tanks]

MP3: Games: "Planet Party"

It's been nine months since Games first arrived via "Planet Party." Needless to say, a lot has happened since, but the original genus for the duo's work still holds true. "Planet Party" is a diabolical excursion into midi-funk through the backdoors of our collective computer love, culling our internal memory for sampled bits and progenerated synth scapes. If there was ever a definitive sound of the past year, and counterpoint to "proto-chillwave," this was it. --Michael McGregor

Girl Unit: "Wut" [Night Slugs]

MP3: Girl Unit: "Wut"

Counting local club producers such as Mosca, Kingdom, and label founders L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok among its ranks, the artist collective and upstart UK label Night Slugs had one of the most influential and consistent runs of releases this year, presenting an assimilated and innovative take on UK bass music. Girl Unit's "Wut" was easily its defining moment, in which the disparate elements of Southern rap, electro, grime and Baltimore club crystallized into one bold, forceful statement of intent. With its 7-minute sprawl and cyclical structure, the track oozes confident craft, coming in with a deceptively innocuous melody, before dropping a down-tempo bombshell of sub bass, air horns and pitch-shifted cries over a backing of buzzy, minor synth chords. --Noam Klar

Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop" [Olde English Spelling Bee]

MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"

Greatest Hits lives up to their name. "Danse Pop" is a brief two minutes of sheer danceable ecstasy. The song wastes no time kicking into place and immediately has you sliding every which way across the hardwood floor. Just don't slip when it's all greased with the sweat of everyone else unable to contain this groove. --Jheri Evans

Hotel Mexico: "Its Twinkle" [Second Royal]

You can't not love the "Love Gun"-inspired riff that opens "Its Twinkle" by Japan's Hotel Mexico. But there's more to this song than that killer, 4-second, descending shredder of a hook. Layer upon layer of guitar, bass, samples, and tambourines build on that riff, as other melodic parts come in and out of focus like the phase of two droning tones. A soft falsetto emerges from the busy instrumental tapestry, changing the sonic climate with an added sense of fragility. The initial reason-- the "hot riff"-- that made you fall in love with "It's Twinkle" fades into the background. --Ric Leichtung

James Blake: "CMYK" [R&S]

MP3: James Blake: "CMYK"

A close relative of the cut-and-paste R&B hook Deadboy worked into his devastating "U Cheated," James Blake’s ubiquitous "CMYK" begins in a far more delicate fashion, before overwhelming with a 2-step wave at the drop. Starting with the notes on a synth falling like water in a fiendish Morse pattern of drops, you can’t help but be lulled into a moment of stillness before the fuzzy wall of sound hits. "CMYK" is so restless that its vocal snippets slip in and out of time, rushing around the track like echoes of its own past and future pitched forward and back before the energy of the whole collapses in on itself. --d

Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage" [Sacred Bones]

MP3: Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage"

Nice Face, the madcap bedroom project of Brooklyn’s Ian Magee, has been channeling some serious hyperactivity since he started self-releasing his first cassettes and singles back in 2008. “I Want Your Damage,” our favorite of the pint-sized psych-rock stompers that made it onto his Immer Etwas LP this year, combines the fuzzed assault of Wooden Shjips, Purrling Hiss, et al. with the off-color zaniness of the B-52s. We're psyched to hear someone actually rock out over a drum machine, and can thank Nice Face for the kind reminder that precision and lo-fi values are by no means mutually exclusive. --Emilie Friedlander

oOoOO: "NoSummr4U" [Disaro]

MP3: oOoOO: "NoSummr4U"

Though this year saw music's darker retreats illuminated by the likes of Salem, Nike7UP and Stalker, San Franciscan producer oOoOO conjured the most poignant image of C21st cultural pollution. His self-titled EP, released in autumn by Tri Angle Records, is a beguiling, obsessive collection of possessed pop poltergeists that may be veiled in an unsettling gothic sparseness, but still burn effervescent at the core with pure melodic feeling. Non-EP track "Nosummr4U" is the best gateway into the sensual shadow-world of oOoOo, though. Its disembodied lullaby hooks and super-sleazy soft-metal guitar shredding is simultaneously alienating and enrapturing. --Jack Shankly

Pure Ecstasy: "Voices" [Acephale]

MP3: Pure Ecstasy: "Voices"

In the past year I've gone from seeing Pure Ecstasy in the back parking lot of an Ethiopian restaurant on a dismal, cold night in Austin to the background music on an advertisement with a pale, stumbling Kate Moss-type. Both fit them perfectly. The understated-ness of this band must not be, well, understated. "Voices" is rife with blown-out blue notes and phantasmic guitar tones, backed by softened vocals which sometimes stretch out in love-lost angst. With its simple but steadfast lyrics, Pure Ecstasy's "Voices" reminds us that you dont have to be a TS Eliot to be affective. --Ryan Ellis

Salem: "King Night" [IAMSOUND]

MP3: Salem: "King Night"

When it hit the blogosphere last June, Salem’s “King Night” felt BIG. Huge, even. In fact, it sounded like these Chicago enfant terribles were trying to pull us out of the muddy highway ditch that their Water EP had dumped us into just a few months earlier. Setting aside the half-hearted white-boy rhymes and syrup-slow siren calls for a minute, Salem shocked us with a sample that seemed to be the electronic trio's antithesis: a heavenly, full-choir rendition of the Christmas carol “O Holy Night”, which speaks of a coming savior, and is bound to evoke the starry-eyed rapture of your elementary school Christmas pageant. Six months ahead of season, “King Night” set its source material to paper-thin beats and a bassline so blown-out it made you check to see if your speakers were broken. It was hyperbolic, a bit tacky, and almost tragically optimistic. --Emilie Friedlander

Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters" [True Panther]

MP3: Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters"

On "Cheaters", Ohio duo Teengirl Fantasy explore the more interesting peripheries of house and dance music, rather than these genres' more central, crowd-pleasing elements. As a result, the track feels like a careful distillation of all those subtle pulsations, innate rhythmic shifts, and density of sound that make the club such a good place to be. The vocal source material, culled from Love Committee's 70s R&B cut "Cheaters Never Win", appropriately swirls like some pained smoke-machine spirit through all of this anti-banger's small gaps. --Shea Bermingham

Teen Inc.: "Fountains" [self-released]

MP3: Teen Inc.: "Fountains"

Teen Inc. found something special this Spring in the super-smooth sound of fusion and funk. "Fountains" comes off super epic and endlessly groovy, a supreme trip through wobbly synthesizer, slapbass, and plaintive falsetto. Perhaps part of the reason this song has bounced around so much in my head (and in my iTunes) is because of the unfortunately small sample size of Teen Inc.'s catalog: two songs, one solitary, self-released 7" record. However, give me an LP full of this sound on a long drive any day and I guarantee you'll see a satisfied dude. Fingers crossed for something similar to this fantasy in 2011. --Ian Nelson

Tjutjuna: "Mosquito Hawk" [Fire Talk]

Ty Segall: "My Sunshine" [Goner]

MP3: Ty Segall: "My Sunshine"

I don’t think there’s a single other track that I’ve listened to more than “My Sunshine” this year. Ty takes his signature garage-pop and toughens it with a dose of classic 90’s grunge brilliance. The song tears itself apart, screams till it's hoarse, and then snaps back into place; always on the edge of self-destruction but never ceding to the crush of its own noise. It's songs like this that make me wish that the spirit of '91 was still alive on the radio waves. Were it only a few decades earlier, this one would have every kid in the country howling along in their bedrooms. --Andy French

Vacant Lots: "Confusion" [Ancient Hills Music]

MP3: The Vacant Lots: "Confusion"

The "psych" tag has been getting thrown around pretty arbitrarily recently (day-glo hypnogogia?), but in the classic sense, it could hardly apply more than it does to the Vacant Lots. "Confusion", one a handful of absolute burners from this Burlington duo, doesn't aim for any vast imaginary worlds (though it does nod to some monolithic/prog-temple vibes), instead preferring a dopesmoking hypnosis and half-disquieting/half-cozy drug-rug nostalgia borne of teenage garage jam thrills and more acquired tastes for drone and minimal guitar mesmerics. --Richard MacFarlane

WU LYF: "Heavy Pop" [self-released]

MP3: WU LYF: "Heavy Pop"

It's refreshing to hear such genuine, visceral soul on this out-of-nowhere hit from mysterious Mancunian outfit WU LYF. Such rawness and emotion tends to be absent from a lot of contemporary leftfield pop, but "Heavy Pop" stays true to its namesake, trudging through continual set-backs and triumphs, drum-rolls, guitar chimes, and gravel-throated howls. The climax comes in the form of a rambunctious, exhausted collapse; fitting of a track so emotionally invested, and as a result, so gloriously draining. --Shea Bermingham

The ferocious Tjutjuna released their debut LP on Firetalk, Trevor from Woodsman's imprint, and to say that its massive is an understatement. A testament to the 180 gram vinyl it's issued on, the self-titled debut from Tjutjuna is a heavy dose for intense space rock. At times Tjutjuna feels more like an act you'd hear about on a site like Dr. Schluss' Garage of Psychedelic Obscurities with a rating of 5 on the trip-o-meter scale rather than on post-chillwave aware sites like this. A compliment to the Denver quartet, who've been shredding the Rocky Mountains in various incarnations since their teens. It's a testament to Mark Demolar of Woodsman who captured the pulverizing kraut-influenced space rock of "Mosquito Hawk" in the explosive anemone video below. (via Chocolate Bobka)

The Tjutjuna LP is limited to 500 copies via Firetalk

"How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails." (Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep)

Modern sci-fi writing has made the space ‘dogfight’ (as portrayed in staples of the genre such as Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica) obsolete. In the cosmic battlefield of the future, victory or defeat won’t be the outcome of the split-second decisions of a Tatooine redneck with mystical inclinations. No, victory and defeat will be decided by the efficiency of the processors of AI-manipulated war drones bristling with nuclear warheads as they spread across a warzone, light years from each other.

Beautiful fireworks illuminate the void like simulacra of cosmic birth, an interstellar dronestorm reflected in the glorious onslaught of Tjutjuna’s "Mosquito Hawk." Their album is available to pre-order here (limited to 500 vinyl).

MP3: Tjutjuna: "Mosquito Hawk"