ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2015

I tend to be wary of cassettes, because they often combine two tendencies that I hate in music production: senseless lo-fi aesthetic (how is releasing your music on a format that objectively has worse sound reproduction capability than CD/vinyl/digi a good thing?) and indulgent retro fetishism/obscurantism.

I remember being down with the opening track on this Dick Diver album and then not liking any of the rest of it.

project pablo record is fun, track 2 is my favorite

enjoying the lex vs. canada narrative that's developing in these threads

poll

had "waste the alphabet" on a few playlists but hadn't got round to listening to this one yet

Not nuts about project pablo, but i did enjoy the cfcf and keita sano records on the same label

Made it 4 songs into Kurt vile, he sounds almost as bored as I felt

the brandon flowers album was surprisingly great

and mp3 so ppl like evan can jizz on it xp

― mattresslessness, Monday, January 25, 2016 10:25 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You realize I'm not taking any sort of position right? Was only speculating. Thought I was being pretty careful, too.

get over yourself

project pablo record is fun,

yea i am digging it, idk if i'll listen to it more than once but whatever

uhhh

Dick Diver is 74 presumably? Never heard of this.

I'm liking Project Pablo too.

this is some limp, limp fare

not saying you should always judge a band on their bandname but

the project pablo stands out to me because out of a lot of stuff cut from similar cloth on 1080p and mood hut, much of which is screamingly white, it is definitely more relentless with the hooks.

ppl who meant to vote for jaonna newsom record did ctrl+f diver and made a mistake imo

project pablo was def growing on me (a little) by the time brandon knocked

speaking of white, that dick diver image is doing a good job of making me not want to listen to them ever

You can do interesting things with tape aesthetics. Part of the appeal of early Boards of Canada was the subtle tape flanging sound weaved in that highlighted the sense of nostalgia for childhood. For me at anyrate.

However, choosing to EQ as though you forgot about the high-bias switch? Not so interesting.

i was just kidding above! actually the albums poll is ruined now like everyone said

from this early stage it is ruined and everyone likes bad music and bad formats and everyone is bad and should feel bad and something something variable bit rate magnets

Don't worry. All will be right with the world again when Gaz places.

can't even imagine a life where i'd knowingly listen to an australian indie band called dick diver

wait there was a joanna newsom album in 2015

tape distortion can be used to great effect. see kyle hall.

i double-dog-dare all of you to listen to track 4 of the dick diver album

http://cdn.bgr.com/2015/01/blizzard-2015.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/E5jErKS.jpg

73 BARONESS "Purple" (228 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 117

Dick Diver
Origin Melbourne, Australia
Genres Indie pop
Years active 2008–present
Labels Chapter Music

i think i am done w/ indie pop from australia

can't even imagine a life where i'd knowingly listen to an australian indie band called dick diver

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, January 25, 2016 10:43 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i didnt see this post otm

YEAH

You can do interesting things with tape aesthetics.

Not that I have one but I thought this was pretty cool. Guy gets cool sounds on his demo tracks.

we have metal

blah

good cover art on metal albums is ubiquitous enough to be almost boring but baronness cover is pretty neat

metal: the real scandinavian pop

we have metal huh

I couldn't have imagined being relieved to listen to Baroness today. I loathe this cover art.

my feeling about baroness is that, while in theory i could have a place for a 2015 alice in chains in my workout playlist, in practice the final fantasy ambiance nixes it.

who the fuck is this brandon flowers dork

yeah the cover art makes 0 sense to me

I still double dog dare everyone to listen to track 4 of the dick diver album

the killers' guy xp

i tried and five seconds in my kid immediately shot it down

Baroness is a band that I've wanted to like, but it just never completely clicks for me.

Not my thing, but I've always loved Baroness cover art.

Artist John Dyer Baizley has a gallery.

project pablo is great, was p high on my ballot iirc, i may have even been one of the #1s on some strategic shit. if you are really allergic to any lo-fi i guess i can't convince you of its merits but it's really best thought of as a light spritzy melodic house trifle. it's like a lemon soda by the pool, and one of the best attempts at mixing house + the am gold softpop pallet. the production and sound design is really good and well-suited to the music imo; it sounds bright but not murky or excessively melted-in-the-sun, the drums aren't loud cause they don't have to be but have a good scrappy breakbeat feel. the one thing that annoys me about it being lo-fi is it doesn't sound great played at loud volumes, the one time i played it out i had to cut it halfway. also i'm sure it's not really a cassette, as in they didn't bounce it off a cassette on the mp3 you're listening to.

flopson otm also it isn't even that lo-fi ffs

i mean yall making it sound like some ariel pink the doldrums or some shit

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4ef756fcecad04b00500000d/watch-kid-goes-completely-bonkers-after-unwrapping-nintendo-64-game-system.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mZlXNoj.jpg

72 EEK "Kahraba" (230 points, 7 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP