Moovers & Shakers 2011: The complete list of our favorite local releases from the past year

D.Girl, Mascara Music Vol. 1 (Self-released). Strictly for the ladies (and the fellas who want to understand the ladies), Mascara Music Vol. 1 finds D.Girl representing hard as nails with themes of independence, sexually explicit lyrics and bad-girl attitude. She tells the boys exactly how she likes it on tracks like "From the Back," and her confidence grows with every lyric she spits, proving the young rapping mistress can't be stopped. -- Johnson

Deca, The Veil (Self-released). Propelled by some stellar production and Deca's wicked wordplay and compelling cadence -- what he has to say is every bit as captivating as how he says it -- The Veil was one of the most rewarding hip-hop listens of the year. Although the MC's travels have taken him to L.A. and NYC, he still has strong Denver ties. -- Herrera

The Don'ts and Be Carefuls, Sun Hits (Hot Congress). Sun Hits finds the Don'ts and Be Carefuls playing an utterly exhilarating and vibrant brand of indie pop filled with fuzzed-out bass lines, billowing synths and crystalline vocals that pierce through the mix like beams of sunshine through a blanket of clouds. -- Herrera

Dovekins, Alive (Self-released). Dovekins brings a gleeful and giddy energy to its live shows, a frenetic feel that was missing from its freshman release a few years ago. The band's first live album captures all of the chaos, humor and infectious abandon of a typical Dovekins show, and also spotlights the bandmembers' impressive musicianship. -- Goldstein

Echo Beds, An Agonist Revision of a Future Lament (Self-released). "Implications of an A B Conversation" is the sonic essence of the violence the industrial age has inflicted on the collective human psyche. Part avant-garde jazz and partially informed by the forbidding, terrifying side of harsh noise, this is an uncompromising release, as haunting and stark as a Tarkovsky film. ― Murphy

En Stereo, En Stereo (Self-released). Mane Rok and Es-Nine's tribute to the DJ/MC collaboration is easily one of the year's hip-hop highlights. The joints have a strictly hip-hop vibe in both production and lyrics. Es-Nine does well as producer (he also did all the cuts and scratches for the project), and Mane Rok's verses are perfectly crafted around those beats. Be sure to check for Mane's verse on "Beast Mode," with Ichiban and Deca. -- Johnson

Fiction Is Fun, The Mouth House (Self-released). This EP contains the kind of drinking songs best enjoyed with old friends on a porch someplace where it's always dead-hot summer. But Fiction Is Fun's blend of folk and pop and whatever else a seven-to-nine-piece group can throw together with banjos, drums, violins, accordions and whistles is also perfect for dancing. Here a mini-orchestra of storytellers offers up rusty and endearing songs about mustaches and science, delivered in an open-room-house-show kind of way. ― Davies

Fierce Bad Rabbit, Live and Learn (Self-released). Fierce Bad Rabbit is one of the Front Range's most criminally underrated acts. And the quartet, led by Chris Anderson, just keeps getting better. Live and Learn, the three-song followup to Spools of Thread, contains some of the band's best material to date. -- Herrera

Fingers of the Sun, Fingers of the Sun (Hot Congress). While many pop bands were stripping down their music and discovering the wonders of reverb, Fingers of the Sun focused on writing a richly varied psych-pop record. This album has surprisingly great musical depth, matched only by Suzi Allegra and Nathan Brasil's gift for vivid imagery and poetic turns of phrase. -- Murphy

Flashlights, Hidden Behind Trees (Morning Pony Recorder). Given the mechanized nature of synth-based music, there's often a sanitized resonance to it that, while tuneful, doesn't necessarily lend itself to soulfulness. On Hidden Behind Trees, Flashlights completely dismantles this notion with emotive vocals that levitate the swirling synth work. -- Herrera

Foodchain, Brunch (Self-released). Brunch didn't come out until November, but it was well worth the wait. With impeccable beats crafted by in-house producer Mass Prod and Mo Heat, the group treated each track as an integral piece of the puzzle. On "Dear Industry," the guys make it clear to all within earshot that they've come to take the game over, a theme that carries over to the hook-friendly, tongue-in-cheek "Thirsty." Overall, the project is cohesive, creative and entertaining. -- Johnson

The Foot., The Hangman (Self-released). Tantalizingly short at just three songs, The Hangman EP whets the appetite for things to come from this solid, steadily progressing power trio. At its best on tracks like "Johnny Got It Wrong," the Foot. conjures the musical majesty of acts like Kings X. - Herrera

Force Publique, Force Publique (Self-released). Force Publique has crafted a retro-futuristic sound that takes a organic post-punk outter shell of pulsing bass and feedback and implants a mechanized electro soul into it. The result is something that is at once broodingly dour and abrasively seductive, and thus patently irresistable. -- Herrera

Fresh Breath Committee, Group Therapy (Self-released). With a retooled lineup and a renewed sense of vigor, the Fresh Breath Committee returns with a solid follow-up to CPR, their excellent 2009 debut. As with CPR, the cats' interplay seems effortless; they leave plenty of room for each other as they spit with notable earnestness and a venomous urgency over the course of fifteen tracks. Production's quite solid, too: Don't miss the CSNY sample on "Dark Nights." -- Herrera

Future Simple Project, Sacred Somethings (Self-released). On Sacred Somethings, Future Simple Project delivers an eerie clash of world music with a contemporary take on modern dubstep and bass. Just when you think one track might take you higher, the BPMs get taken down a notch, and you're back to weaving through dark tunnels of sound. -- Britt Chester

Gauntlet Hair, Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans). The songs on this album are the audio equivalent of winter breaking and the hopeful rays of an early spring seeping in through the cloudy skies. Bringing together buoyant, ethereal melodies and hard-driving, dynamic percussion, this debut full-length is the culmination of the band's early sound, with hints of its future. -- Murphy

Greg Garrison, Low Lonesome (Self-released). While Greg Garrison obviously knows his way around progressive bluegrass (he was the original bassist for, and a founding member of, Punch Brothers), it's quite clear that he's also a competent jazz bassist and composer, as evidenced by his first solo outing, Low Lonesome. Containing both textural, subdued songs and swinging cuts, the album features stellar playing throughout by Garrison and trumpeter Ron Miles. ― Solomon