Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

i love everyone's enthusiasm for i am curious orange, and i put on that album every few weeks bc everyone's investment in it is certainly interesting enough to me to want to figure it out for myself, and then twenty minutes later i forget that it's on.

i think "Pyramids" is pretty cool but the less ambitious normal-length songs on it are mostly pretty underwhelming to me, also dude sings like Omarion

omarion? reeeeally?

i love the falsetto on "thinkin' about you" but his usual singing voice, that sort of half-talking cadence feels really distant and uninvolving

oh he sounds totally like omarion, listen to the MMG album from this year xp

omarion is a good singer fwiw

what a relief that love/hate for OrangeyougonnalistentoMiguel ranges across the sexual divide.

be cool if he sounded like michael omartian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i24QiEYkzTU&feature=relmfu

but anyway while i hated the rhetoric about "a change in r&b" that surrounded orange crush when it came out i really liked a lot of the stuff on the actual ilx thread about its qualities as an album, regardless of whether i'm into it or not.

did anyone else love "confess" as much as me or am i alone on this one?

i am currently cobbling together ARMOR ON with YouTubes.

have never purchased anything from iTunes and won't be starting now; is there another way to acquire this, non-pirate style? was there a physical release. (sorry, lazy question)

[but anyway while i hated the rhetoric about "a change in r&b" that surrounded orange crush when it came out

mmm it hasn't gone away

pretty sure Armor On was only officially released digitally, no CD -- Amazon has it on MP3 but no physical media.

is there another way to acquire this, non-pirate style? was there a physical release. (sorry, lazy question)

no, no (and yes, lol). it was self-released.

to answer another question, goldenheart is the album to which armor on serves as prelude; it was due out in october but because of armor on's success she got a last-min physical distribution deal so it's been put back to january so they can make the CDs or whatever you do. the album itself is done and kinda mindblowingly good.

xpost

it is still difficult to acquire pirate style, hence why i haven't.

i love everyone's enthusiasm for i am curious orange, and i put on that album every few weeks bc everyone's investment in it is certainly interesting enough to me to want to figure it out for myself, and then twenty minutes later i forget that it's on.

aka "this year's kid a."

Yeah, that sort of sums up my experience with it, tho I haven't tried super hard. It sounds fine when it's on, and I love "Super Rich Kids." Maybe the whole album will click with me at some point, but right now it mostly fades away for me.

huh. well, maybe i can acquire it some other way-style.

looking fwd to the album now. FIDLAR is out that day, too. good day.

I appreciate Frank Ocean's talent but so often he wanders off and starts singing about the most innane stuff in his pretty voice and it cheapens whatever he's trying to do. Yes, you can sing.. it still sounds dumb as hell when you sing stuff that you'd find in someone's facebook status update.

It's a nice album and it has grown on me for sure, but I really could not stand to listen to the whole thing when it first dropped in the summer. Super Rich Kids is great, Pink Matter with Andre 3000 is nice and Pyramids is a pretty good song but I have to admit I still don't quite understand the levels of praise that song alone has garnered

last time I listened to Channel Orange the song that really caught me was "Crack Rock"--the "crooked cop, dead cop" digression was more out-of-nowhere and poignant than you'd expect if you were just letting the album flow past you in the background

Goldenheart is a straight up appalling title.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ca/MK_Golden_Heart.jpg

Goat album and the Sharon Van Etten are the standouts from stuff I hadn't heard before they started appearing on year end lists. Looking back at the Van Etten thread and it seems her earlier albums are more enthused about than 'Tramp' but I'm not really feeling them tbh.

I was thinking more of the spectre of swordfighting fantasy thematic nerdery which I'm 95% sure Dawn will avoid but she's got form with this kind of thing.

why on earth would you think she'd avoid that

warhammer r&b is the next big thing

I heard a Game of Thrones reference in an afrobeats track the other day and a small part of me died.

i guess GoT references are the new Star Wars references

lord stark toyotaaa

A playa always pays his debts

In your face like a can of mace, your grace

don't hate the playa, hate the Game (of Thrones)

Chris Carter just RTed the list of Dublin record shop Elastic Witch so I figured I'd share it here. Bit more of my kind of thing included, I guess.

LIARS - WIXIW (Mute)
SUN ARAW, M. GEDDES GENGRES & THE CONGOS - ICON GIVE THANK (rvng intl.)
JULIA HOLTER - Ekstasis (rvng intl.)
VESSEL - Order Of Noise (triangle)
WHITE CAR - EVERYDAY GRACE (hippos in tanks)
GRIMES - Oblivion (4ad)
GRIZZLY BEAR - SHIELDS (warp)
SWANS - THE SEER (young god)
OWENSIE - CITIZENS (out on a limb)
CHROMATICS - KILL FOR LOVE (italians do it better)
FLYING LOTUS - UNTIL THE QUIET COMES (warp)
JOHN TALABOT - FIN (permanent vacation)
ARIEL PINK - MATURE THEMES (4ad)
SCOTT WALKER - BISH BOSCH (4ad)
DIIV - OSHIN (captured tracks)
PEAKING LIGHTS - LUCIFER (weird world)
MOUSE ON MARS - PARASTROPHICS (monkeytown)
HOLLY HERNDON - MOVEMENT (rvng itnl.)
PYE CORNER AUDIO - SLEEP GAMES (ghostbox)
KATIE KIM - COVER AND FLOOD (flaming june)
GOAT - WORLD MUSIC (stranded rekords)
SUNKEN FOAL - FRIDAY SYNDROME VOL. 1 (countersunk)
ITAL - HIVE MIND - (planet mu)
DAPHNI - JIAOLONG (jiaolong)
CARTER TUTTI VOID - TRANSVERSE (mute)
BEAK> - » (invada)
SEA PINKS - FREAK WAVES (c/f records)
UMBERTO - THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND SCREAMS (rock action)
VOICES FROM THE LAKE - VOICES FROM THE LAKE (prologue)

Compilations/Collections:
VARIOUS ARTISTS - STRANGE PASSION, EXPLORATIONS IN IRISH POST PUNK 1980-1983 (cache cache)
VARIOUS ARTISTS - PERSONAL SPACE, ELECTRONIC SOUL 1974-1984 (chocolate industries)

which, say 3, of those would you recommend the most emil.y?

Yeah, that is a decent list. That Sun Araw, Geddes Gengras & the Congos record is some kind of high-water mark in stoned sounds. I can't really think of much to compare it to, it's like a fucked-up dub reggae version of Skip Spence's Oar. So beautiful!

^^^
I haven't heard all that much new stuff this year, but that Sun Araw is up there with Swans for my favorite thing.

whenever i see that title i start singing: "bish bosch i was taking a bOth long about a saturday night..."

whenever i see the name sun araw i start singing rolf harris's sun arise in my head.

Yeah, that is a decent list. That Sun Araw, Geddes Gengras & the Congos record is some kind of high-water mark in stoned sounds. I can't really think of much to compare it to, it's like a fucked-up dub reggae version of Skip Spence's Oar. So beautiful!

― Albert Crampus (NickB), Tuesday, 27 November 2012 15:29 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was disappointed to be honest. Maybe I should give it another go but Sun Araw's sound gets really boring for me after a while.

the flylo record is aging well for me, i hear new things in it every time i put it on.

Guess it took me a little time to really warm to the Sun Araw, think you have just got to let go of the edge and just float around in it for a while. And the Congos sound amazing on it, so otherworldly. The really deep bass voice especially, that sounds majestic among all those discombobulated electronics.

Still need to hear Voices From The Lake, that record has been on my list for months and months.

It's okay, I didn't really understand the rapturous reception it got, but I'm not very good with non-melodic techno that isn't danceable. The textures were fantastic but it didn't really engage beyond that.

i'll give it another go Nick

I mean, Heart of the Congos is one of my alltime favourite records in any genre, so I should really.

Matt DC - have you heard Ital yet? I'm curious to know whether you like that one or not.

I listened to it once and wasn't really feeling it.

mmm... i'm having trouble with it. i figured it's better if i pretend it's not supposed to be dance music at all.

Pye Corner Audio have been doing some good stuff this year. The Beak> album is absolutely great (though I still haven't managed to track down a vinyl copy yet). I love the Julia Holter (though not as much as Tragedy, which I couldn't get hold of but thought was sublime). Sun Araw & the Congos I agree with Nick on, though it didn't take me too long to warm to - "float around in it" is spot on.

Need to listen to more: Carter Tutti Void (but what I've heard is great), Scott (will be getting this ASAP, 'Epizootics!' is awesome), only heard the one Goat track so far but it rules, new Mouse on Mars I have yet to hear.

I seem to recall the bit of the Umberto record I heard was disappointing, but I liked their one before so much that I should probably give it another go.

I'm gonna have to wait till Xmas till I hear Bish Bosch, but yeah Epizootics! is crazy good - "My neighbour was frightened by Hawaiians"

Cranky ol me likes the Congos without guests much better, and I find Holter too ethereal.

That Holly Herndon album is pretty interesting. Need to listen to it more, it was only up on spotify for two days before it got taken down again, but iirc it was an unusual mix of slightly industrial-sounding techno and more academic-leaning art experiments, lots of processed voice and mouth sounds and stuff. Getting lots of comparisons to Laurel Halo which I can sort of see as she seems to have a foot in both those worlds too.