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

also add:

Elle Varner - Perfectly Imperfect

I listened to a snippet of that Goat album yesterday - sounds like it could be amazing.

Tracks

Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour part two
Gary War - Pleading For Annihilation
LV(featuring okmalumkoolkat) - DL
Cult Of Youth - Golden Age
Robert Hood - Better Life
Ruby My Dear- Uken
Shifted - Coax
Thee Oh Sees - Hang a Picture

Thee Oh Sees - Hang a Picture

this is a great, great song and still probably two better than it on the album, er, EP

gunplay - 601 & snort is good!

this is a great, great song and still probably two better than it on the album, er, EP

You are right Floods New Light is probably a better track.
It's still an EP with more great songs than the last TY full length album has! Just making the comparison because they get lumped together. FWIW I loved Goodbye Bread.

Yeah "Floods New Light" was one I was thinking of, so was "Lupine Dominus" but then I'm a sucker for that faux-kraut feel.

Various Artists - Personal Space: Electronic Soul 1974-1984

― Cliftonb, Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:37 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tell me about this, please.

ryan hemsworth 'last words' ep

cassegrain & tin man carnal (four tracks)

basic channel acid. ultra warm, repetitive

complete:

sensate focus - 10, 5, 3.33333333333333333 all stunning!
dj sprinkles and mark fell - the complete spiral

tracks:

mosca - accidentally feat robert owens both versions
actress - N.E.W or IWAAD not sure, the club banger? the rest is super boring autechre lite sorry

really want to like the new animal collective but it just won't let me in, its unbearable.

Track:

Zazen Boys - Potato Salad

An entire album of this guys ranting gets to be too much for me, but this is the standout track as far as I can tell. There are some beautiful moments when the rhythms and the timbres lock perfectly and produce something fairly fresh.

1:33 especially.

For those who don't know them, they do a super-tight funky math rock sort of thing.

actress - N.E.W or IWAAD not sure, the club banger? the rest is super boring autechre lite sorry

really want to like the new animal collective but it just won't let me in, its unbearable.

― wolves lacan, Thursday, 20 September 2012 20:50 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought the club banger was The Lord's Graffiti. I absolutely agree with Autechre-lite. R.I.P. is so disappointing compared to Splaszh. The latter sounded so fresh and original while R.I.P. almost lifts ideas wholesale from EP7 and Tri Repetae.

Also agree about Animal Collective album. It's the first time I've thought "you know what, I don't give a shit about you guys any more if you're not going to try".

I think there is a pretty good album lurking somewhere underneath Centipede Hz, but it's pretty difficult to find. I've been imagining some of the tracks redone in a Kid Creole + Coconuts style and they'd be a lot better.

and pretty pretty too

there are some good albums and singles in 2012 but i want/need more.

Sic Alps new one on Drag City is their best yet, imo.

oh, god, no

Hm. I'm kind of surprised. Thought you would like it. What are your objections?

yeah i thought i would to, i loved napa asylum! i will relisten soon and return with better opinions4u but i just found it sounded dreadfully like them trying to be straightforward and focused in a way that really didn't suit them; napa asylum's breeziness was a huge part of what i loved about it & this sounded so strained... neways i listened to it once a week ago and turned it off halfway i was so appaled so i really should give it another spin before slamming it esp since i was so adamant that everyone revisit the last lp after it got such bad reviews in its ilm thread

plus i've been in a good mood the past few days which was also the case when i first heard napa asylum, so i should strike while the iron's hot

I love Napa Asylum, too. I can see how you'd react to the first part of the album the way that you did, but the second side does get a little weirder, for lack of a better term. The songwriting doesn't sound different to me, really, just the sound. Maybe it will grow on you?

weird third quarter unordered but sorta
1. Frank Ocean "Super Rich Kids"
2. Sun Araw & The Congos "Happy Song"
3. Beak> "Egg Dog"
4. Dinosaur Jr "Rude"
5. Pussy Riot "Putin Lights Up The Fires"
6. Animal Collective "Moonjock"
7. Lower "Craver"
8. The-Dream "Dope Chick"
9. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Baby"
10. Bailter Space "No Sense"
11. Jeff The Brotherhood "Dark Energy"
honorable embarrassing mention: "we are never ever ever getting back together"
somehow less embarrassing secondary mention: "california boy"
embarrassingly singled-out album track: "unplanned parenthood"

xp hope so. the 7"s they released in between this one & napa asylum are p tite too

a lot of ppl whose taste in music i like stump for sic alps. after seeing a pretty mediocre show of theirs once, i never checked out their albums

yeah i've only heard bad things about their live show, think it is kind of a blank dogs scenario tho, the records are v good

ooof yeah lord if i had based my view of blank dogs off seeing them live...ug....honestly i doubt i've listened to them, so regret seeing them

their sound had a certain amount of magick and mystery to me then i was like uhhh you are just boring dudes in a rock bar

they also seemed like petulant dicks when i saw them? kept complaining about bad sound and stopping songs 30 seconds in like nononono that won't do and a 1 2 3--

sic alps, from what i've heard, the problem is they are addicted to heroin and can't get their shit together? but there is also a lot of studio magic on their albums and analogic equipment and stuff that might be hard to pull off live

blank dogs were pretty bored/petulant when i saw them. they seemed like it annoyed them to be there.

Man, I love this Blonde God song Diggin'. Apparently the singer from Merchandise solo (it's from a comp on Night People) but if Merchandise is this good I am just going to have to check them out. This song rules, make sure you make it about 1 minute in, a great change (and cool chorus) follows. Kind of like a gothy Medicine or something.

Night People is a very cool label run by a swell guy.

Added:

The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

(shocker)

That song is great (xpost)! Have heard a few Night People records (and dug them), but in particular that Blonde God song really made my day.

Amadou & Mariam - Folila
The Very Best - MTMTMK
jj - high summer
Dar Williams - In The Time of Gods
Cat Power - Sun
No Doubt - Push and Shove
Beth Orton - Sugaring Season

oh shit I keep forgetting about that Merchandise album

How good is the Merchandise album?

It's really great but don't take my word for it; download here

Whoa, whole album is free huh. Guess I will check it out. Thanks.

so add to my list:

Merchandise - Desire

I assumed rap was building momentum after 2011, but I've been kinda unimpressed with 2012 rap so far, although there's a few mixtapes and singles I've been meaning to check out for a while.

So, like Cat Power and Fiona Apple, very confidential-to-allusive-to-cryptic-to-let-it-blurt (and back), always *evocative* singer-songer Martha Wainwright now uses tuneful beat science to parse hot mess. More developed than the Power, less experimental than the Apple, Come Home To Mama has more of a band feel and knows from Prince, Stevie, Ziggy, Dolly, her parents and brother, while always being her own thing. This'll be streaming a little while longer
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/07/162301799/first-listen-martha-wainwright-come-home-to-mama Good on Koss UR40 headphones.

Still liking the Power and the Apple too.

"knows from...Stevie" Nicks, that is (kinda)

As Brad pointed out on the Zazen Boys thread, their new album Stories is now on Spotify and worth checking out at the very least:

http://open.spotify.com/album/1g3QRORSzdLU6E00Iuo2wG

Someone will like this.

Thank you Lindstrom thread for introducing me to Haim - the Lindstrom and Prins Thomas remix of "Forever" is killer and everyone should go listen to it, but the original is sweet too. http://youtu.be/sEwM6ERq0gc

Kane Ikin - Sublunar
Normal Love - Survival Tricks
Dimlite - Abscission
Tujiko Noriko - East Facing Balcony
∆ - Awesome Wave
Barry Adamson - I Will Set You Free
Debo Band - s/t
Murder by Death - Bitter Moon, Bitter Drink
Oh No - Dr. No's Kali Tornado Funk

Tracks:

Freelance Whales - "Aeolus"
Soft Pack - "Bobby Brown"
Bat for Lashes - "All Your Gold"
JJ DOOM - "Retarded Fren"
Efterklang - "Between the Walls"

Reminder to future self in February, 2013 - vote for these, in roughly this order:

iamamiwhoami - Kin (post MV exposure, its still electropop that stands repeated play)
Hammock - Departure Songs (double dose of Nashville's finest sleepgaze elegies, with added vocals)
Zambri - House of Baasa (Danielle Dax's discography in a blender)
Hanne Hukkelberg - Featherbrain (balefully clattering Nordic experimental folk(?))
Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos - Icon Give Thanks (™ falsetto harmonies + laptop exotica)
Purity Ring - Shrines (girl wonder/horror of the body + UK bass music)
Blondes - Blondes (organic house for diletantes like me)
Grimes - Visions (electro cotton-candy with vaporous message)
MNDR - Feed Me Diamonds (Electropop with vocal charm. Known from "Bang Bang Bang")
Shackleton Music for the Quiet Hour (Not quite Coil)
Yppah - Eighty One (if Boards of Canada produced a trip hop album)
Ane Brun - It All Starts With One (dark K. Bushy art pop suite, belated US release)
Chairlift - Something (faster, more direct, and more sparkle than the debut)
Niki & the Dove - Instinct (too much EP redux)
School of Seven Bells - Ghostory (crafty production, songs less ideosyncratic, Claudia missed)
The KDMS - Kinky Dramas and Magic Stories (Kathy Diamond returns with a better retro-disco album than Escort's)
Monolake - Ghosts (invented Ableton to facilitate high-gloss idm)
EXITMUSIC - Passage (theatrical dreampop from Boardwalk Empire actress and hubby, Beach House fans willl love it)
Beach House - Bloom (confident, but familiar)
Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man (this one is still gelling. Stripped and synthetic)
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Trouble (solid electro-dance-pop with wallflower vocals)
Lazerhawk - Visitors (unapologetic Jan Hammer tributes for your Countach's tape deck)
Gazelle Twin - The Entire City Remixed (Ballardian DCD vs the Knife album highlights given idm/mnml treatments)
2:54 - 2:54 (90s gazy crossover ala Curve & Garbage, but plods a bit)

For consideration/need to hear:

Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
Poliça - Give You the Ghost

Singles/tracks (rather incomplete):

Lianne La Havas - "Forget"
iamamiwhoami - "goods"
Ane Brun - "These Days"
Psy - "Gangnam Style"
MØ - "Maiden"
David Lynch feat Kathy O - "Pinky's Dream (Trentemoller Remix)"
Grimes - "Oblivion"
Purity Ring - "Fineshrine"
Chairlift - "I Belong in Your Arms"
Dum Dum Girls - "Coming Down"
Icona Pop - "I Love It"
Shook feat. Ronika - "Distorted Love"
Orbital + Zola Jesus - "New France"
Santigold - "Disparate Youth"