So we're... blah blah blah... of the way through 2009; what records are worth listening to so far?

MOODY NIGHT MUSIC: The xx, Fever Ray

Do not group these together ever again, it is a false compliment to the former and a huge disservice to the latter.

Both albums have good songs, but enough bad songs to ruin them. They can be grouped together in that respect.

Fuck Buttons is a seriously high new entry in my annual esteem. And Califone.

that thread might be good, i've been sorely unimpressed with a lot of the female singer-songwriter stuff i've heard this decade compared with the artists i grew up on.

― lex pretend, Monday, November 23, 2009 10:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ditto :(

having searched my hard drive for "2009" I'm seeing the following:

more great drone / new new age (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/oct/26/new-wave-new-age) / 'god we LOVE tangerine dream' stuff:
stellar om source, alliance and ocean woman
oneohtrix point never, zones without people
and *especially* infinity window, artificial midnight and skyramps, days of thunder

a++:
fever ray, fever ray
moritz von oswald trio, vertical ascent
william basinski, 92982

also liked:
arthur russell, the sleeping bag sessions
matias aguayo, 14 tracks deep inside matias aguayo and ay ay ay
maudlin of the well, part the second
nomo, invisible cities
oliver huntemann, h-3
redshape, the dance paradox
sunn o))), monoliths & dimensions
vladislav delay, tummaa .. had only half-listened but watching this: http://vimeo.com/7202755 led to a second chance.

releases by a place to bury strangers and the field were disappointments .. failure in both cases to follow up a promising+flawed debut with something really original. the xx album made for a pleasurable quiet-night listen.

reissues:
saint etienne, foxbase alpha (or beta, now?)
the feelies, crazy rhythms (which has prompted lots of welcome looking-back-on i.e. here: http://zonestyxtravelcard.blogspot.com/2009/11/crazy-rhythms.html and I've seen more too)
apparently there are a bunch of radiohead reissues, which I might be interested in.

Is the basinski really worth checking out? I loved disintegration loops

its no disintegration loops but its top-notch ambient.

friend just asked me for a top 5 list, so off the top of my head i said nels cline, jay reatard, god help the girl, gay witch abortion and that grandfather paradox mix. i don't know if that's really my top 5, but it's probably close enough. courtney love and staff benda bilili would easily be in the top 10. i'd have to think about what else.

oh, the lindstrom/prins ii probably.

and maybe electrik red. i get why people like that but ... i dunno. not to be all challopy, but there's something really facile about tricky/dream stuff. i love a lot of their singles, but at album length it tends to squoosh away into the atmosphere for me. it's very pleasant.

.... and nite jewel! not the album so much (probably a top 20 or 30 for me), but the "want you back" EP is a top-10 for sure.

stuff that hasn't been mentioned (or has been little mentioned) that i love a lot:

Woods – Songs of Shame
Woods (as Acoustic Family Creeps) – Play Live In the Woods
Real Estate – Real Estate
The Oh Sees – Help
The Oh Sees – Dog Poison
Various – The World's Lousy With Ideas Vol. VIII
Gun Outfit – Dim Light
Beets – Spit In the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool
Ganglians – Monster Head Room
Tim Cohen – The Two Sides of Tim Cohen
Fresh & Onlys – s/t debut
Jacuzzi Boys – No Seasons
Intelligence – Crepuscule With Pacman
ty seagall - horn the unicorn (expanded lp version)

most on some kinda lo-fi indie/termbo tip, but much more varied and popsmart than the run of that genre. worth a listen, but perhaps only to people with an established interest in "that type of thing". i dunno - it's hard to tell from inside the bubble.

oh, and jeff the brotherhood - heavy days. it's uneven, but the good stuff is more than worth it.

things that have been mentioned & discussed:

Baroness – The Blue Album
Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Fever Ray – Fever Ray
The XX – XX
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - II
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
The Juan Maclean – The Future Will Come
James Blackshaw – The Glass Bead Game
Amadou & Miriam – Welcome to Mali

was prepared to love welcome to mali, because i love the last one, but i never worked up more than mild enthusiasm for it.

not my favorite a&m, but i like it a lot and am a fan, so...

most on some kinda lo-fi indie/termbo tip, but much more varied and popsmart than the run of that genre. worth a listen, but perhaps only to people with an established interest in "that type of thing". i dunno - it's hard to tell from inside the bubble.

― a dimension that can only be accessed through self-immolation (contenderizer), Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:18 PM (37 minutes ago

i like this genre in theory but i couldnt find anything to love this year, i'll have to try some of that stuff out that i haven't already. i couldnt even get into the eat skull, and i loved their last one. though from what i've heard most ppl are with me on that

liked a lot of that stuff this year, but most of it is much less noisy & punkrock than what i've gone for in the past - tending to the psych pop & folky ends of the spectrum (woods, ganglians, etc). some decent punk records out this year (stupid party, audacity, shitty limits), but none i went ape for.

i like the new eat skull more than the last one, but wouldn't call either a favorite. I LOVE the hole class lp, though - demos recorded by rob enbom & tnv's beth murphy in '06 but only "officially" released this year. folky, almost country-ish in places, but still clearly of eat skull/tnv in spirit (and recorder grot). forgot to mention it in the above list, but it's another big favorite.

and have you heard the 1st fresh & onlys lp? if i was gonna rec only 1 thing in this vein, it'd be the f&os. some hippie/twee tolerance required.

think the twee/hippie thing is putting me off, but i'll check out the punkier ones you listed, thanks!

i like ganglians a lot in theory but their songs just never did anything good to me.

k3vin i recommend the ty segall/black time split for the punkier end of things, and also the mantles album for the charming, classic songwriting end of things.

Nearing the end of the year I'm realizing that I still really like that Hatcham Social album a whole lot, and that it's not going to make any best-of-the-year polls because it's completely impossible to remember the band's name! Just found it by slogging through every single artist I've played on Rhapsody.

really? i find their name quite memorable, i think it's a very appealing name.. but yeah i fear it will be ignored. i love FP but they don't have a great track record of breaking bands

mayyors - deads ep = another top-of-the-list favorite that i forgot to include earlier. so great for jumping around and pretending that you are the kind of person who might break things while doing it.

Wow, very fond of God Help The Girl (mentioned above). Had completely avoided it because I've been so sick of B&S lately, and then forgot about it, so I heard it with surprisingly fresh ears when I downloaded it after reading this thread. My only regret is that it's by all the people who it sounds like (Divine Comedy et al) rather than a bunch of unknowns...and that's a stupid thing to regret.

So is The-Dream's Love Vs. Money the consensus number one around here? It has my vote.

I predict (envelope to forehead) Fever Ray will win the year-end poll, The-Dream #2, with Primary Colours, Two Suns, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Embryonic, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, It's Blitz! close behind.

animal collective will win, dream may be top 5

killah priest - elizabeth. monochrome, monotone sounds rrrrrright. runteldat

Just checking out the Horrors album right now. Not sure how I missed that one, must be my general bias against British bands after being let down so, so, so many times by manufactured NME hype. The album sounds great, though—very Chameleons-esque, which is always welcome. I had no idea the album had such a broad following though.

apparently a shitload of people like bitte orca, too:

Bitte Orca vs. Veckatimest

Definitely my pick for album of the year: Un Nuevo Día. Very fresh salsa from a new band led by Puerto Ricans out of Philadelphia. The vocals are probably the heart of the matter here: they are generally very inventive, and many of the tracks have multiple layers of different types of vocals, including rapped vocals (with a guest appearance by Voltio on one track). The instrumentation is also atypical of mainstream salsa with its emphasis on cuatro and acoustic guitar. There is not a bad track on this album. This is a new band, but percussion is handled primarily by veteran Luisito Quintero.

Also the new Tokyo Jihen single is shaping up to be good, especially the B side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqUbRo5quUM

(I think the next Tokyo Jihen album should definitely be better than the solo Shiina Ringo album that came out this past summer, which has already not held up real well for me.)

(And that's not the B-side. I can't find a copy at the moment. The B-side is more of a quasi-chaotic art rock sort of thing.)

here are my 20 favorite releases by artists that haven't been mentioned on this thread yet:

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Playboy Tre - Liquor Store Mascot
Birds and Arrows - Starmaker
Say Anything - Say Anything
8Ball - Memphis All-Stars: Cars, Clubs & Strip Clubs
The Deleted Scenes - Birdseed Shirt
The Alchemist - Chemical Warfare
They Might Be Giants - Here Comes Science
The Entrance Band - The Entrance Band
Brendan Benson - My Old, Familiar Friend
Young Jeezy - Trappin' Ain't Dead
Superchunk - Leaves In The Gutter EP
The Mean - Meet Us Here
The Disciplines - Smoking Kills
Daniel Francis Doyle - We Bet Our Money On You
Rhymefest & Scram Jones - The Manual
Alex Cline - Continuous
The Bird And The Bee - Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
OOIOO - Armonico Hewa
Camp Lo - Stone And Rob Caught On Tape

jarvis is in my top 25 and i really dig alchemist and that superchunk ep too. playboy tre is a very good rapper who i find to be kind of annoying personally

yeah he's kind of tasteful but corny, some good stuff but every time i listen to it i bump it down a couple spots

i really liked blue collar but haven't listened to it since it came out-how's that new rhymefest?

the 8ball and alchemist records made my album list

Helado Negro's "Awe Owe" was a surprising favorite album of the year for me. Hypnotic surreal electronic folk with Spanish language vocals. The only review of this I've seen has been in The Wire.

I'd add Sunn0))) and -- maaaaaybe -- Isis to my picks.

I have like 40 more records to review for twitter. Here's a lost of stuff that's been recommended to me by friends and various critic/mag/blog year end lists... Can you guys tell me if any of this is worth my time?

Obscura - Cosmogenesis
Vulture Whale, Vulture Whale
Emmy the Great, First Love
Shilpa Ray, A Fish Hook an Open Eye
Peaches"I Feel Cream";
Lissy Trullie "Self-Taught Learner";
Band of Skulls "Baby Darling Doll Face Honey";
Del Marquis “Runaround”
Kate Miller-Heidke “Curioser”
Erin McCarley “Love, Save The Empty”
The Arch Cupcake “Box of Bees”
The Leisure Society - The Sleeper and Product
Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
Sharon Van Etten - Because I Was In Love
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns
Bloody Mary, Black Pearl (Contexterrior)
The Glimmers Present Disko Drunkards (Glimmer Twins)
Italoboyz, Bla Bla Bla (Mothership)
10-20, 10-20 (Highpoint Lowlife)
The Sandwitches - ambient sadcake
Susan Boyle
British Sea Power - Man Of Aran
Soap & Skin - Lovetune For Vacuum
Dinky - Anemik
Dr. Dunks - How We Do In NYC
Brock Van Wey - White Clouds Drift On And On
Louderbach - Autumn
Prins Thomas - Live at Robert Johnson
Martyn - Great Lengths
Master Musicians of Bukkake -– Totem One
Black Sun - Twilight of the Gods
Dÿse - Lieder Sind Brüder Der Revolution
Dokaka – Human Interface
Vom –– Primitive Arts
Steve Earle - Townes
Sarah Jarosz - Song Up In Her Head
Iron And Wine - something
Mt. St. Helens - Vietnam
The Legends - Over And Over
Brandi Carlile - Give Up The Ghost
Joe Bonamassa - Ballad Of Joe Henrey
Willie Nelson - Lost Highway
Jack Rose & the Black Twigs - 
s/t

don't know most of those but you definitely must tweet susan boyle

a friend of mine has been saying really great things about rural alberta advantage lately. i haven't checked them out yet but he's generally got good taste wrt things in that vein.

Vulture Whale record is a fun record.

i didn't make it through all of 'how to make ambient sadcake' but the first song is lots of fun.

these are all ace, to varying degrees (and grouped together in your list, handily):

Master Musicians of Bukkake -– Totem One
Black Sun - Twilight of the Gods
Dÿse - Lieder Sind Brüder Der Revolution
Dokaka – Human Interface
Vom – Primitive Arts

well, i got those 5 from YOUR year end list actually, m to the g, since you like a lot of the same avant-metal stuff--but haven't had time to explore which are cool art-fuck stuff i'd like and which are boring noodley prog crap I'd hate.

I checked out Umlaut on your recommendation and was like *barf*, so i'm erring on the side of caution

that explains it.

well, those are all very different from umlaut - and from each other, for that matter. the dokaka is the weakest of the bunch, tbh, but is fun nonetheless.