Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

re the Spin avant list, how am I just hearing about this BiS Kaidan thing now? sounds like a genius idea

There's some great stuff on it but it's not exactly 'genius', the anti-idol thing's not particularly new.

I've not read anything about that Galcher mix that's made me want to listen to it, but that's the same with a lot of these dance lists. That's possibly me being more disconnected from club culture now but the writing just makes them all sound so dull. Contrast with the Spin avant list where virtually everything sounds interesting even if in practice I might end up hating half of it.

#7
BiS-Kaidan, BiS-Kaidan (Avex Trax)

The real life Ciccone Youth, the dream of noise-as-pop: It ain't gonna be realized by Perfect Pussy's warmed-over Hüskerisms, folks. Live from the land of the rising Bad Moon, come the six members of real life J-pop idols BiS teaming with 30-year harsh noise institution Hijokaidan. Together it's the brightest, most beaming, sugar-coated double-rainbow melodies majestically rising from the most impenetrable, howling, feedbacky soup (with the occasional shriek for good measure). The absolute, natural, bulldozer-through-the-arena-wall end-point of the line that goes through White Light/White Heat, Daydream Nation, and Nevermind.

god bless u whiney

People, help me see the light. What am I missing with that Drake song that Pitchfork had as their #1? Because if I'm not mistaken, that song blows.

What does it mean that when I look over that Pitchfork list, there's quite a bit of music I like? I honestly have the feeling that whenever I look over their weekly picks and "best new music" categories during the year I struggle to find things.

Of course, maybe I'm just imaging things and should read Pfork more often?

Actually, looking over the Pitchfork list again, it becomes pretty clear how it weak a year it was for indie guitar music...

It's been a weak decade for indie guitar music

it's been a weak "since 1995" for indie guitar music

Indie guitar music is just weak

hit it with a shovel

hit it again, it's not dead yet

rip

Yeah, indie guitar music sux. Not like that great Drake song that won pitchfork. LOL, i'm kidding, that song blows.

Let it go.

People, people...indie guitar music has been lame for a while AND that Drake song is no big.

Some of the records on Pitchfork's honorable mentions list (outside the top 50) are pretty surprising:

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9292-albums-of-the-year-honorable-mention/1/

Particularly Hecker, Ka, Death Grips and Cronin. Would assume all would make the top 50.

Secret 13's 'Prominent Records of 2013' http://secretthirteen.org/30-prominent-records-of-2013/

i like how every pfork list this year has been shitty in a way that let's you know the next one is going to be even worse. the brain drain that's happened there is really really starting to show.

Secret 13 :-

Jar Moff – Commercial Mouth [PAN]
TM404 - TM404 - Kontra-Musik
Lycia – Quiet Moments [Handmade Birds]
Urpf Lanze - Procession Of Talking Mirrors - audioMER
Various - The End Of Civilization - Mannequin Records
Lebanon Hanover - Tomb For Two - Fabrika Records
Pharmakon – Abandon [Sacred Bones Records]
Shapednoise – Until Human Voices Wake Us [Opal Tapes]
Pete Swanson – Punk Authority [Software Records]
Violetshaped – The Remixes Part 2 [Violet Poison]
Emptyset – Material [Subtext]
Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones – Quatorze Pièces De Menace [Denovali Records] Automelodi – Surlendemains Acides [Hidden Treasure Music]
Mika Vainio - Kilo - Blast First Petite
Esplendor Geometrico - Ultraphoon - Geometrik
Kommando R.J.F. - Sweet Slow Suicide - Posh Isolation
Charlemagne Palestine Zev - Rubhitbangklanghear Rubhitbangklangear - Sub Rosa
Wolf Eyes – No Answer : Lower Floors [De Stijl Records]
Anne-James Chaton - Andy Moor - Transfer - Unsounds
Giuseppe Ielasi, Kassel Jaeger - Parallel - Grayscale - Editions Mego
Basic House - Oats - Alter
Graham Lambkin - Jason Lescalleet - Photographs - Erstwhile Records
Anton Heyboer - Rules Of The Universe - Kye
Ryoji Ikeda - Supercodex - Raster-Noton
aaNIPaa - Through A Pre-Memory - Editions Mego
Felix Kubin - Zemsta Plutona - Gagarin Records
Haus Arafna - All I Can Give - Galakthorro
Various - Interpretations On F C Judd - Public Information
Prurient - Through The Window - Blackest Ever Black

bout time EG got some respect

i like how every pfork list this year has been shitty in a way that let's you know the next one is going to be even worse. the brain drain that's happened there is really really starting to show.

― balls, Tuesday, December 17, 2013 12:01 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, i don't see how any of the p4k lists are substantially different from 80% of the lists already posted in this thread

hit it with a shovel

― karajan up the khyber (NickB), Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:25 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hit it again, it's not dead yet

― sleeve, Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hm, tough crowd...

Indie guitar music has always been the style it's safe to hate on ILM.

Is that indie guitar music or "indie" "guitar" "music" that we're slagging here

every year i'm always so fuckin blown away by how much interesting-looking stuff i've been unaware of, 99.99% of which is not the national. i'm glad we do this for the information in the process + don't care very much at all about the results when it comes down to it.

Oh, I do love the results. It sucks knowing that most of my favorite stuff doesn't resonate with many other people, but I love being able to peep in to sectors of ilm I normally don't follow and find out what they've liked the most.

so did anyone notice the fuckup with nosnitsky's blurb in the wire rewind issue? Either they've accidentally reprinted his 2012 writeup or he's due one hell of a latepass.

I didn't see that but the blurb for the Laurel Halo record (#2 in their overall list) made it sound like they hadn't listened to that album or the one before it either (which was #1 in last year's poll). don't have the quote to hand but i think it said something about the "auto-tuned" vocals on Quarantine being one of the component parts of Chance of Rain. nuh uh, wrong on both counts

In 2012 rap music was more fragmented than ever, with splinters both brilliant and dull. Last year’s lively experimental underground fizzled almost completely as its harbingers like Odd Future and Lil B retreated into their niches, and later interlopers like ASAP Rocky and Trinidad James grafted their swag onto more hollow and glossier forms. Instead some of the genre’s strangest mutations took place inside the major label system – Future found legitimate beauty in Auto-Tuned spitup on Pluto and Kendrick Lamar turned his average life into an slithery and spacey opera with “Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City”. Even Nicki Minaj took time out of her pop radio dominance to sprinkle her Roman Reloaded with a handful of eye, ear and skull popping performances. A nihilistic but vital new breed of youth oriented street rap blossomed via YouTube, with teens like Chicago’s Chief Keef and Washington DC’s Shy Glizzy realising that a HD camera makes for a cheaper (and wiser) investment than a brick of cocaine. Waka Flocka, an apparent influence on Keef, lost the script on his own sophomore album but his old Brick Squad mentor Gucci Mane caught a welcome second wind with a trio of mixtapes. Californian kids, on the other hand, seemed wholly unconcerned with the trappings of the trap, as producers like DJ Mustard and Iamsu pushed their high energy, clap heavy strain of Ratchet party rap instead. The rap game may be in a complete state of chaos, but at least that leaves a lot of options.

Indie guitar music has always been the style it's safe to hate on ILM.

just for the record i'll probably have at least 3 or 4 straight-up indie rock records on my ilx ballot (savages, esben & the witch, implodes) and there's a bunch of other stuff i liked (deerhunter, iceage, polvo) so i was being somewhat tongue in cheek there.

xp wuh!?

Yep that's in the print and digital editions. Oops!

maybe it's metacommentary idk

it is the Rewind issue after all

yeah, i saw that and didn't know if it was a goof or an amazing prank or what

wtf that really sucks.

tbf that is more recognisable as 2013 than the one that claims abrasive conceptual techno is the only dance music these days

Nice to see Pitchfork mention the Classixx album. Probably the most underrated album of the year for me.

http://www.cvltnation.com/cvlt-nations-top-6-doom-records-2013/

6. GRAVECODE NEBULA: Sempiternal Void
5. USNEA: Self Titled Album
4. LYCUS: Tempest
3. Primitive Man: Scorn LP
2. SUBROSA: More Constant Than The Gods
1. WINDHAND: SOMA

My usual year-end summary and lists:
http://fastnbulbous.com/lucky-13/

there were vocals on Chance of Rain, at least on a couple of tracks, but they were cut up and buried deep in the mix

What's the Tears for Fears sample on the Classixx album? Or are they somehow confusing them with Baltimora?

Oh, and for the first time, a Spotify playlist in addition to my mix:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1212496385/playlist/5eUKwdDfwsCQDko9fENfNV

man huge ditto to that classix being underrated

Textura's Year End Lists
http://www.textura.org/reviews/2013top10s.htm

TOP 20 ALBUMS (and 20 HONOURABLE MENTIONS)

01. Special Request: Soul Music (Houndstooth)
02. Causa Sui: Euporie Tide (El Paraiso Records)
03. Chantal Acda: Let Your Hands Be My Guide (Gizeh)
04. Caleb Burhans: Evensong (Cantaloupe)
05. Bruno Heinen Sextet: Tierkreis (Babel)
06. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual (Mute)
07. Liam Singer: Arc Iris (Hidden Shoal)
08. 17 Pygmies: Isabel (17 Pygmies)
09. The Knells: The Knells (New Amsterdam)
10. Arborea: Fortess of the Sun (EPSK)
11. Julia Kent: Character (Leaf)
12. Lubomyr Melnyk: Corollaries (Erased Tapes)
13. Wadada Leo Smith & Tumo: Occupy the World (TUM)
14. Eluvium: Nightmare Ending (Temporary Residence)
15. Mary Halvorson Septet: Illusionary Sea (Firehouse 12 Records)
16. Nuage: Music of Branches (Absys)
17. Graveyard Tapes: Our Sound is Our Wound (Lost Tribe Sound)
18. bvdub: Born in Tokyo (n5MD)
19. James McVinnie: Cycles (Bedroom Community)
20. A Little Orchestra: Clocks (A Little Orchestra)
21. Nadia Sirota: Baroque (Bedroom Community)
22. DjRUM: Seven Lies (Echo Empire)
23. Cakewalk: Transfixed (Hubro)
24. Orange Yellow Red: A Rose Made of Galaxies (Saint Marie Records)
25. Black Jazz Consortium: Codes and Metaphors (Soul People Music)
26. Oddisee: The Beauty in All (Mello Music Group)
27. Recondite: Hinterland (Ghostly)
28. Day: Land of 1000 Chances (PL70)
29. Talvihorros: Eaten Alive (Facture)
30. Dadub: You Are Eternity (Stroboscopic Artefacts)
31. The Foreign Exchange: Love in Flying Colours (+FE Music)
32. Floorplan: Paradise (M-Plant)
33. Daniel Bortz: Patchwork Memories (Suol)
34. Jessy Lanza: Pull My Hair (Hyperdub)
35. Om Unit: Threads (Civil Music)
36. Ben Lukas Boysen: Gravity (Ad Noiseam)
37. Seba: Identity (Secret Operations)
38. Pillo-Oh: Vanishing Mirror (Kitchen.)
39. Daniel Wohl: Corps Exquis (New Amsterdam)
40. Big Deal: June Gloom (Mute)

10 COMPILATIONS AND MIXES

01. VA: dBridge Presents Mosaic Vol. 2 (Exit Records)
02. VA: Livity Sound (Livity Sound)
03. Foreign Exchange: The Reworks (+Fe Music)
04. Calibre: Fabric 68 (Fabric)
05. VA: Future Disco Vol. 6 Night Moves (Needwant)
06. VA: Scope (Samurai Horo)
07. VA: Your Victorian Breasts (Three:Four)
08. VA: Joy (Schole)
09. Cassy: Fabric 71 (Fabric)
10. John Morales: Presents the M&M Mixes Volume 3 by John Morales (BBE)

10 EPS / SINGLES / 12-INCH DISCS / MINI-ALBUMS

01. David Åhlén: Selah (Mishkan)
02. Kate Simko: Lost in London (Get Physical)
03. Elektroguzzi: Cashmere (Macro)
04. Lullatone: Summer Songs / Falling For Atumn (Lullatone)
05. dBridge: Move Way (R&S Records)
06. Anile: All This Time / That Night (CIA Deepkut)
07. Gerwin & Nuage ft. 2shy: Lying Portraits (Zero T Reprint) / Soul Truth (Bungle Remix) (IM:LTD)
08. Pennygiles & Phil Tangent: Stories Untold / We Don't Talk Anymore (IM:LTD)
09. Seba: 20 Shades Of Me & You / Never Let You Go (Blu Mar Ten Remix) (Warm Communications)
10. Coal: Ontology (Gravite)

Nice to finally find a list that has more than two titles that overlap with my own. But I really need to hear that Cakewalk record (among others, obv.)

08. 17 Pygmies: Isabel (17 Pygmies)

whoah! another thing to track down, it's on Spotify

this thread is wonderul, so many things that I missed, inevitably
no time to catch up in full, of course, but this thread is giving me so many ideas
thanks to all

The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 of 2013
http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2013/12/16/the-obelisk-presents-the-top-20-of-2013/

Louder Than War's Albums Of the Year
https://louderthanwar.com/louder-than-wars-albums-of-the-year-2013-100-51/

Metal Hammer’s Top 50 Albums Of 2013 (up to 11)
http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/features/metal-hammers-top-50-albums-of-2013-15-11/