So we're fuck-all of the way through 2008; what records are worth attention?

Seriously though, Gutter Twins album is *excellent*; stream here:

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/luisterpaal/39261992

but my dad is stronger than your dad!

Goslings - Occasion

Aaron Martin - River Water

Maninkari - Le Diable avec ses Chevaux...usually I avoid anything described as "cinematic" but this is beautiful kitchen sink ethno-psyche, somehow holds up over its nearly 2 hrs.

Box - Studio 1...hitting all those spots I wanted from the last Supersilent...like a wankier Supersilent, if Deathprod left the room and they decided to have "fun"

Ned -- I had never actually heard any other Mountain Goats albums before.

GET IT HEARD/HERD OH I SLAY ME

moto boy
ruby suns
july skies
vampire weekend

oh and je suis animal is probably great but who can find it?

I'm liking the Gutter Twins - Saturnalia quite a bit. Bought tix to see them in March. Still like Vampire Weekend and Black Mountain a lot. Am absorbing these, all have good moments:

Apes - Ghost Games
Big Sleep - Sleep Forever
Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Bob Mould - District Line
Protest The Hero - Fortress
Die! Die! Die! - Promises Promises
Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers
Nada Surf - Lucky
Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
Clark - Turning Dragon
These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid

El Guincho seconded. There is an awesome new Nicole Mitchell/Black Earth Ensemble album called Black Unstoppable but I dunno if it's actually from '08.

D5, I like jazz, but it's hard for me to find reliable recommendations for new jazz discs (even on ILX's Rolling Jazz thread). What are the best new jazz discs you've heard this year?

Hercules & Love Affair, Black Mountain, Sian Alice Group, Silver Mt. Zion, Lee Scratch Perry's Chicken Scratch, and the Crystal Antlers EP have been the best I've heard so far.

Atlas Sound is pretty but kinda shallow (reminds me of Matthew Dear), These New Puritans is OK if you want to hear someone new ripping off the Fall, Clinic is OK and I like it more than their previous album (it's got a messy sound to it that I'm digging).

And fuck, I'm sick of Destroyer.

Someone asked once on another thread if there were "new release" lists online for various global/non-English albums. Not sure if anyone is doing that gatekeeper function, which would be difficult considering the number of small and large label efforts in countless genres around the world.

so far for 2008 :

Radio Scarecrow - The Black Dog (gorgeous from start to finish, a wonderfully layered rich album.)
The Invisible Line - Temposhark
The Heliocentrics - Out There
Clark - Turning Dragon

Oooh, I didn't know Clark had a new album out this year. Has it been released yet? I really enjoyed his last one.

daniel esq start here, also n.b. the next entry

"If That Arm Heals, It Ought To Be Broken Again" 2008 Jazz D Minor Bags Thread

I'll second the Raveonettes and Gutter Twins and add Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark and Sam Amidon' All Is Well. I'm hoping the Erykah Badu will turn out good.

The Hot Chip is pretty good. Avoiding Vampire Weekend like the plauge til the furor dies down, though I plan to pick it up this summer. Really liking Genghis Tron's new record Board Up the House, started a thread on it.

And fuck, I'm sick of Destroyer.

I wondered when this was going to happen.

Also, that Shelby Lynne album is nice. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say it's the best covers record by a female singer-songwriter so far this year.

dance album of the year so far: prosumer & murat tepali - serenity

OK, Nicole Mitchell album not from this year, but check this out for April!!!:

NEW HAVEN, CT -- Firehouse 12 Records will kick off its 2008 release schedule on April 29th with Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute to Octavia Butler (FH12-04-01-006), the new studio recording of Chicago-based flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell's extended composition of the same name.

Times New Viking!!!Times New Viking!!!Times New Viking!!!

Dimension 5ive, can you list some of those jazz albums you're talking about for lazy people like me?

I almost bought it...but I didn't.

So far I would list my favoritest things I've heard like this:

1. Cuong Vu, Vu-Tet
2. Steven Bernstein, Diaspora Suite (Miles-ish space funk, but Jewisher)
3. Louie Bellson and Clark Terry, Louie and Clark Expedition 2 (big-band corny stuff but really good and kinda forward-looking -- Duke Ellington once said Bellson was the world's greatest musician and he was married to Pearl Bailey so that's good enough for me, jack)
4. Matana Roberts, The Chicago Project (only had it for a couple of days, moving up quickly)
5. Cowboys From Hell, Monster Rodeo (metal-jazz from Switzerland, covers of the "Halloween" theme and straight-up beat-jacks from "Eye of the Tiger", so amazing)
6. Jason Kao Hwang/Edge, Stories Before Within (Third Stream weirdness, kinda good while shoveling at midnight)
7. The Wrong Object, Stories From the Shed (Zappa Tribute Band goes jazz-legit LOL)
8. François Ingold Trio, Fat Free (v.nice)
9. Keith Marks, Foreign Funk (jazz flautist gets down with "Axel F"...but actually better than that sounds)
10. Joe Locke Quartet, Sticks and Strings (I'm a sucker for vibes)

-- Dimension 5ive, Friday, February 22, 2008 5:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

okay my copy of Maceo Parker's Roots and Grooves just arrived and it is SHIT HOT Y'ALL. He's playing with the Cologne big band WDR; one disc of Ray Charles covers, one disc of good old Maceo funk stuff including an 18 minute "Pass the Peas." Dude can still play the holy hell out of that saxophone, it's like he hasn't aged a day. WOW BLAM ZING.

-- Dimension 5ive, Friday, February 22, 2008 7:29 PM

V/A Messthetics #104 & #105
Valet - Naked Acid
Belong - Colorless Record EP
Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Chicken Scratch: Deluxe Edition

i just checked out charlottefield, and on first listen i like it very, very much. is the album available in the states? brighton seems like an interesting town...

all i have heard from 2008 specifically is bits and pieces of the new nick cave, the new xiu xiu and hot chip. first two are fantastic, as expected. hot chip is kind of boring but maybe it'll grow on me.

Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting

Wow, you're the only other person in internetland who seems to even know who they are! I'm glad they've started lengthening their songs a little. I just wish there were more than seven on the new cd.

I'll vouch for Decrepit Birth, Eluveitie, Furious Seasons, Gamma Ray, Ida, Joe Jackson, Magnetic Fields, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Zapruder Point. And reissues from Burning Witch and Xasthur. And an EPs worth of new songs added to Cradle of Filth's Thornography, and my copy of this Mexico 70 album says 2008 though I think it's really 2005 or 2006.

And my three favorite 2007 releases that didn't make it to me until 2008 are by Hundred Reasons, Kent and Puressence.

Puressence are still around?!

Goslings album. Always interesting sludgeness. Amazing band.

oh i had totally forgotten about the ida album. i'm going to put it on now

Hmmm ... Apparently I am the only one that likes Why?'s Alpecia. I would recommend the bookends "Good Friday" and "Simeon's Dilemma." I've heard about 20 albums from 2008 and this is the only one to cause me to repeatedly listen to it.

albums i think are great so far:

Ladyhawk - Shots
Clark - Turning Dragon
oh, and that mountain goats person

british sea power, vampire weekend, bob mould, eMC, why? have also been getting some playtime

I think I've only been blown away by 2 albums of this year so far.

Xiu Xiu - Woman As Lovers
Boris - Smile

No love for Beach House's "Devotion"? Seriously? It's my favorite album of the year so far.

oh i forgot about the constantines album that's always a good one

Black Mountain is my favorite so far. The Drive By Truckers is good but about 5 songs too long.
Looking forward to Nick Cave, Gutter Twins, Boris among others.

All right, D5, I hope your Top 10 list above isn't in rank-order (or I hope all the selections on it are top-shelf outstanding), since No. 10 --The Joe Locke Quartet -- is the only one I found on eMusic.

I'll seek out some of the other titles elsewhere. I'm looking forward to trying some new jazz, so thanks for the recommendations.

it should be pretty easy to find information about The Wrong Object, especially if you check out certain websites.

really sad that no one has said Bruno Pronsato - Why Can't We Be Like Us cuz I think it's great.

very tentative top 10 so far, incl. late '07 releases that nobody I know heard last year (i.e., excluding Rihanna and Ryan Shaw, both of which I like but I figure I was just really late getting to):

1. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
2. Ross Johnson – Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner)
3. Frozen Bears – Hey, That’s a Good Looking Sportcoat! (myspace.com/frozenbears EP ’07)
4. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lighting Rod)
5. Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)
6. The Tonic Rays – The Tonic Rays (thetonicrays.com ’07)
7. Final Solutions – Songs By Solutions (Goner ’07)
8. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
9. Sioux City Pete & The Beggars (Steel Cage)
10. Trent Willmon – Broken In (Compadre)

Next few official actual non-CD-R 2008 releases would probably be Alestorm, HorrorPops, Hayes Carll, Drive-By Truckers, Chris Cagle, Vampire Weekend, Left Lane Cruiser, Ayreon, Night Wounds, Chuck Wicks, Earth, and Kathleen Edwards, more or less in that order. Lazy Magnet seems interesting so far too.

Times New Viking and Mahjongg sounded good to me at first, but hold my interest less every time I play them, strangely enough. Haven't figured out why yet.

(Sioux City Pete & the Beggars' album is called Necro Blues, btw.)

For me there are three albums from this year that spring to mind as particular highlights so far:

Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Atlas Sounds - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

I would also add Raheem DeVaughn (shut up r&b haters, it's weird and good), Taint, Weinland, Devian, Raveonettes, the Mars Volta, Luciano, Akoya Afrobeat, Gilberto Gil, and yes probably Ayreon because we haven't had enough double-CD metal operas about environmental breakdown and the vapidity of modern culture.

Yes, Puressence are still around, and I think the new album is as good as anything they've done, and maybe better. Think somewhere between Muse and the Delays...

I'm always amazed by the lists you come up with, Xhuxk.

I'm looking forward to the Boris and Earth albums v. much as well

je suis animal 'self taught magic from a book', top indiepop record of the year so far. ambition is such an odd thing for an indiepop band to have. the days ep is also excellent.

I like your blog, D5. BTW, the disc I discovered there that has captured most of my attention is Marco Benevento's Invisible Baby. But is it jazz? Sounds more rock to me.

Anyway, I likely wouldn't have ever heard of it otherwise. So thanks.

Think somewhere between Muse and the Delays...

...oops. (More on the Muse front.)

Finds of the year so far:

Get Well Soon - Rest Now Weary Head You Will Get Well Soon
The Shortwave Set - Replica Sun Machine
The Week That Was - The Week That Was
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Islands - Arm's Way
Lawrence Arabia - Lawrence Arabia
Sennen - Where The Light Gets In
Tilly & The Wall - O
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
The Presets - Apocalypso
CSS - Donkey
The INdelicates - American Demo
Pop Levi - Never Never Love
Blood Red Shoes - Box Of Secrets
Gotye - Like Drawing Blood
Mystery Jets - 21

Fuck, it's been a good year so far! Also, lol indie.

(nb: SAX MIX of 'a black man in space')

Three favorites:
Inara George - An Invitation
Kleerup - Kleerup
Jerusalem and the Starbaskets - The Howling

GOOD:
Animal Collective (EP)
Bauhaus
Excepter (comp.)
LSD Pond
Malkmus + Jicks
REM
Stars of the Lid (tour only EP)
Wedding Present

BETTER:
Autechre
Boris
Earth
Fuck Buttons
Mountain Goats
Spiritualized
Times New Viking

BEST:
Atlas Sound
Nick Cave
Gutter Twins
Jamie Lidell
M83
Portishead
Raveonettes

Not yet heard, looking forward to:
Breeders
Four Tet
Growing
No Age
Notwist
Roots
Sun Kil Moon

these are albums i love:

animal collective - water curses
booka shade - the sun and the neon light
bruno pronsato - why can't we be like us?
disfear - live the storm
mara trax - it got me funk

and these ones are pretty darn good too:

evangelista - hello voyager
v/a - step up 2 the streets

i haven't really been keeping track of singles too well.

The INdelicates - American Demo

fuck me this band swings from not half bad to fucking wretched on this record

Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-1976