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

damn you bbcode!

yeah, dude, i was NEVER a big fan of 90s Portishead and Third blew my brain open. It's their best album by a country mile

I'm a have to third this opinion--the last Portishead record is their best record (and the new Beak> album is pretty good, too, as was that Anika disc)...

third is easily the worst portishead album (it's ok though)

^ all the evidence you need to determine it's amazing.

I can imagine liking the third Portishead album but not the first (and the first album but not the third) but it would seem odd to me to feel very differently about the second and third.

Portishead's good 90s tracks come from the second album, definitely.

it would seem odd to me to feel very differently about the second and third.

why would it seem odd? they're very different albums with very different aesthetics over a decade apart.

the second is my favourite portishead album, i love the first two, i admire the third but i never got beyond admire into love - it kind of stayed at this level of forbidding that meant i never really wanted to listen to it

I thought I hated Portishead until Third (although "Over" is grate)

Beak> is my Geoff Barrow-related record to date. I'm kind of tired of people as describing "kraut" as something dated or used-up, to my ears it's a living, breathing genre that has unfortunately been tied to a time and place

Also it should be noted that Geoff Barrow is a member of Beak> but he is not the primary creative force i.e songwriter

I can imagine liking the third Portishead album but not the first (and the first album but not the third) but it would seem odd to me to feel very differently about the second and third.--G.E. Moore.

Odd, really? Beth changed up her melody style 100% on Third. Also Silver Apples fixation [plus] silence and emptiness [minus] spy soundtrack groovieness [plus] English girl losing her mind [minus] MPC [plus] EMS

Third is by far my favourite Portishead album, it's perfect. I think they got better with each album, can't wait for the next one.

I wish I knew how incredible Portishead would be in the '00s before they scheduled that ATP they curated

Yep whiney I like third, I like beak too, I bought third on vinyl but the first shipment was warped but the store let me return it

I just thought go hard or go home was funny, but you were just schticking anyway I know

I dunno, i know its schticky, but i kind of do feel like its 2012 and life is hectic (cash rules) and there's no time to be making or listening to soft shit.

Beak> isn't like Cattle Decap or nuthin but it's moody and gloomy and nauseous and abrasive and weird

I agree with that

I like your list. That pallbearer is way better than baroness though.....what is white suns?

Future is interesting to read about, didn't really strike me that much though

White Suns is a noize band who kind of mixes AmRep noise-metal with void-gazing feedback drones in fits and starts

go hard or go home imo

lol you can't have it both ways, either you go hard or you put baroness in your #1 spot

it would seem odd to me to feel very differently about the second and third.

why would it seem odd? they're very different albums with very different aesthetics over a decade apart.

― bitch I'm on the 242 (lex pretend), Saturday, July 21, 2012 9:41 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was thinking more that I would expect people who love Third for its forbidding darkness to find that Portishead already anticipated a lot of that vibe, albeit not nearly as dramatically - esp. on "Cowboys", "Half Day Closing", "Elysium", etc. It seems odd to me that people could hate or dismiss it and then go on to love the next one.

It's my favourite as well.

the third isn't so stylebound.

My prob with 90s Portishead is I can't stand Beth when she tries to sing "jazzy". Thankfully, by Third she had cut that out.

I dunno, i know its schticky, but i kind of do feel like its 2012 and life is hectic (cash rules) and there's no time to be making or listening to soft shit.

― camp lo magellan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, July 21, 2012 9:52 AM (2 hours ago)

aero otm. i love that baroness album, but it's about as hard as a toasted marshmallow. it's like a comforter made out of chest hair. camping trips...

and portishead hasn't made a bad album

contendo OTM, all three Portishead albums are fantastic

I also agree with Tim in that I don't get how anyone couldn't see the roots of Third in Portishead

Agree that all three Portishead albums are great. I'd also add the Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man is rather brilliant too.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm loving Robag Wruhme's Thora Vukk lately

Okay, then--

Sa Dingding - The Coming Ones

Album of the year so far. Hairy warts and all.

just listened to a single off that sa dingding album. not sure i get it, entirely, but it's not like most things. doesn't really take off until 1:03...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQSM1qwNI3U

at first blush,Frank Ooean's channel ORANGE seems mostly undone by flaccid vocals, 'til the second half of long-ass "Pyramids" and tracks 14-17, which as an EP would make a pretty good Prince homage. Fave so far is "Bad Religion," "Any religion that gets you on your knees is a bad religion/Unrequited love is a one-man cult/Lookin' inside a styroofoam cup," or something close to that. Anyway, too true!

The Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellan--maybe I was softened up for this by their Pitchfork Festival set, live on YouTube--the best PF set I saw on there and I saw most of 'em. But even though it was my fave, took me a while to get into that performance, just like all the others (vocal mix was a little off for that whole Webcast, seemed like). The album got me by the elbow right away, marching me up a swaying, strangely flexible path, but a groove, nonetheless--all sorts of zigzags, complicated as it has to be, but with plenty of immediate gratification, sloshing purple post-soul-chamber-rock, with daisy chains and field trips and school play backdrops--anyway, hope Frank Ocean checks it out, speaking of "keepin' it surreal," eh Frank. Novelty at worst, and while I once thought they might accrue Talking Heads cred without Talking Heads hits, now I'm not so sure they won't end up with both.

Also might be influenced by listening to it on wav files, but they're no better than CD (are they?)

no, and they could be worse

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3556865/Why-Sa-Dingding-has-China-in-her-hand.html

Sorry, somehow read that date as 2012 at first, not that it matters so much.

Hospitality - Hospitality

Ohmigod - this rules.

I've still only heard a couple of these Hospitality songs. It's a little interesting how it's got a jangly indie sound but it keeps doing these things (harmonically? someone with music theory please explain what I'm hearing in terms I won't understand) that are atypical of what I think of as indie rock (for what my narrow idea is worth). Like it might be more prog. sorts of turns in the music. I'm not crazy about the vocals, but maybe I could live with them. Also reminds me a bit of Company of Thieves in overall approach. (o. nate, have you heard them? I think you'd probably like them, though I don't know your taste that well. I'm still not completely sold on them--mostly based on vocal issues as usual, but most of the time they sound pretty good.)

I haven't heard Company of Thieves before, but I'm listening to them now on Spotify. I think I might like them, but I've got to listen some more. I think I know what you mean about Hospitality. Their songs are for the most part catchy jangle-pop in the vein of e.g., The Sundays or Thao and The Get Down Stay Down, but there are a couple of quasi-proggy left turns as well. My first guess was to attribute them to the presence of Nathan Michel on drums - if you've ever listened to his solo stuff it's full of that kind of proggy music-nerd playfulness - but I'm not really sure he's responsible for them. I like the Hospitality singer's voice, faux-English accent and all.

I don't know of Nathan Michel. Based on the live Company of Thieves I've heard, I think they might actually be better live, but I'm still getting familiar. This session has a lot of good material, if you can get past the annoying host (and there is lots of chatter otherwise):

http://audiotree.tv/session/company-of-thieves/

Or this actually live (meaning non-studio live) clip which I think is pretty good. I think their album from last year is uneven. Maybe there isn't enough differentiation between songs? I'm not sure. And I still need to listen to the first one more before commenting.

Whoa. Didn't even know about this show in general, and there they are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tlwbL0t3A&playnext=1&list=PLACEDA0E1CE8E955B&feature=results_main

I have never heard the Crutchfield sisters who are involved in 2 of Jon Caramanica of the NY Times fave indie-rock albums of the year (I have also not noticed anyone repping for them here, but maybe I mised the thread)

They’re 23 now, these twins, and even though the Ackleys are just a memory, the Crutchfields have continued, forming one band after the next, building a series of cult followings and arriving at the present moment with gale force. Separately they’ve made two of the year’s best and most affecting indie rock albums: “American Weekend” (Don Giovanni), by Waxahatchee, Katie’s solo project, which was released in January, and the self-titled debut album (on Salinas) by Allison’s band Swearin’, which was released in June.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/arts/music/allison-and-katie-crutchfield-twins-go-separate-ways.html?_r=1&ref=arts

I;ll have to check those out, Don Giovanni's releases are often to my taste (especially Screaming Females), and so far most of my faves this year are females: Fiona Apple, Bonnie Raitt, Patti Smith (despite sev xpost noted duds), and now I'm initially infatuated w Cat Power's Sun. Much more vigorous than expected, a post-break-up album as one-woman synth-pop combo (thought she had Jim White back on the drums, but it's her, damn). Most tracks seem similiar, but with good detail in arrangements sustaining alertness, and the last three tracks go in diff directions, zig-zag-zack, I guess Yaz might be a precedent, but she's never gonna be a big rich belter, just veering and glancing, no longer the waif though. Streaming here for a little while longer:
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/26/159919016/first-listen-cat-power-sun?ps=mh_fl

Female voices and what they sing also add a lot to xpost Dirty P.'s Swing Lo Magellan.

And don't forget the prev noted Neneh Cherry & The Thing's The Cherry Thing!

good call on the crutchfield albums - i hadn't heard them yet but (at least Waxahatchee) so far pretty

i'm loving the new cat power too.

dow, have u seen this thread? Songs Are Like Tattoos: Female Singer-Songwriter Rolling Thread

Hadn't seen that, thanks! I notice First Aid Kit on there, NPR's posted their set from this summer's Newport Folk.