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

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.

Watched youtubes of the 2 Crutchfield sisters--Waxahatchee is folkier while Swearin' rocks more.

First Aid Kit also provides backing vocals on Ane Brun's "Do You Remember", one of my favorite songs from 2011. The parent album It All Starts With Onewas finally releaseed in the US in May and is a nice alternative to darker Kate Bush.

maybe like

Channel Orange
Armor On
Control System
Mala In Cuba
Art Dealer Chic, Vol. 1-3
Dark York
Nina Kraviz
Devotion
Pluto
Galaxy Garden

and

Adorn
Ima Read
Black Lipstick
Club Rez
Demonstrate
Druggys With Hoes Again
Birthday Cake (Funkystepz Miami Bass Mix)
JD & Coke
Fever
Stimela

albums

human teenager - animal husbandry
hank wood & the hammerheads - go home
grimes - visions
white load - wayne's world iii b/w godfather iv
ty segall & white fence - hair
trust - trst

Whole bunch of stuff I've been liking a lot in no particular order:

White Manna - s/t
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - s/t
Laurel Halo - Quarantine
Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras and the Congos - FRKWYS 9
Julia Holter - Ekstasis
Belbury Poly - The Belbury Tales
Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour
Cooly G - Playin Me
Silent Servant - Negative Fascination
Claro Intelecto - Reform Club
Deepchord - Sommer
V/A - Shangaan Shake
Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang - Eh Yay Sah
Batida - s/t
Paco Sala - Ro-Me-Ro
Gala Drop & Ben Chasny - Broda
Bear In Heaven - I Love You, It's Cool
White Hills - Frying On This Rock
Richard Youngs - Core To The Brave
Mirroring - Foreign Body
Vestals - Forever Falling Toward The Sky
Worm Ouroboros - Come The Thaw
Helm - Impossible Symmetry
Dustin Wong - Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads
Stealing Sheep - Into The Diamond Sun
Echo Lake - Wild Peace

^^^ Good list. What is "Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang - Eh Yay Sah"?

He's a Sierra Leonian ex-pat who plays an electric version of traditional bubu music with a bunch of NYC people (folks from Gang Gang Dance etc). First track on that album is one of the most deliriously infectious things I've heard all year...

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

jason lescalleet - songs about nothing
michael pisaro - fields have ears (6)
skogen - ist gefallen in den schnee
boris hauf sextet - next delusion
ariel pink - mature themes
laurel halo - quarantine
deerhoof - breakup song
house shoes - let it go
ouija boys - NOT funny
en - already gone

faves so far

I last posted here on the vernal equinox, and with the autumnal equinox coming up, I'll append:

2:54 - 2:54 imagine curve with a plodding rhythm section. or garbage.
Ane Brun - It All Starts With One belated American release of remarkable nordic dark art-pop. think k.bush's 9th wave suite
Beach House - Bloom enough said hereabouts. this decade's fleetwood mac, without the internal tensions.
Blondes - Blondes organic sample house for diletantes. like me.
Gazelle Twin - The Entire City Remixed the debut was a ballardian vision of lisa gerrard v. fever ray. this plays with the memorable tracks in a idm/mnml direction
iamamiwhoami - Kin inevitably shadowed by the knife, but it holds up to repeated plays tremendously well
Monolake - Ghosts the most consistantly good downtempo IDM artist. They created Ableton was created to facilitate this
Niki & the Dove - Instinct does not improve upon the EPs. thats ok
School of Seven Bells - Ghostory crafty production serves a lesser batch of songs
Sun Araw, M. Geddes & the Congos - Icon Give Thanks falsetto harmonies make laptop exotica palatable
Yppah - Eighty One if boards of canada made a trip-hop album

That Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang youtube is awesome! Thanks for the tip.

xps this is pretty great

^^^ love this

this would have been a big hit on outloud. :(

:(

Whole thing is up on Spotify cos it's on Luaka Bop and it's all good, but that's definitely my favourite song on it.

Yeah, I was just about to say I'd found it on Spotify. Giving it a spin.

my faves on the Janka are "Eh Mane Ah" and "Rotin"

Not on UK Spotify but the An Letah EP is - "En Mane Ah" is great.

Seandalai try here:
http://open.spotify.com/album/5iKu8TgFH5VR6Z3pVbaINZ

Oh I see...shouldn't have searched for "bubu"

yeah, that was a booboo

Woollen Kits - 'Out Of Whack' (NZ, noisy indie pop/rock) - from s/t album
Actress - 'Ascending' (gentle but euphoric soft techno, great album) - from 'R.I.P.' LP
Jacky Heron - 'Waste Of Time' (cover of Fabulous Stains from new band ft ex-Help She Can't Swim people) from comp LP 'Why Diet When You Can Riot'
The Pheromoans - 'I'm A You Know What' (Deadpan DIY guitar pop with messthetic & 60s garage genes) - from 'Does This Guy Stack Up?' LP on UTR
Tender Trap - 'Step One' (Amelia Fletcher etc goodness) - from new album 'Ten Songs About Girls'
Todd Terje - 'Inspector Norse' (great bright melodic techno, upbeat, for Daft Punk fans maybe) - from 'It's The Arps' EP
Novella - 'Don't Believe Ayn Rand' (post-Veronica Falls, gauzy melodic guitar pop - from s/t EP
Liechtenstein - 'Meantime' (Scando female indiepop, sparse and good) - from 'Fast Forward' LP
Divorce - 'Horseheads' (Brutal m8s) - off new s/t LP on Nightschool
Traxman - 'Footworkin on Air' (fractured beauty twists into skittery frugfest) - off 'Da Mind Of Traxman' LP
Strawberry Whiplash - 'Looking Out For Summer' (classic girl vocal indiepop, clean guitars) - from 'Hits In The Car' album
Hookworms - 'Form & Function' (driving, spacey krautrock from Leeds) - from split 7" w/Kogumaza on Gringo/Faux Discx
Cats on Fire - '1914 and Beyond' (awesome Finndie pop with folkish inflections) - from 'All Blackshirts To Me' LP
Slowcoaches - 'We're So Heavy' (grungish pop on Tye Die Tapes) - from s/t EP
Joanna Gruesome - 'Sweater' (boy/girl vocals, noisepop) - from 'Family Portrait' split 7" on Art Is Hard
Golden Grrrls - 'I Don't Want You Anyway' (Look Blue Go Purple cover)
Orca Team - 'Night Moves' (50s surf post-punk reverb indiepop) - from 'Restraint' LP on HHBTM

nice list

woollen kits are melbourne types, though i can see where the
confusion might lie

Shit, that's true, whoops. That'll teach me for posting to innernets when off sick.

<3 pheromoans

new Raveonettes is fucking great

^ seconded

i kind of forget about them sometimes...like i never think of them as one of the *best* bands...but yesterday i listened to a bunch of them on spotify and they've done a shitload of albums and they are all great, they are so consistently awesome

'Why Diet When You Can Riot'

how is this btw?

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'm also trying to puzzle through why this album has rewarded so many repeated listens. A few possibilities...

- lots of atypical chord progressions. "The Birthday" has a couple i-iv moments but is mostly made up of unexpected turns. "Eighth Avenue" sounds like it's going to be a really twee and crappy I-IV-V borefest but the main progression turns dissonant quickly and the descending chromatics are effective. "Friends of Friends" again is saved by an unexpected but catchy progression.
- dissonant rather than twee transitional notes - quite a few in your face crunchy moments that I like a lot. "Liberal Arts" would be really boring if it weren't for the fact that the singer never gets off the tonic while the guitar progression continues.
- instrumentation - very sensitive use of hard and soft in the backing tracks, lots of different instruments, different guitar tones, acoustic/electric, brass, etc. The percussion is also interesting and varied.
- vocals - she doesn't have the strongest voice but it's very expressive and the dynamics are usually on target. Love the double tracking/yelling in "The Right Profession" to add some edge to one of the more traditional sounding choruses.
- borderline jammy bridges and guitar solos

Nice analysis. The Hospitality album has turned into one of my most listened to of the year so far.

Also, I would mention they have a pretty tight little rhythm section, unusual for this type of indie jangle pop.

Thanks skip. I'd like to give that Hospitality album a few more spins, at least before the oh so important ILM EOY poll comes around. (At this point I would want to distance myself a lot from the Company of Thieves comparison I made. The only big thing they have in common is just that they sometimes do things that are a little sophisticated harmonically/technically.)

If YAMANTAKA//SONIC TITAN - YT//ST [that's how I see it written out officially] can be considered a 2012 release then that is near the top of my list. It was released last year, but reissued this year by a label they just signed to--and I think last year's release might only have been as a download.

(Incidentally, o. nate you might just like that YT//ST. Definitely some nicely done prog things going on there, without it really being straight up prog. rock, although I guess parts of it can pass for prog-metal, which is one way I see them pigeon-holed.)

Still need to listen to Channel Orange. I started it and mostly liked it, but it's not really anything I would normally be in the mood for.

I like Channel Orange more than I thought I would. I'm not usually a big R&B fan tbh, but this creates a mood and atmosphere that puts me more in the mind of something like Stevie Wonder's "Fulfillingness' First Finale" (minus the more upbeat tracks).

I can't believe I haven't even heard Centipede Hz yet

lucky

trying to avoid it myself

Albums

Goat - World Music
Zambri - House of Baasa
Surnatural Orchestra - Pluir
Hafez Modirzadeh - Post-Chromodal Out!
Alio Die - Deconsecrated and Pure
Ramona Falls - Prophet
Harrison Birtwistle - Complete String Quartet (Arditti Quartet)
Niki and the Dove - Instinct
Deerhoof - Breakup Song
Tyme. x Tujiko - GYU
Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
Mouse on Mars - Parastrophics
Quakers - Quakers
Various Artists - Personal Space: Electronic Soul 1974-1984

Tracks

Ab-Soul Ft. Danny Brown & Jhene Aiko - "Terrorist Threats"
Hundred In the Hands - "Keep it Low"
Georgia Anne Muldrow - "Best Love"