Rolling "favorite music of 2012 so far" thread (albums and/or tracks edition)

escort was 2011... bit disappointing though I thought

Alcest - Les voyages de l'ame
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Christian Mistress - Possession

Albums

Chairlift - Something
Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny - "Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose"
Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

Singles

Wonder Girls - The DJ is Mine
Lianne La Havas - Forget
DJ Raff - Digital Rain (En el Desierto)

album: Mikhail, Xenofonia (Sub Rosa)

Oh yes, Matt Elliott's is great also.

albums:

fun.: some nights
john talabot: fin
young thug: i came from nothing 2
tim berne: snakeoil
rick ross: rich forever
lil b: white flame

tracks:
todd terje: inspector norse
taylor swift feat. the civil wars: safe & sound
sleigh bells: comeback kid
chief keef: 3hunna (thanks deej)
chairlift: i belong in your arms

albums :

john talabot - fin
todd terje - it's the arps
schoolboy q - habits & contradictions
young thug - i came from nothing 2
ilyas ahmed - with endless fire

Imperial Teen - Feel The Sound
Leonard Cohen - Old Ways
Rick Ross - Rich Forever
Kellie Pickler - 100 Proof
Burial - Kindred
Lambchop - Mr M

top 10 albums so far:

Dev – The Night The Sun Came Up (Universal Republic)
Christian Mistress – Possession (Relapse)
The Devil’s Blood – The Thousandfold Epicentre (Metal Blade)
El Doom & The Born Electric – El Doom & The Born Electric (Rune Grammofon)
Bhiman – Bhiman (Boocoo Music)
Tim Berne – Snakeoil (ECM)
Elfin Saddle – Devastates (Constellation)
Bushman’s Revenge – A Little Bit Of Big Bonanza (Rune Grammofon)
Kenny Garrett – Seeds From The Underground (Mack Avenue)
Mark Stewart – The Politics Of Envy (Future Noise Music Inc.)

fave things thus far - woollen kits s/t, harry howard & the nde 'near death experience', caveman 'coco beware', porcelain raft 'strange weekend', radar eyes s/t, diagrams 'black light', tennis 'young & old'. casiokids album is not bad but it hasn't completely grown on me yet.

yet to hear the beth jeans houghton lp in full but the singles have been ace

Tim McGraw, <i>Emotional Traffic</i>

"Touchdown Jesus" is sooooo bad.

"The One That Got Away" is so good though.

it's funny, i never heard "The One That Got Away" bc it comes right after "Touchdown Jesus" and it was so bad i turned off the album at that point

Touchdown Jesus? Boo Radleys cover or coincidence title?

Touchdown Jesus is a real thing at Notre Dame University, so it's probably coincidence.

http://www.dreamstime.com/touchdown-jesus-thumb2866408.jpg

Albums I've discovered this week:

Tenniscoats - Papa's Ear
Eyvind Kang - The Narrow Garden
Dirty Three - Towards the Low Sun
Julia Holter - Ekstasis

No new albums I like yet, but a couple more tracks (will it be one of those years?):

Heartless Bastards - "Parted Ways"
Saint Etienne - "Tonight"

albums/eps, even though i haven't really discovered any i absolutely love this year:

Audio Doughnuts comp
Lotic
Escort
Schoolboy Q
Ka

traxks (love these a lot):

Miguel, "Adorn"
Dawn Richard, "Change" & "Black Lipstick"
Zebra Katz f/ Njena Reddd Foxxx, "Ima Read" (+ MikeQ & B. Ames remix)
Nicki Minaj, "Stupid Hoe" (+ Ben Aqua remix)
8ball & MJG f/ Big Krit, "We Buy Gold"
Brianna Perry, "Marilyn Monroe"

princeton 'remembrance of things to come'

Kellie Pickler - 100 Proof
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
Imperial Teen - Feel The Sound
Burial - Kindred
Sinead O'Connor - How Bout I Be Me...
Lambchop - Mr. M

just discovered

Usher, "Climax"

late to the party - but this is fucking awesome

Yeh, already feeling liked underrated this over at the jukebox.

oh man, seandalai, that tenniscoats album is incredible

i love how Saya's voice constantly shifts + flickers between like traditional vox affect and naturalistic body affect - like she'll be singing so sadly and then her voice will just break for a second, like it's too much of a strain to keep up the musical pretense and she has to respond with more authentic sentiment. gorgeous.

ALBUM
Tennis Bafra - Abulia Jubilee ← Sounds almost identical to Sonic Youth in ways that should be criminal, right down to the singer's Thurston Moore impression, but I'm loving it anyway.

Matthew Shipp Trio - Elastic Aspects

(Contemporary chamber jazz.)

(Because I get tired of long lists on threads of this sort that leave me with no idea--or a wrong idea--of what genres the artists in question record.)

Field Music - Plumb
35 minutes, 15 songs, a little bit of postpunk groove, a little bit of post-McCartney melody, a little bit of post-prog instrumentation, and a whole lot of really gorgeous songs and smart lyrics. My favourite record this year so far.

Zieti- Zemelawa(Grigri Discs)

(Ivory Coast/American afropop--Singer and singer/rhythm guitarist from the Ivory Coast lay down tracks and then an American guitarist, drummer and others add more on top---retro guitar and modern vocal melodies)

The Narrow Garden - Eyvind Kang
Voices From The Lake - s/t
Henge Beat - Total Control
Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads - Dustin Wong
Escort - s/t
Man With Potential - Pete Swanson
Break It Yourself - Andrew Bird
Glimmer - Jacaszek

I actually love that Zieti album! xp

a little bit of post-McCartney melody

I'm genuinely not trying to pick apart your description of Field Music, but could you explain what is meant by "post-" McCartney?

you know that kathleen edwards newie grows on you after a while
give it a few spins and you are in her moment
i likey

cosign. not as good as asking for flowers but solid work.

albums:

lapalux, when you're gone
heems, nehru jackets
shlohmo, vacation ep
shigeto, lineage
matthewdavid, jewelry ep
dva, pretty ugly
lamin fofana, dubious prety

tracks:

grimes, 'oblivion'
usher, 'climax'
kwes, 'bashful'

it took me like five minutes to work out that Asking for Flowers is the name of an album and not an action you were describing xp

do ppl actually like grimes or is it just the album de jour for those in the know? cause i listened to it and bo-oring.

Yeah, Grimes is definitely in my comfort zone, but what she does is done better by a lot of other people.

speaking on behalf of those in the know, we don't actually like grimes, we're just pretending. thank you for your question.

yeah I can't wait for everyone to stop talking about Grimes because its getting so frustrating pretending to like it when it plays

on the real i haven't gotten around to listening to the record much as a whole, but i've listened to Oblivion many, many times because it is an A+ pop song.

cosign that. I couldn't get into the album but "Oblivion" is very nice

do ppl actually like grimes or is it just the album de jour for those in the know?

I don't even understand what this means?

its his wording for that age old straw abt "no one really likes this, they just pretend to so they can seem hip"

Ah.

It's such an odd notion, really.

Oh please. Probably all taste is about pretending/signaling. It's only weird bc it suggests that there's any music that doesn't fit that criteria.

Probably all taste is about pretending/signaling.

Yes. But pretending/signaling is not something you do instead of enjoying. Enthusing about something just takes too much energy if you don't really feel it, even for those in the know.

I tend to think that a truly "pretend" response is more likely to be an expression of cautious approval or disapproval of something you haven't really listened to enough to have a fully fledged opinion on. That's when yr most vulnerable to the infection and spreading of social signals without any meaningful personal response.

Even, say, an example of Lex moving from ambivalence to outright dislike of Grimes - which I think even he would say is largely motivated by his irritation at her critical popularity vis a vis other acts he considers similar and more deserving - is a "genuine" response, in that I'm sure when he listens to her now he feels that irritation and dislike viscerally, the external social factors permeate the experience of the music until they cannot be disentangled.

For people on ILM at least, I assume there is so much music that they *do* enjoy listening to/thinking about that there's no reason to spend time on something just to keep up appearances.

tbh I'm not sure I enjoyed much new music this year. Have been struggling putting together faves. Is this just me?

I feel the same. There's plenty of things I liked, but no real stand-outs. There's always somebody in this position every year but it's a first for me that I'm actually the guy.

2012 was a good year for my wheelhouse, i feel like i found more to love this year than in the last few.

Mostly the disappointment comes from fact that there were no real movements this year... everything felt like an extension of something we had last year. Chillwave is exhausted (or was), Crystal Castle's latest feels like B-sides to their last record, Cat Power went route of adult friendly listening experience. Key exception would be Grimes, who didn't entirely change up her sound from last albums but definitely made her most declarative record this year. Those are the scenes I follow, anyway.

the album that i think is gonna top an awful lot of lists, kendrick lamar's, felt more a 90s revisitation than anything. everything this year was too overtly comfortable, less influenced by past eras and more happy homage. i'm a bit needling w/ this opinion tho, as i've yet to make a clear sum-up of everything i've listened to this year. wish spotify had a feature for every album listened to.

I didn't have any trouble finding music I liked this year, but I wasn't looking for it as much. I feel like when it comes time to round everything up, I'm going to be at more of a disadvantage than usual. Lots of "oh, I've heard of that, but haven't actually listened to it" and the like.

Just added Zombie Zombie - Rituels d'un nouveau monde to my best of 2012 playlist

I will say that the best thing Grimes was involved with this year wasn't her own album, but the "Phone Sex" single by Blood Diamonds on 4AD.

Grimes is such ridiculous DJP bait and yet I really, really could not get into that album at all

There's always somebody in this position every year but it's a first for me that I'm actually the guy.

Yup, immediately the same after my post. Ah well, I'm sure once I get a list together I'll feel different about things.

I feel good about this year, lots of albums and tracks I'll come back to. Big-picture-wise idk, but "scenes" and "movements" have never really played a central role in how I engage with music.

same, demanding scenes to be perpetually revolutionising music just seems to be setting oneself up for disappointment. like, demanding a certain thing to happen when that's mostly not how music works. i guess that's what leads to the kind of old person mindset that none of this new stuff is as good as music used to be, it's all corporate and beige and plastic now &c &c

i listened to grimes once and was "well ok" and then i put it away for awhile, came back to it and loved it.

my favorite release is unsurprising, 'words and music by saint etienne'. also not particularly revolutionary.

same, demanding scenes to be perpetually revolutionising music just seems to be setting oneself up for disappointment. like, demanding a certain thing to happen when that's mostly not how music works. i guess that's what leads to the kind of old person mindset that none of this new stuff is as good as music used to be, it's all corporate and beige and plastic now &c &c

well no, what leads to the kind of old person mindset you're talking about is being around long enough to watch kids regurgitate variants of shit you've been listening to for 15-20 years as if it was new, amazing revolutionary music no one had ever conceived of before

need to revisit 'ghosts' by monolake. probably going to feel best about emeralds, majeure, steve hauschildt, wild nothing, swans, holy other, donald fagen, DIIV, chelsea wolfe, allo darlin, julia holter, john talabot, tindersticks, at the end of the year.

also: alcest

feel like the julia holter is the wild card on my list, like something better could bump it off. i enjoy several of the songs but don't know if i have the patience for it as a full album.

well no, what leads to the kind of old person mindset you're talking about is being around long enough to watch kids regurgitate variants of shit you've been listening to for 15-20 years as if it was new, amazing revolutionary music no one had ever conceived of before

Unless they were around in the 60s and 70s, I'd say that most people's experiences of "amazing revolutionary music" are completely personal - music that they had never conceived of before. Once you've been around for a while you have a fair idea of the various directions music can take. The last thing that completely blew my mind and changed the way I listen to music was discovering Arthur Russell in 2004 or 2005 but again that wasn't new, just something I hadn't heard before. So the "old person mindset" I'd talk about is simply having had the opportunity to listen to a lot of different music.

I feel about Holter like DJP feels about the Grimes: should be Sanpaku-bait, but most of it just rubs me the wrong way.

Grimes was real LeRoo bait and I got hooked! I already loved her "Vanessa" single last year and the new album really delivered on my expectations.

Seconding Roc Marciano - Reloaded. Stream is here: http://stereogum.com/1198722/stream-roc-marciano-reloaded/album-stream/

^ solid album

I still haven't gotten around to that but I loved his last album.

Been loving these tracks lately:

Chandeliers - Le Corsage (Feat Emma Yohanan)
Chrome Sparks - All There Is (Feat. Steffaloo)
Evan Voytas - Tomorrow Night We'll Go Anywhere
FLako - Mating Dance
Laetitia Sadier - Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe
Poliça - Wandering Star
Tame Impala - It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
Mesita - XYXY

Sa Dingding's The Coming Ones is now available via Grooveshark:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/The+Coming+Ones/8064053

Listen to it!

also for me: ricardo donoso's excellent "assimilating the shadow" and voices from the lake s/t

I listened to the Chairlift twice through this evening. I've dipped in and out of it all year an enjoyed it on a track by track basis, but blimey if this isn't an outright fab collection of songs. Makes me think of how I'd have liked Eurhythmics to sound like or something.

the donoso is tite

When do we start this for 2k13?

There already is one.

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2013

Thanks!