ILM's 2015 End of Year Albums & Tracks Poll / VOTING THREAD

oh damn i def meant to make that a link and didn't ugh. anyway long campaign list forcoming

- the heavy-k song lex mentioned is amazing and i'm probably voting for it too but my favorite production of his this year is "sweetie"; when those gentle post-disco guitars come in omfg

- i yelled about shura's "2shy" in the nominations thread as a really late discovery; the youtube comments compare it to a prince-written ballad which is the kind of stretch i'm super responsive to. vulnerability and phosphorescent synths that i'm here for forever, etc.

- another discovery from the nominations thread was mikael seifu's "brass" which is a pretty captivating vortex

- the tamia track that was mainly focused on in the rolling r&b thread was "sandwich and a soda," which is great, but i way prefer "stuck with me" as a single, just a perfect, shapeshifting ballad a la "i do take"

- the 1975's "ugh!" bc it's their scritti politti-est ode to surfaces so far

- a lot of k-pop worth voting for this year so i'm going for wonder girls flawless '80s pastiche "i feel you" but it could easily be lim kim's kinda delightfully fractured "awoo" or the gentle, absorbing swell of f(x)'s "4 walls"

The under-the-radar singles i'd recommend this year include:

Serebro - Pereputala https://youtu.be/IDixJgx8my4 Ya Tebya Ne Otdam nearly cracked the top 77 last year and this is even better. It's beautiful and unsettling in a way they have never really been before.

Vremya I Steklo - Imya 505: https://youtu.be/n3Go8ub9a1k Totally delightful Ukrainian dance-pop

Ariane Moffatt - Debout: https://youtu.be/prdc3aWnZg8 Lovely synthpop from Quebec that should appeal to anyone who likes Christine & The Queens, etc.

Albums include:

Nicole Dollanganger - Natural Born Losers: https://youtu.be/vS91Gxsqvcg Creepy Canadian indie-folk. First record released on Grimes' label.

Below The Sun - Envoy: https://youtu.be/WAbr38u9nGM Fabulous cosmic metal from Siberia.

Skriptonit - Dom S Normal'nimi Yavleniyami https://youtu.be/ROCmxSoqlHY Kazakh hip-hop possibly not an easy sell but this is probably the best Russian-language album of 2015.

Heavy-K vote-splitting seems inevitable since the third track nominated, Umoya, (https://youtu.be/JqzJfqXYnto) is just as good as the two already mentioned. Sigh.
I guess I'll have to vote for all three.

I voted Sweetie. The other two didn't knock me off my feet like that one did.

Not sure Below the Sun is 100% my thing but I am definitely not hating it

Brad already repped three of the tracks I was going to campaign for (thanks!) so I'm just going to mention:

Barbara Morgenstern ft. Robert Lippok and Justus Köhncke - Übermorgen (it bounces, it rolls, it's basically a roller disco jam recast as sweet German electronica)
Loreen - Paper Light (Higher) (shambhala x summer jam perfection)

On the albums front, if you haven't heard Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs yet, then do it now! And then vote for it!

- the 1975's "ugh!" bc it's their scritti politti-est ode to surfaces so far

'Love Me' is high on my ballot and i fear their dedicated ilm following will vote-split over these two fantastic tracks

xp i used to do the bizarre ritual of listening to as much nom'd music as possible before submitting the ballot as if cramming for a big exam, but i no longer see the point

to be sure, much of the music that i hear from the rollout and/or by browsing the noms/campaigning are great discoveries, but rarely are they *such* a revelation that i feel the need to slot them into my ballot right away. i have to spend real time with music to forge that kind of connection.

christ, i didn't realize till just now that Wand released a second album this year.

to be sure, much of the music that i hear from the rollout and/or by browsing the noms/campaigning are great discoveries, but rarely are they *such* a revelation that i feel the need to slot them into my ballot right away. i have to spend real time with music to forge that kind of connection.

i'd normally agree but this literally *just* happened with "2shy"

i voted lim kim; it's gonna be a long year of catching up with 2015 and I'm sure I'll spiral to new choices in a few months. that's good!

I'm not gonna rep hard for much this year because I don't have the heart, but please, please listen to this, my #1 song of this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai-1fA4J58E

I've put the forks playlist on random a lot lately and while I rarely fall heads over heel in love with new tracks it's a very healthy reminder of all the quite brilliant music I haven't been able to keep up with myself over the past year.

Voted so I can ignore this now.

that's the spirit!

That was my nice version! I complain every year but still vote so I have only myself to blame.

Seeing as Roz managed to get this nomination in in time and make me realise it was actually eligible, please please get behind Suiyoubi no Campanella - Jeanne d'Arc in your track ballots. It's so good.

Also if you want completely insane J-pop try the Heaven & Hell remix of You'll Melt More's Hamidasumo (the original is quite fun but the remix is excellent).

Nicolas Jaar has no shortage of support here on ILM, I'm just campaigning for the idea that his four "Nymphs" releases, all during 2015, constitute an album -- a pretty spectacular one at that! Seven tracks, 53 minutes of music, gorgeous sound design, clickety microhouse percussion pushing and pulling against the beat, vocal clips rendered transparent and slippery, harpsichords, pianos, sawtooth waves, dramatic pauses, ...

Here's the whole cycle on Spotify and on YouTube.

I have to say I am torn about that Jaar release - I love it a lot, and if I do consider it an album it would definitely make my ballot, but... it wasn't released as an album. So, I am still unsure.

I understand the mixed feelings, but I just decided to make the leap, things like the AFX SoundCloud uploads are equally unconventional ways to release an album's worth (or more) of material...

that krystal klear track is extremely good, reminds me that i forgot to nominate morgan geist "mezzanine"

I was sure I'd nominated One Night Only last year, but searching the archives tells me otherwise. Either way, I'm glad it got a video this year so we can try it again.

Looking forward to spending two hours of my first day back at work queuing up all of these recommendations.

If anyone feels like taking a punt on a regular lurker's lovingly compiled 10-track playlist of campaign hopefuls, please click hither

It totals in at a slender 40 minutes and will effortlessly accompany most commutes/breakfasts/vortices of 'dead' time.

Contains: U.S. Girls, Kevin Gates, Weyes Blood and so many more (7).

cherrypicking the nominations and OMG @ destra's "lucy", what an incredible tune this is

also v confused that i missed call super's "migrant", it is v beautiful

i haven't listened to anything else but "lucy" for the past hour

I definitely know that feeling.

btw the Jennifer Castle album on the nomination list is from 2014. It's an unbelievable album, but.

I love the AKA ft Burna Boy track 'All Eyes On Me' but wasn't that from 2014 too? Just checking before I vote for it.

Well, the song was initially released june 2014 and the video popped up right before christmas last year so yeah. If we're talking impact I'm thinking it was probably as big or bigger in 2015, though.
HOWEVER if we're being generous there's a 2015 remix that's also awesome so if the mods don't mind you can vote for that instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAl72T_xYLs

I think i've posted about it in a few places... But I really wish everyone would get as excited about Keith Ape's It G Ma and its remix as I am.

(i can't seem to post direct links to the videos...)

Yes, it sounds like U Guessed It. But it's so remarkable that this song even got out and became such a success without the benefit of the korean music machine. And that it brings Japanese and Korean rappers together. And that it got such a strong and surprising roster for its remix. And it's basically infinitely re-listenable.

Keith Ape - IT G MA
Keith Ape - IT G MA Remix

ALERT, future's ds2 is on the ballot twice under both that (which is the proper title??) and dirty sprite 2

Ok I'll get onto it.

oh hell yeah "lucy" is amazing

RE potential Jazmine Sullivan vote-splitting, I vote we all coalesce around Stanley.

nah "let it burn"

"mascara" is the one that blows me away as an individual song but was technically 2014, "stanley" or "brand new" would be my second choice but at this point you just realise you should vote for the album, right?

every time i scrolled the tracks list and saw 90% of an album's tracks nominated i got annoyed

I spent most of today shuffling the tracks playlist, and there were only two tracks that I felt the need to skip before the end. GOOD WORK TEAM.

that krystal klear track is extremely good, reminds me that i forgot to nominate morgan geist "mezzanine"

― J0rdan S.

Ugh, I basically flipped a coin over which side of the Galleria 12" to nominate to avoid vote-splitting, and settled on "Calling Card". Sorry!

Cosign all the love for Destra's "Lucy" ... on a soca tip, can I recommend Fadda Fox's Ducking? Video has the "escape the office for carnival" trope from classics like JW & Blaze's "Palance".

People who love the Susanne Sundfør, maybe check out Carla Morrison - Amor Supremo? Different sonic palette (more Disintegration-era Cure fronted by Julee Cruise/LDR/whatevs), but similar emotional range/vibes.

oh one other thing i meant to campaign for is the four tet remix of eric prydz's "opus" which imo is really perverse

Just realized I forgot to nominate Vybz Kartel's Viking for the albums. It probably wouldn't have charted but I still feel like a complete idiot right now. Easily one of 2015's strongest releases.

RE potential Jazmine Sullivan vote-splitting, I vote we all coalesce around Stanley.

― dc, Monday, January 4, 2016 7:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's the one track I always skip :(

yeah i don't care for that one really. mascara is the one for me.

Mascara would be my pick too but it's clearly an albums' list contender. I'll definitely vote for it.

AKA ft Fifi Cooper, Rouge, Moozlie & Gigi Lamayne - Baddest (Remix)

^^^^^fave discovery from the noms playlist so far

mascara and/or brand new and/or forever doesn't last
but honestly i don't vote for singles on an album that i vote for

Voted. A couple things missing from the Spotify playlists that I think are very worthy of consideration.

Hama - Torodi can be heard in its entirety on Bandcamp.
Algiers - "Blood"

Hama will probably be on my ballot. Songhoy Blues - Music in Exile and Blick Bassy - Akö definitely will. Al-Namrood - Diaji Al Joor is an anonymous middle eastern folk metal band from saudi arabia and The Very Best made a really fun album this year. ok one more the same label that put out Torodi put out a hypnotic album by Fadimoutou Wallet Inamoud that sahelsounds describes as "Isswat recordings from Azawad region of the Sahara desert. Music of nostalgia, longing, and revolutionaries, sung by Fadimoutou Wallet Inamoud in her debut recording, a local production from 2008. Sparse rhythms and hand claps punctuate the meditative hypnosis, accompanied by a the signature vocal drone of her group."

One beautiful thing I found in the end of year lists that I think a lot of people might enjoy is the Nicola Cruz album 'Prender El Alma'. Maybe he's already a big manchego on the balearic thread so I might be telling some of you what you know anyway, but it's something like an Ecuadorian dreamscape of mountains and forest being patiently daubed on a plasterboard wall that's already gently pulsing with the bass from the club next door. There's a lot of folk elements, cumbia rhythms and some echoey Studio-like guitar, all put together in quite a caressing and spacey way. Favourite track atm is Cumbia del Olvido, but the whole thing is on spotify.

What afropop would/might you have voted for?

Yo
ILM's TOP 77 TRACKS of 2015