THERE WERE REASONS I showed up in San Francisco last year without a laptop, cell phone, or iPod. Detroit, more or less my old place of business, required none of them. Cars had stereos; cheap, huge apartments had plenty of space for computers; and considering everyone was gonna be at the same divey joint each weekend, a Cingular plan seemed terribly bourgie.

Not long after the move west, though, I unwittingly found myself with one of each, connected to oodles of information and sound. Scouring the Bay Area with all three devices, in some vague search for a common musical thread, I picked up little bits of each place – filtering as much as I absorbed, of course. Every site had its own psycho-geographical sonic marker: Oakland's rough-hewn hip-hop and anarchist scenes were in so many ways like Detroit's, and Berkeley's hippie-punk-smart guy thing seemed to mirror Ann Arbor's, but S.F.'s aural mélange was like no other.

It still doesn't fully make sense to me how indie musicians find the time to perfect their craft and make ends meet in one of the country's most expensive cities, but it's quite obvious why they at least attempt to: we've got the country's loudest political voice, and as the margin between rich and poor widens, the artist's voice only gets louder. I hate to gloss over the numerous bands, DJs, and solo performers who really help to sculpt the Bay Area's collective sonic identity – truly everyone from Anticon to Zach Hill gets my heartfelt applause – but S.F.'s sound sort of punched me between the eyes back in the spring at an antiwar rally, one of those rare events I attended without my electronic assistants. The sound came not in the form of "No blood for oil" or "No justice, no peace," but rather from a homeless man at the Van Ness Muni station belting out OutKast's "Roses." It was quite moving and, I imagine, intentionally funny the way he applied the evils of André 3000's nasty breakup ("I know you like to think / Your shit don't stink") to Bush's handling of Iraq (and maybe our own city's homeless issues). A sound is always a manifestation of a city's cultural economy, and this part of S.F.'s sound was pretty damn inspirational.

So with that I send my apologies to Rogue Wave, Two Gallants, Gold Chains, Dave Aju, and others for occasionally having to pause your tracks on my little white box – a trusty container of your prolific and profound musical repertoire. You still provide me with exactly what I need on BART and Muni, or on long walks to the ocean, but some sounds of the collective struggle are, at times, just a bit too strong to tune out.

Top 10

1. Xiu Xiu, Fabulous Muscles (5RC) Jamie Stewart's absolutely chilling, visceral avant-rock reflection on war and high school.

2. The Fall, The Real New Fall LP (Formerly 'Country on the Click') (Narnack) Most Fall fans had written off Mark E. Smith sometime in the mid-'90s, but he shocks us here with a renewed sense of self and a wit that matches that of his Grotesque days. Please quit canceling your shows!

3. Delays, Faded Seaside Glamour (Rough Trade) Even after seeing him play a few times, I'm still not certain that Delays vocalist Greg Gilbert – with his falsetto voice so resonant and ethereal – is male. I'm even less certain he's mortal.

4. cLOUDDEAD, Ten (Mush) Fortunately no relation to Pearl Jam's Ten, this one's a completely underrated headfuck of an album and a lo-fi marvel almost worthy of hip-hop's canon.

5. Destroyer, Your Blues (Merge) Daniel Bejar squeezes his majestic sound into an electronic can of synthesizers and MIDI guitars, reminding us of how little support is needed by indie rock's finest wordsmith.

6. M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts (Mute) Finally we can quit holding our breath for that shelved My Bloody Valentine album (seriously, it ain't ever comin') and just bathe ourselves in M83's high-powered wash of sound.

7. Various artists, The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations (Irdial Discs) On the surface, it's four hours of numbers being broadcast in different languages all over the world. Beneath the surface, it's an encoded plot to overthrow that world. Whatever you pay for the four-disc set, it's worth it.

8. Guided by Voices, Half Smiles of the Decomposed (Matador) Probably the sturdiest, steadiest GBV album since Alien Lanes (Matador). A graceful exit. Sad to see you go, gents.

9. Tom Waits, Real Gone (Anti) A keen reminder that Waits will never stop being the hippest, most forward-thinking, most uncompromising jazzman we'll ever know.

10. Moving Units, Dangerous Dreams (Palm/Rx) The cream of the post-post-punk crop, Dangerous Dreams is chock-full of sizzling guitars and erratic rhythms, but fuck me if a dance floor doesn't lose its shit over it.