Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

it's funny how our tastes intersect rev, i'm into almost everything on your list and have a deep interest in syncopated dance music, but my heart is really in that sweet spot where ambient/textural/etc meets dope beats, and i don't really care how they work on the dance floor (i mean i do, but i don't).

that said, anything that could be branded as "ambient techno" doesn't do it for me. i do like andy stott a lot and have no idea how he gets certain sounds, but don't love the new one as much as a lot of people seem to.

would not vote P&J in a heartbeat if urged by the great old discarded staffers or asked to back some viable alternative but otherwise i just gotta. if everyone stopped voting in P&J the 'protest' wouldn't get any widespread recognition and the only real result would be Pitchfork taking an even bigger piece of the year end narrative pie.

what's the script re p&j and why are the voice noli mi tangere?

Deiphago is amazing!

it's funny how our tastes intersect rev, i'm into almost everything on your list and have a deep interest in syncopated dance music, but my heart is really in that sweet spot where ambient/textural/etc meets dope beats, and i don't really care how they work on the dance floor (i mean i do, but i don't).

that said, anything that could be branded as "ambient techno" doesn't do it for me. i do like andy stott a lot and have no idea how he gets certain sounds, but don't love the new one as much as a lot of people seem to.

― have a sandwich or ice cream sandwich (Jordan), Thursday, November 29, 2012 3:09 PM Bookmark

When UK funky came about I said somewhere that a huge part of why I liked it was its very specific disinterest in sound design frippery! I think that also applies to some of the stuff I'm really into now like ballroom, jersey club, etc.

I'm sure this is just a breakdown of the I'm a rhythm nerd, Lex is a sound design nerd thing. (Whereas you're both?)

I've had to find myself treating these two styles of dance music as utterly different beasts I guess. I listen to both, but it depends on my mood, the season etc

yeah totally
xp

this goat thing is kicking my ass

it's like a rock band in a room or something

Voices From The Lake definitely aren't for everyone, and it definitely needs to be heard in specific settings. So it's not hard to see why critics haven't rallied around it like they did for more accessible techno albums in the past (e.g. Isolee, Justice).

There was this Kompakt track from earlier in the year as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEDcNCuNFCc

That track's cool, but I would have gotten much more excited about it if it came out five years ago when that kind of piano house was first reemerging.

Uncut Top 75 Albums:

1 Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
2 Bob Dylan - Tempest
3 Jack White - Blunderbuss
4 Dr John - Locked Down
5 Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
6 Bill Fay - Life is People
7 Ty Segall & White Fence - Hair
8 Grizzly Bear - Shields
9 Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill
10 Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball
11 Tame Impala - Bonerism
12 Go-Kart Mozart - On The Hot Dog Stands
13 Dexys - One Day I'm Going To Soar
14 Paul Buchanan - Mid Air
15 Field Music - Plumb
16 The Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse
17 Grimes - Visions
18 Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
19 Neneh Cherry and The Thing - The Cherry Thing
20 The xx - Coexist
21 Beachwood Sparks - The Tarnished Gold
22 Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral
23 Julia Holter - Ekstasis
24 Allah-Las - Allah-Las
25 Patti Smith - Banga
26 Graham Coxon - A&E
27 Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls
28 Paul Weller - Sonik Kicks
29 The Chris Robinson Brotherhood - Big Moon Ritual
30 Ry Cooder - Election Special
31 Hot Chip - In Our Heads
32 Richard Hawley - Standing At The Sky's Edge
33 Micachu & The Shapes - Never
34 Bobby Womack - The Braves Man In Universe
35 Six Organs of Admittance - Ascent
36 Sun Kil Moon - Among The Leaves
37 Patterson Hood - Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance
38 Lightships - Electric Cables
39 Dirty Three - Toward The Low Sun
40 First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
41 Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes
42 Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
43 Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana
44 Sun Araw & M Geddes Gengras Meet The Congos - Icon Give Thank
45 Japandroids - Celebration Rock
46 Cat Power - Sun
47 Anais Mitchell - Young Man In America
48 Howlin Rain - The Russian Wilds
49 Damon Albarn - Dr Dee
50 Laetitia Sadier - Silencio
51 Lana Del Rey - Born To Die
52 Cate Le Bon - Cyrk
53 PiL - This is PiL
54 Yeti Lane - The Echo Show
55 The 2 Bears - Be Strong
56 Pond - Beard, Wives, Denim
57 David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant
58 Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos
59 Father John Misty - Fear Fun
60 The Liminanas - Crystal Anis
61 Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II
62 Ian Hunter & The Rant Band - When I'm President
63 Calexico - Algiers
64 Orbital - Wonky
65 Nite Jewel - One Second Of Love
66 Goat - World Music
67 Cornershop - Urban Turban: The Singhles Club
68 Woods - Bend Beyond
69 Ty Segall - Twins
70 Simone Felice - Simone Felice
71 Lee Ranaldo - Between The Times And The Tides
72 Rufus Wainwright - Out of The Game
73 The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Meat + Bone
74 Bat For Lashes - The Haunted Man
75 Carter Tutti Void - Transverse

11 Tame Impala - Bonerism

lol

Bonerism and Grizzly by Bear Shields are my favourite albums of the year

Gotta give them some credit, until I saw their name I thought this was the waiting list at an erectile dysfunction unit.

shurely it should be "On the Hot Dog Streets" for Go-Kart Mozart as well?

I have no idea, I just c&p'ed from some other fool who typed it all in.

these typos shall not stand!

I thought that Vatican Shadow album was going to be too bleak to hold my attention but I was completely hooked into it by the second track. It's actually very beautiful in a few places, the last track particularly so.

well i loved Prurient's last album - really satisfying for industrial/electronics, and I'm really not a big fan of cold/harsh sounds on the whole.

Kind of funny that the Cohen album is called "Old Ideas"

Bit late to the jazz picks discussion, but the Mojo top 5 sucks. Jazzwise isn't much better. That's the sort of boring, noodly stuff that gives people the idea that jazz is only something you listen to when you put up your clubbing shoes. Surely I can't be the only person to find most of what ECM puts out to be terribly polite and unexciting? Although in the Jazzwise list I do like the Django Bates album - ingenious, but not too clever, with some delightfully skewed rhythms and strong tunes. Robert Glasper seems to be hailed as some kind of hip-hop bad ass, but his stuff just sounds like the most polite end of 90s nu-soul, with a few post-bop flourishes. Roller Trio got the Mercury Nod, but it's has that problem with a lot of the UK rock/electronic influenced jazz - it's a bit muso and seems reluctant to kick up into top gear. It's not that everything has to be Thing style skronk 'n roll, but the best jazz-rock crossover stuff is that which taps into the ecstatic spirit of the music, rather than simply borrow some formal tropes.
Cherry Thing isn't the best jazz album of the year, but when it works it's fantastic and I'm glad to see it cropping up on a few lists. As Ward Fowler said, it's not easy to pull of vocals and free jazz, but they nail it. Some of the best bits are the quieter tracks - the Suicide and MF Doom covers - but it's great to hear Neneh wailing while Gustafsson and co tear it up. I've still to hear the Thing & Barry Guy LP (ltd edition) but the live clips online are fantastic. Barry Guy's duo album with Liudus Makunis (sp?) is fantastic too - dude is one of the most inventive and powerful bassists around.
Burning Ambulance list is pretty great (Charles Gayle LP fantastic) but no Brotzmann beyond Full Blast? He's had an incredible year and the Yatagarasu album is one of the best things he's ever done (the solo & Trio Roma double with Massimo Pupillo and Paal Nilsson-Love is incredible too. I appreciate that a lot of these come out on tiny labels and often get overlooked. I expect that one will probably get into the Wire's top 50 though. William Parker's Essence of Ellington and the David S Ware/Planetary Unknown live LP would be in there too. The latter was my number one, and not just for sentimental reasons - truly exhilarating, spiritual music.

Clarification: by 'in there too' I mean my personal favourites, not the Wire list. Oh for an edit function...

Emily, that Thing/Otomo Yoshihide album is absolutely fantastic. Came out late last year on Smalltown Superjazz along with a (also great) Jim O'Rourke/Thing jam - both were recorded at the same venue in Tokyo. Yoshihide on guitar rather than turntable - and he absolutely shreds it. Might give it a spin later on, now you mention it.

Other good Thing related things this year... Paal Nilssen-Love has been one of this year's MVPs. In addition to the aforementioned Brotz platter, he's on the butt-kickin' new Lean Left (w Ken Vandermark & the Ex guitarists), the terrific Bobby Bradford set on No Business and no doubt a whole bunch of other stuff I've missed. Mats and Paal also did a very enjoyable record with Ethopian krar player Mesele Asmamaw. Oh, and latest Fire! album with Oren Ambarchi is a monster, with some primordial shrieks and baritone growls from Gustafsson and amazing guitar from OA which sounds like the Large Hadron Collider.

Bonerism is my deliberate typo to see who is C&P. A bit like a phantom street on a map.

Phantom boners of ILM

Afropop Worldwide hints at their list:

Fri. 11/30 10p: Join us for a festive Afropop Worldwide ritual, as Georges Collinet sits down with Banning Eyre to mull over the best new releases of 2012.

We'll hear from K'Naan, Staff Benda Bilili, Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars, Mokoomba, Ondatropica, Alex Cuba, The Very Best, Janka Nabay.... As usual, Georges and Banning will run out of time long before they run out of tunes

would not vote P&J in a heartbeat if urged by the great old discarded staffers or asked to back some viable alternative but otherwise i just gotta. if everyone stopped voting in P&J the 'protest' wouldn't get any widespread recognition and the only real result would be Pitchfork taking an even bigger piece of the year end narrative pie.

― trinidad jokes (some dude), Thursday, November 29, 2012 6:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this

Also, is there a legacy act that put out an album this year (including Neil Young's two!) that Uncut didn't put on their list?

When UK funky came about I said somewhere that a huge part of why I liked it was its very specific disinterest in sound design frippery!

i don't know if this is true for the early days of uk funky, given how much it drew on house music with impeccable sound design!

as for P&J, i guess i'm kinda with some dude except the idea of the essays being written by the current staff gives me the heebie-jeebies

xp
No John Cale and that was the best of the old timers.

When UK funky came about I said somewhere that a huge part of why I liked it was its very specific disinterest in sound design frippery!

i don't know if this is true for the early days of uk funky, given how much it drew on house music with impeccable sound design!

― #YOLO ONO (lex pretend), Friday, November 30, 2012 9:58 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm its classy high-end sound design was part of the appeal!

and it was specifically a contrast to the grime that preceded it!

There was a bit of both, the Perempay & Dee/Crazy Cousins end was pretty glossy but "high end sound design" is probably overstating it a bit. A lot of it was pretty rudimentary in its production values though although maybe not to grime levels.

otm its classy high-end sound design was part of the appeal!

sure but on the super clean & sculpted tip, opposite end of the spectrum from anything dubby/blurry/post-burial etc, right?

For what its worth, Dylan and Womack both have a fair shot of making my Top 10.

friday, 16:15, can i be bothered

nah it's all yours finney

This year's best old-timers: Cohen, Cale, Womack, Cooder, Byrne and Dr John.

the thing that gets me about the old-timer lists is that they don't even acknowledge young fresh'n'new artists in the same genres! like i'd love to see the mirel wagner album get some EOY love but i haven't seen it crop up anywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciBpDFjzl6I

xpost I will cheerfully shout for ZZ Top in the best old-timers category. But they are not respected and deep old timers, so no one gives a shit.

xp You're missing the point - Uncut don't want young fresh'n'new. They want legends who are (a) still alive and (b) not disgracing themselves.

Death to Young Fogeys

nb dorian i think you'll REALLY like that mirel wagner song/album

No Scott Walker in the Uncut list, do they hate his record or is this more of a timing thing?

Timing I reckon.

xp I'll certainly check out Mirel Wagner Lex. Thanks for the link.

Imho none of Byrne's melodies on the new one rival Talking Heads in their prime.

I just ordered THIS: http://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/item.asp?PID=26326 thanks to Scott posting a video on Youtube. It better be good!

Vincent steals the show on Love This Giant. Byrne's lyrics have had a tendency to come off a little trite and facile in recent years, and that puts me off a bit. I think it's a good album - solid 3.5 stars - and it helps I got given it on my birthday, so I made a point of acquainting myself with it properly. Some of the horn work is exceptional.