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#1
07-13-2008, 04:07 PM
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2008 so far.
headset's in a stage right now where the ball isnt exactly rolling. we post in that song thread people kind of look at and have something to say, but once you reach a certain post count it all gets a bit lost. so instead of just dropping in with threads about albums that people may or may have not heard that will probably fail and discourage others from posting their own, lets ease into posting with a bit more frequency by aggregating the things we've loved/liked/found notable and once it takes off a bit start possibly making more specific threads
 people keep up with the year's music to different degrees, some people get preoccupied with staying au courant and others take 5 albums a year to be a good one for them. wherever you are, we're more than halfway through the year, so share what you got: reactions to long anticipated ones, the ones that blindsided you, the singles people should be paying attention to. whatever makes sense. i might be injecting myself in this more than i should, but we should be able to talk about what we really hated out of the year without it being "negative vibes". just as much as we loved something, we've also found a lot that we think is unhealthy, contemptible, or just plain disappointing, so have at it. just put some love in there somewhere. i guess. ANYWAY this is what's been happening for me this year. i've a feeling this post'll get long, and i dont mean to make you all think that the longer the essay the better, but if you could make more than a numbered list that'd be great. 1. Jacaszek - Treny Speaking of blindsided, i got hit by a train on this one. Second album by a polish composer titled after the nationally famous series of poems mourning the loss of a young daughter (look it up on Wikipedia, it's actually pretty interesting), Boomkat went completely nuts off the hype train (like they would) for this one, and i previewed a copy expecting it to be endless, repetitive and far too advanced to appreciate on any level lower than post-everything. what i got was one of the most beautiful albums i've ever heard. violin, cello, static, and soft electronics a-la-burial make up his songs about lament and loss and i sat there alternately transfixed and vocally stunned by it all. put out by Miasmah label, which i thought was too small for me to get a copy without paying stupid money, but it's still available through amazon. if you've had any interest in burial, polmo polpo, arvo part, or amute, you need need need to hear this. 2. Bruno Pronsato - Why Cant We Be Like Us Minimal is such a strong word, because it implies mostly boring things, like hawtin's purposefully sterile strain, but here's how this is different: Steven Ford (his real name and a portland native) is primarily a percussionist and even used to drum for a heavy metal band, so when he took two years to make this, he wasnt making a german club smorgasborg, but a sort of throttled techno with surprising blood and interplay between his beats, the live percussion, snatches of vocals, and piano. thats not to say he's completely unconventional, he does take his time to get to where he is, and it can miss, but he is different is that the build is not the placeholder. aside from a couple of flubs, his tracks maintain interest from the get go and only get more exciting as time goes on. despite the missteps, this album is number 2 because what works does so staggeringly well. precise, lethal, and tense in sound, it's surprisingly human and erratic in execution. clips and samples get cut off shorter, misstep and stumble, and develop problems as they go on, or at least appear to. they rarely start as they end, and cant be predicted. one of the most exciting and visually inspirational techno albums i've heard. 3. Sigur Ros - Með suð Ã* eyrum við spilum endalaust 4. Portishead - Third 5. Autechre - Quaristice i wrote sometime terminally, almost embarassingly long about this one, and i only say that because this one had me reeling in excitement enough to do it, but i'll spare you. we all already know how we feel about autechre, but i am really loving how a group has lasted 15 years with surprisingly few dents in relevance, originality, and quality. 6. Clark - Turning Dragon 7. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles i've made three people listen to this album so far and they've all been reminded of madvillain at some point. dont let the "hiphop instrumentals on warp" make you think this is a parallel prefuse. he may go there for brief moments, but this is thicker, less digitized, and frankly a lot more beautiful. hard to think of anyone as "ignored" when it's someones debut album and it's getting decent attention, but it's certainly flying under a few radars. 8. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals 9. Onur Ozer - Kasimir this is one of those "technically 2007" records that few seemed to know about until 2008 rolled around, so it's here. i always wondered what he hell happened to Half Hawaii. i was talking about "throttled techno" earlier but in comparison this would make Bruno sound positively liberated. stoic but not sterile, his gaping silences and abbreviated samples positively stalked anyone listening. now he's Onur Ozer, and things haven't changed so much as things have been added. taking a cue from Villalobos' "Fizheuer Zieheuer", there's horns and wind instruments aplenty to give it a strong eastern vibe, but not overridingly, annoyingly, "world groov"ingly so. he and pronsato often got mentioned in the same breath and fittingly so. 10. M83 - Saturadays = Youth Pink Floyd's "Momentary Lapse of Reason" made me hate the 80s at an unfortunately VERY early age. i wont get into it but every 80s album was seen through those glasses and subsequently had to crawl out of a very big hole to be anything but contemptible.yet this album somehow corrals all those sentiments and other nuances i've felt about the time and puts in the parallel of growing pains with new technology mirroring the growing pains of being a teenager, and all of a sudden the messy enthusiasm and overzealousness becomes instantly charming and i embrace it more than i could have predicted after being warned in advance of an un-ironic 80s album from M83. an album that goes big, gets naive, and reaches desperately for transcendent connections, understood as being the only meaningful sensation, by being as emotionally exposed and shameless as possible. it comes complete with especially terrible spoken 'poetry' of prematurely jaded youth thats as understandable as it is painful to hear, and i feel i have to cheer it on so it can grow up and cobble the raw beginnings into something complete and brilliant. except that anthony gonzalez is 27 now, so while he *can* look back and reflect that frustrated passion to the last synth, he can also write songs that comes from four studio albums of experience, restraint (being a funny idea for M83 but it's there), and knowing what works and what doesnt, so what results is expertly controlled nostalgia that plays like a reissue of the greatest album of its time. 11. Jamie Lidell - Jim 12. Our Sleepless Forest - Our Sleepless Forest i'm not even sure where these guys are on the map. they could be a myspace band or have a small label... i dont know. i was just given this and over the course of a couple weeks slowly got into their super-infused-with-everything instrumentals that never pushed too hard or drowned itself out. there was rhythm in the noise and melody hanging on. check out a track called "white bird" it's a highlight and also gives a great idea of what they do. 13. Ellen Allien - Sool while ellen's been doing whatever the hell she wants for awhile, i think thrills was the first fumbling step towards a clean sound with lush implications that sool is getting ever closer to, and it's starting to sound really great. "caress" and "zauber" are big highlights for me. 14. Benga - Diary of an Afro Warrior has a unique, achingly impactive sound that's clean and sharp. i've been inadvertently blurting out how amazing it feels lots of times while playing it. it's just bliss for the ears on a proper system. 15. James Blackshaw - Litany of Echoes bookended by two rambling and pointless piano excursions, that same rambling doesnt seem nearly as directionless when done over multiple acoustic guitars. an understated complexity that slowly burns its way into consciousness, this album got into regular rotation after being vaguely confused about it for two weeks 16. Claro Intelecto - Metanarrative 17. Sonny J - Disastro if i still believed in guilty pleasures this would be reasonably close to being it. i was 11 and it was 1996 when i got my first boombox. i got into electronic music. i dont think i can be blamed too badly if astralwerks was my drug of choice at the time. there was a point where i would guess that everyone but the optimists saw where big beat and fatboy slim was going with his parade of obnoxious frat-party-isms. SO I GUESS this is that "coulda-been" direction the optimists were seeing instead. big dumb fatboy beats of old with go team's modern sugar high. it's a nostalgic trip i wasnt expecting and wouldnt think could be pulled off very well but this is pretty infectious 18. Klive - Sweaty Psalms 19. Frakkur - Songs for the Little Boy 20. Anja Schneider - Beyond The Valley notables: Syclops - I've Got My Eye on You Ratatat - LP3 Gnarls Barkley - Odd Couple 2562 - Aerial Dday One - Heavy Migration Loco Dice - 7 Dunham Place NIN - The Slip Beck - Modern Guilt |
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#2
07-13-2008, 06:53 PM
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Re: 2008 so far.
First off I have to admit that I didn't really listen to many 2008 releases so far... I don't really know why, maybe I'm too tired fighting against Sturgeon's law...
 Thanks for your list and reviews, I'll certainly listen to those albums! 1) Live shows I've finally seen Underworld after nearly four long years of waiting, and Autechre/SND who did not disappoint either. Those gigs are the highlights of 2008 so far for me even though I usually hate discos, festivals, large crowds and dancing...  But experiencing some of my favourite music live made up for that.2) Boards of Canada Even though there is no 2008 release (and I guess there isn't going to be one) I should mention them anyway, because judging from the time I spent listening to their albums they are probably number one at the moment. 3) Autechre I really got into them this year. Bought Anti EP, Chiastic Slide, Cichlisuite, Peel Session, LP5, Confield, and of course Quaristice. It's hard to choose a favourite, because they are all great releases. It takes some time to 'unlock' an Autechre album, but you get rewarded. 4) Tycho After I bought his 2004 album Sunrise Projector I've been following his work on blog.iso50.com and tychomusic.com and really like what I hear. Recently he released two singles in anticipation of his new album which is due in 2009... He makes Boards of Canada style music btw. 5) SND 4,5,6 They supported Autechre, and I was quite impressed by their unusual glitchy sound... recommended if you like tracks that entirely consist of roughly three sounds that are seemingly arranged at random for 10 minutes.  6) Venetian Snares Detrimentalist shows that he is still going strong... 7) Dubstep I've listened to a few albums that have been recommended here and elsewhere... 2562 - Aerial, Ital Tek - Cyclical, Scuba - A Mutual Antipathy are not bad. For me the Scuba album stood out the most, Hard Boiled and Suck are great songs. However, I think it's quite hit and miss with most Dubstep albums... for every good song there are a dozen uninspired ones... 8) Arp A track from "In Light" was played on the last or so Underworld radio show. Very nice electronic ambient music. 9) Daedelus I really, really liked Denies the Day's Demise, and some tracks on his new album "Love to Make Music To" are equally awesome, but unfortunately the rest of it is not that great. I've also been enjoying some netlabel releases: 1) Budabeats A new netlabel from Hungary. Three releases so far, and all of them are among the best free music that is out there... highest recommendation! http://www.budabeats.com/ 2) Gate Zero - Green Planet Lush, organic, minimal, relaxing ambient music... http://www.stadtgruenlabel.net/index...releases&id=43 3) Mendelayev - Diagonal Tunnels Ep Excellent Drum and Bass http://www.plainaudio.com/dnb/releases/pp027md.html 4) Bazaar - Baal Convoluted, almost "Confield-like" electronic music... very strange, but somehow interesting... http://www.archive.org/details/kreislaufextra003 5) Antendex - Photons Sounds just as the title says! http://nnnl.extra.hu/nnnl.17/nnnl17.html
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#3
07-13-2008, 07:34 PM
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Re: 2008 so far.
here's some singles i was really impressed with/or got stuck in my head easily:
principles of geometry - a mountain for a president funky retro beats, warm analogue basslines, vocoder-vocals from sebastien tellier josh wink - stay out all night wink revisits his style from 10+ years ago. sounds like his live remix of psykosonik's "unlearn", with a modern flair. repetitive 909 style house, with tweaking filters on an organ sample, slowly builds and crescendo's, staving off for the dj to mix in the next track. for a dj it is a very friendly single, and for the home listener it reminds you of why you liked josh wink... 10 years ago. sunchase - ahz ep the title track and b-side are ok, but the pig+dan remix of ahz is why i really like this single. pig+dan remix a techno house tune, exploring their new millenium style of ac id house, carrying the listener away with it's subtley morphing synth's, harkening back to the 303, but not becoming decrepit and nostalgic about it. |
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#4
07-13-2008, 08:18 PM
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Re: 2008 so far.
wow thanks dubman, love this. gonna have a couple posts but here's a few i've been itching to discuss
steinski - what does it all mean? 1983 2006 Retrospective Steinski is the guy who surprised everyone by dragging is fat, white, ad executive ass into tommy boy records to claim his first place prize for best hip hop mix. While not being ghetto, or even interested in the ghetto/gangsta/post-colonial aesthetic might keep him from seeming authentic, he shines by just being that guy who lives for block parties. The freedom from having to prove his street heritage gives him the leverage to mix in things like casablanca, bullwinkle, and even glenn gary glenn ross, on top of the standard james brown, sugar hill, fare. Some of it will sound dated but that only adds magnetude to the instant smile vector A+ king khan & his shrines - The supreme genius of king khan russ meyer films done bollywood style comes to mind, with some strange pseudo black occultism mixed in. That's the real feel of this album and king khan, going from pure schlock and smirk to something so authentic is truly genius. we'll see if it stands the test of time or if it is fated to be just another gimmick on an urban outfitters display table. A-
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"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain Last edited by Strangelet; 07-13-2008 at 08:22 PM. |
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#5
07-14-2008, 02:01 AM
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Re: 2008 so far.
Quote:
tellier's a difficult bastard but im always interested in hearing what he's doing. i wasnt aware of this 'alias', so i'll have to dig for that one. and 'home listening' wink sounds like a fun week or so... and because i mentioned disappointments earlier, i'd just like to say what a complete letdown the oslo label and berghain series in general has been for me. it's not hard to get me mildly interested and to see the good side of what the new hot shit is, because it's all one big dialogue and new directions are interesting... but what i'm hearing to be a minimal take on lounge house hasnt inspired anything but mild distate and a sense of missed opportunity. this is what the pseudo-dj at the lamé furniture store would be playing in the shopping mall next to the Banana Republic Shop and across from Sbarro. instead of suave it's limp. there's no subtlety but that of annoyance that permeates most of the releases. maybe it just needs time, because the forthcoming ep (oslo 007) from dettmann (the justified hero of it, because he's the only one to drum up something decent) is pretty okay, but so far it's the most hype i've seen for a sound that's proven almost nothing. Last edited by dubman; 07-14-2008 at 02:04 AM. |
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#6
07-14-2008, 06:30 AM
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Re: 2008 so far.
Quote:
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"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain |
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#7
07-14-2008, 07:37 AM
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Re: 2008 so far.
Cool thread, Dubman...let's keep it rolling!
It's been a slender buying year for me, as well, but what has made an impression: Ghostland Observatory - "Robotique Magestique": Quirky electrorock band from Austin, known for their spirited live shows (think: skinny singer in pigtails wailing and writhing while curl-topped beat magician works the sequencers and drums from in front of a cape) and more than a little influence by Daft Punk. This is their third LP, and ups the analog/synthpop anty. Songs are still spirited (and Behren's vocals are an acquired taste, sometimes yelping at a high octave), but gone are much of the guitars from the previous LPs. Instead, more lo-fi synth intros, a little Depeche Mode-esque gloom. 7 outta 10. M83: Saturdays=Youth: Well, i super-enjoyed "Dead Cities..." piles of sound and thunderous crecendos, and was wholly disappointed by "BtDHU", which offered cheesetastic lyrics and paved no new roads. Then i lost interest. Picking up the latest M83 was a welcome return to the nostalgia and warm fuzzy vibes of DCRSLG. Some aspects of the 80's i'd like to frget, but this music sort of distills the best parts. 7.5/10 Coldplay: Viva La Vida (or Death and All His Friends): It's gotten the most rotations for me this year, and is imho their best album. 9/10. But let's move on! Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs: So i'll admit to being a johnny-come-lately to Death Cab, only really getting into thewm with their last LP, "Plans" and enjoying "Transatlanticism" after everyone else had tired of it. Narrow Stairs is, for me, a let down. I think i expected more of the emotion and eclecticism of Plans, but with the exception of the first cut "Bisby Canyon Bridge", none of the songs grab me emotionally or melodically. It's a little less produced, more straightahead guitar-rock, but frnkly, Ben Gibbard's sentiments sound really cringeworthy if there isn't something interesting going on musically to distract me! 5/10. Moby: "Last Night": After the downward slide from "Play" (which in retrospect, included a fair share of fluff), two crappy albums (18, hotel), a couple B-side collections that were less than stellar, a Voodoo Child release that made me think Moby forgot how to make dance music completely, i wasn't expecting much from this. So, i was somewhat pleasantly surprised...it's at least an upbeat set of quasi-retro dance. Rave piano, the ubiquitous Moby divas, a few so-so ambient instrumentals at the end, elements of his "classic" 90's records. Also, he hardly sings, which is a good thing. Well, Moby crtainly was there for the late 80's raves/summer of love, evolution of styles, and he obviously remembers it fondly. For me, it doesn't sound too exciting, the record breaks no new ground. But it does make me remember what i used to love about his music. A slight upturn. 6/10 looking forward to....later this year(?): The Cure Prodigy Way Out West Hybrid Metric Ben Folds Franz ferdinand
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Believe in Billy Records Last edited by holden; 07-14-2008 at 07:47 AM. |
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#9
07-14-2008, 09:47 AM
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Re: 2008 so far.
it's been another awesome year so far and this is off the cuff so i may well leave some out and have to add them later, but from memory (and after a quick butchers at my listening chart from the last 6 months from last.fm) these would be mine, more or less in order:
1 in ghost colours cut copy brilliant 80s influenced sophomore record from melbourne's cut copy, an album that makes me smile and sing-along and is uplifting and life affirming to boot 2 yearbook 2 studio an album of remixes yes, but what remixes! from their brilliant reworking of kylie to the blissed out love on a real train and summer pop perfection impossible this is an album with summer written all over it 3 s/t fleet foxes massively hyped but probably worthy of the praise and a great mix of pop, rock & country 4 for emma, forever ago bon iver simply gorgeous album of gentle acoustic strummings 5 silent movie quiet village excellent downtempo sampadelic feast from radioslave & mate that sounds both familiar and original 6 s/t vampire weekend not everyone's cup of tea but my wife and i have been enjoying these afro beat, prep rock stylings for most of the year 7 pacific ocean blue dennis wilson okay, this may have originally come out in 1970-something, but it's been beautifully repackaged this year and been out of print almost 20 years so still qualifies for my list. fantastic debut (and sadly only) solo album from the beach boy's drummer and well worth checking out 8 the seldom seen kid elbow quite simply their best album, which, if you know anything at all about elbow, is reason enough to get hold of this if you don't own a copy already 9 third portishead brilliant return for beth & co that takes a few listens to get into and is way better than i dreamed hope for after all that time. should probably be higher up the list but to be honest there's been so much great stuff this year i haven't listened to this album as much as some of the others 10 blue river smith & mudd actually came out the very tail end of last year but very nice album of chilled balearic vibes and then some other very honourable mentions: s/t hercules & love affair stainless style neon neon visiter the dodo's sea lion ruby suns nouns no age the midnight organ fight frightened rabbits songs in a&e spiritualized staying in diskjokke dystopia midnight juggernauts saturdays=youth M83 disastro sonny j Last edited by matt; 07-14-2008 at 09:56 AM. |
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