ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

re: peaking lights i think contenderizer arguing their previous material is better is way off the money.

oh, hey, i'm not saying that the early stuff is better. lots of folks seem to sincerely love 936, so it's obviously working. i just dug the noise set off the hooks in the older, more legitimately lofi stuff. personal preference, nothing to do with quality.

plus i often have a had time adapting to changes in a beloved artist's sound in real time. usually takes me a year or two to get with the program.

thx for the jaar list, lex

i never listen to it but whenever i do listen to jaar, i think, hmm, this is very clever & creative

12. EMA — Past Life Martyred Saints (590 points, 18 votes, two first place votes)

love this record, especially the first half (side, lol). clarke b sneering at "hip poet shit" offtfm. sure, that's in there, but she does a wonderful job of communicating history and emotional perspective, both in her language and in her music. she wrings a hell of a lot of depth and specificity out of materials that initially seem quite abstract and distanced. my favorite storytelling album of the year (though again, that's mostly limited to side 1).

No one cares but

20. Bon Iver: voted for!
19: Peaking Lights: never heard of
18: Nicolas Jaar: listened to once months ago
17: M83: voted for!
16: Boy Better Know: never heard of (vaguely recall seeing the ILM thread, but never clicked on it)
15: Rustie: never heard of
14: Kurt Vile: heard of, never actually listened
13: Julianna Barwick: have heard some of her stuff, don't recall if it was this album or another
12: EMA: listened to once recently
11: Tim Hecker: like Harmony in Ultraviolet but haven't heard anything else by him

i never listen to it but whenever i do listen to jaar, i think, hmm, this is very clever & creative

― #YOLO #NAMASTE (D-40), Thursday, February 2, 2012 2:03 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"the eighth most interesting house producer in the world"

Oh, yay, Hecker. I was starting to think it wouldn't make it.

'Prizewinning' is lovely, sonically, if a little new age? Will have to listen to more of the album to get more of a feel if it does anything else (I know, it's ambient, I'm missing the point, but... I'd like it if she tried a few other things along with it).

And HOLY SHIT LEX, that Ayshay track is gorgeous. I love it I love it.

there's also a big list of jaar singles in the OP of his ilm thread

Nicolas Jaar: I was a Teenage Villalobos

that whole ayshay release on tri-angle is beautiful

einh

jaymc, you just might like rustie?

fwiw the rustie thread was Rustie - Glass Swords

xps finally an emil.y/lex mindmeld! i fully recommend the warn-u ep, which is all based around that same concept. i also love her genre-specific xperience ep (as fatima al qadiri) - not the same at all though, more her takes on hip-hop, electro-tropicalia, dubstep, juke etc

"surph" off that rustie is really great

http://i.imgur.com/vrTEY.jpg

10. tUnE-yArDs — w h o k i l l (666 points, 20 votes, two first place votes)

P4K: 7
P&J: 1

Spotify

xp
the videos from Genre-Specific are pretty amazing/creepy/haunting

666

the devil's music

love this record, especially the first half (side, lol). clarke b sneering at "hip poet shit" offtfm. sure, that's in there, but she does a wonderful job of communicating history and emotional perspective, both in her language and in her music. she wrings a hell of a lot of depth and specificity out of materials that initially seem quite abstract and distanced. my favorite storytelling album of the year (though again, that's mostly limited to side 1).

I just have a really low threshold of tolerance for such intense emotional expression in songwriter-driven music, I think. It chafes...

I like the Ayshay EP on Tri-Angle, and to tie it to an earlier ranked record, the Nguzunguzu "master mix" that takes up the entirety of side B is sick!

Glad Hecker made it. Seeing him play an organ concert next Monday, looking forward to it a lot. His other album last year (Dropped Pianos, the demos for this) is also great.

jaymc, you just might like rustie?

OK, I'm a minute into "Surph," and this is indeed pretty awesome.

fyi: fatima al qadiri ILM edition, (+ ayshay)

i think you might also like peaking lights btw\
xpost to jaymc

i fully recommend the warn-u ep, which is all based around that same concept. i also love her genre-specific xperience ep (as fatima al qadiri) - not the same at all though, more her takes on hip-hop, electro-tropicalia, dubstep, juke etc

Cool! I'd seen the name Fatima Al Qadiri around, but not looked at the thread properly. Will definitely check it out. Right now I'm gonna go listen to 'Warn-U' again.

ha.

i really like the whole rustie record but 'after light' is the cut.

i think you might also like peaking lights btw\

I actually just listened to the album on Grooveshark (the reference to Stereolab piqued my interest). It was v. pleasant but didn't excite me all that much. Possibly a grower, though.

fwiw, 936 was definitely a warmer weather album for me, particularly loved it while driving from Chicago to Oregon in August

the videos from Genre-Specific are pretty amazing/creepy/haunting

the vatican vibes one is pretty witty too - catholicism as video game! with rules and levels and obscure references to eg epiclesis!

i just listened to when saints go machine for the first time and it was not what i expected. for some reason i thought it was noisier, and it sounds like straight-up synth pop.

why do ppl take the time to type out tUnE-yArDs correctly but write w h o k i l l in lowercase even though its obv uppercase on the cover?

n o i d e a .

http://i.imgur.com/Nkw0p.jpg

9. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats — Blood Lust (696 points, 19 votes, two first place votes

P4K: DNP
P&J: 408

really getting into nicolas jaar. unlike most here, i think i prefer the more abstract sound of SION to the more dance-oriented stuff.

woop woop! Didn't vote for this but so happy it made it!

just heard some of this for the first time last night. pretty cool

Kinda disappointed Genre-Specific Xperience didn't place. It felt like it was gathering steam around here around the time of voting and I expected it to make the countdown.

I voted for FAQ in tracks fwiw.

yaaaaay the metal threads pet album

DRUGS B RIGHTY

Cool that Unk Acid made the top ten.

wtf is uncle acid & the deadbeats?!?!

Kinda disappointed Genre-Specific Xperience didn't place. It felt like it was gathering steam around here around the time of voting and I expected it to make the countdown.

ehhh, i voted for it but EPs are always gonna have a tough time stacked up against full length albums :(

xps ah. metal. right.

Regarding Tune-Yards, flopson put it so much better than I could ever hope to:

listening to tuneyards i feel like i'm in a room at a party when someone youtube dj's obnoxious dubstep or a guy with acoustic guitar getting too into it. like you politey try to ignore it but inside you're reeling at their painful lack of self-awareness, embarrassed for them.

― flopson, Monday, January 23, 2012 10:35 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thinking about tuneyards i almost convinced myself that i like music thats more poised/restrained but then i realized, like, i love "mother" and early boredoms and other cathartic or ott singing so that must not be it. compared to john lennon tuneyards shounds like she's singing with loud headphones on, like you can acknowledge that its ecstatic but you also don't feel that you should be privy to it, like walking in on someone masturbating vigorously

― flopson, Monday, January 23, 2012 10:44 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Woulda been higher if the reverend hadnt cut it off.

lex its not really metal, its psychedelic poppy heavy rock

ASR you should be grinning right now. I hope you are.

WELL DONE GUYS. Just missed my ballot, but I'm very happy it's here.

(And yep, it's not metal, but it is rock)

those flopson posts were great

holding out slim hope for subrosa and corrupted!

not as much as George, he predicted top 10 at the start!

I've never dipped into Tuneyards that much, kind of sounds like the kind of thing Ponytail did well occasionally.

ehhh, i voted for it but EPs are always gonna have a tough time stacked up against full length albums :(

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, February 2, 2012 11:20 AM Bookmark

I voted for hella EPs including my #1. :(