When I finish putting together my list of the year's top albums (weekend-ish), I'll have some explaining to do.

So I might as well cut to the chase and start explaining right now.

For someone who hums and haws about techno as much as I do, two albums in the Top 10 might seem a bit scant. Considering the time and money I spend on techno music, a mere 20% of the year's best albums would indicate that I'm either wasting my effort, or there just aren't many great techno albums out there.

I blame it all on the vinyl. Maybe it is true that there haven't been many great techno albums this year. But there's been a load of great techno. The best of it was released on vinyl. So, in past years, the solid techno stomp of Planetary Assault Systems or K-Hand's transcendent "Detroit-History" may have been top 10 shoo-ins. But when most of the stuff I buy comes in the form of ridiculously killer twenty minute assaults from labels like Kennziffer, then my standards sway significantly toward the direction of impossibly high quality. Take the best twenty minutes of Michael Burkat or Green Velvet, and it fares magnificently next to any vinyl release I've heard. Such quality is difficult to sustain over an entire album.

Perhaps it's no surprise that those Top 10 albums are both by artists who I first discovered through their vinyl releases.