ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

lol @ j0rdan using the single cover of "born this way" rather than the dreadful album cover

inexplicably, "electric chapel" wound up being my favourite song on a wildly uneven, bloated album. will also rep for "scheiße" and "bloody mary" quite hard. the rest, less so

"judas" is underrated & the sax solo on "edge of glory" is of course classic, but a massive misstep after FAME MONSTER imo

alright last one for today, sorry to dump this on y'all

http://i.imgur.com/7n0fu.jpg

21. Shabazz Palaces — Black Up (502 points, 17 votes)

P4K: 14
P&J: 10

Spotify

Certainly happy to see Colin Stetson up here, even if it didn't grab me enough to make my ballot.

seriously this colin stetson is blowing me away, how is he doing this?

thx j0rd! enjoy your afternoon.

Colin Stetson recording is really interesting. Sax with a ton of mics (I am assuming both contact, close, and room mics) and then mixed to get that rich textural sound. Cool shit.

XP

The Borden/Ferraro/Godin/Halo collab is pretty much a new age synth drone record, it's more akin to the earlier Oneohtrix stuff that was what I fell in love with in the first place. Feels like optimistic kosmiche.

Liked but didn't love Shabazz Palaces, I think it may have fallen off my ballot in the final reckoning.

No overdubs either

"The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man" is my fav from that Stetson record

Colin Stetson is awesome. Great sound on that too.

check some live videos. He looks like he's going to die quite a lot of the time

There's a great Q video of Stetson doing 'Judges' on YT, and another where he shows you how.

Glad I'm not the only one stunned by Colin Stetson!

Huge thanks to everyone who got this onto the countdown.

E-40 yesssssssss

Shabazz Palaces is fantastic. so far pretty much all my favorite hip hop stuff of this year has placed, with the exception of Kool G Rap

xp

here's the cbc clip of him playing "Judges" http://youtu.be/k9YJM2GCvk8

Oh, and lots of circular breathing to get the repeato riffs (all in response to how Colin Stetson made that record)

check some live videos. He looks like he's going to die quite a lot of the time

― Number None, Wednesday, February 1, 2012 9:29 PM (9 seconds ago)

LOL, yeah. Though the dude is hella beefcake, if marines did circular breathing he'd be in the special corps.

psyched to see shabazz palaces, though i knew it would do well. another of my top 10 and totally worth seeing live. beautiful design job on the LP, too.

Yeah, the Stetson is p. cool. Only heard it in December (I think Nabisco enthused about it somewhere), but I can imagine that it could've made my list if I'd spent more time with it.

No overdubs either

― grandavis, Wednesday, February 1, 2012 3:29 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok no fucking way, for serious?

All sounds due to mic placement and extended techniques (i.e, all live)

so many things on this list are stuff that i dutifully checked out at the time and never clicked with me - shabazz palaces is very admirable i guess but i just never wanted to listen to it? i don't think any of my more obscure choices are gonna place aside from dawn richard :(

colin stetson sounds interesting though

watch that youtube clip - fucking incredible stuff

saw stetson play at ATP in the fall. the guy is mesmerizing

ok yeah i was afraid this would be gimmicky but i'm sold

Lex you would love the Colin Stetson album I think, it's kind of an astonishing record. I had been expecting jazz when I listened to it but it's like... imagine if Carl Craig played a 100+ year old bass sax. And I'm not shitting you, it actually sounds like Carl Craig.

Don't know much about these things but I have no idea how he managed to wring some of those sounds out of his instrument, especially so many of them at the same time. Fully deserves the hype.

This is what I wrote on Stetson after hearing Judges:

The first time I heard Colin Stetson he was the opening act for Godspeed You! Black Emperor and it was absolutely mind-blowing. Some of us mistook him as a sound engineer and were caught completely by surprise when he started playing. One by one we fell into a silent trance as he created out of thin air the most magnificent, heartbroken beasts I’ve ever heard from a one man band. Recorded in one take with no overdubs, Judges captures the thrill of hearing him live with precision. Not only is the record technically impressive and conceptually novel but also highly compelling at a musical level. Inspired by post-rock and electronic pioneers, Stetson favors sonic aesthetics over experimentation, every deviation sounding calculated enough as to not scare the feeble away but smart enough to hook the most demanding listeners.

i'd be interested if it was jazz! i'm d/lding it now

You can tell he worked on it for a long time, it's not free jazz or just strange sounds, he tries to make it really musical and expressive, though it's still solo sax, so it has limits.

He kind of sounds like the Caspar Brotzmann of the bass sax.

Check out this bit of Colin describing how he makes "Judges":

http://youtu.be/UejNbSrJIuA

Also a bit let down Shabazz Palaces didn't place higher. I was expecting it to place top 10. Had the idea many people in here loved it.

currently i'm relistening to julia holter and it's kind of enjoyably odd but i cannot get a handle on it or find an entry point into it at all

The Stetson isn't a scary record, the 'not experimental, more sonic aesthetic' is a good shout, sometimes on listening to it as a whole I've thought it might be slightly too tasteful.

Yeah it's very accessible, it's no scary skronkfest.

ok this colin stetson album is pretty great. i'm getting heavy 'world of echo' vibes.

I didn't really get into Shabazz Palaces either :/

As to how is Colin Stetson doing it:

Lots of technique. He learnt circular breathing and applies it to the instrument, there's also mics all over his saxophone and he also uses his throat and hands to add up to the sounds.

He kind of sounds like the Caspar Brotzmann of the bass sax.

well, he certainly isn't peter

currently i'm relistening to julia holter and it's kind of enjoyably odd but i cannot get a handle on it or find an entry point into it at all

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Wednesday, February 1, 2012 9:39 PM (16 seconds ago)

That's part of what I LOVE about it, I can't tie it in with anything fully, on one part it feels akin to Laurie Anderson or Meredith Monk in terms of artiness and pitch, on another side I see people calling it chillwave or comparing to Zola Jesus. None of these nail it.

so far Colin Stetson is like if Arthur Russell and Philip Glass had a baby and he learned saxophone

yeah totally, + a little bit of that guy.. james blackshaw

yeah, the no overdubs thing is crazy--i had no idea! need to listen to that again

oh, "world of echoes" is a brilliant point of reference

That's part of what I LOVE about it, I can't tie it in with anything fully, on one part it feels akin to Laurie Anderson or Meredith Monk in terms of artiness and pitch, on another side I see people calling it chillwave or comparing to Zola Jesus. None of these nail it.

it's not that - it's that i'm not hearing anything that hooks me in and makes me want to listen again, i'm hearing a lot of pleasant sounds in a strange order but nothing compelling or moreish

oh god these arthur russell mentions just made me remember that all my arthur russell music died with the hard drive. all of it. gone.

stetson does not click with me, do you love him because of his skills and physical feats as a sax player ("circus freak aspect") or because of the music he makes? it is astonishing what he gets out of the instrument but this kind of thing has been done by roland kirk and free jazzers like "i forgot his name", i think the album was called "sound" before. the tones stetson produces go in circles, it is almost like listening to someone breathing loudly. not really thrilling.