ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

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61. LAUREL HALO Quarantine (246 Points, 8 Votes) Spotify

the christian mistress didn't really hit me on first listen but this second listen is pretty killer

oh hey, laurel halo, what's up record i respect more than i actually enjoy

xp I once got an irritated tweet from Pat Kane after complaining about someone playing Hue & Cry at a wedding. I didn't @ Pat Kane, I didn't even name Pat Kane, and Pat Kane doesn't follow me, so I can only assume that he regularly searches Twitter for "Hue & Cry" in order to have socially awkward exchanges with people who don't like him.

I love the Laurel Halo album cover a good bit more than I like the actual album

otm

hahahahaha

the laurel halo was the actual single worst album i listened to in 2012

haha

the single worst album i listened to in 2012 was alt-j, the laurel halo record is at least going for something i think i would appreciate were it more fully formed

it was also sort of disappointing to hear after how straight up beautiful hour logic is

xp I once got an irritated tweet from Pat Kane after complaining about someone playing Hue & Cry at a wedding. I didn't @ Pat Kane, I didn't even name Pat Kane, and Pat Kane doesn't follow me, so I can only assume that he regularly searches Twitter for "Hue & Cry" in order to have socially awkward exchanges with people who don't like him.

los campesinos once tweeted me to say that we have mutual friends who might disagree with my assessment of them as the worst people to exist, ever, in the world (i had not @ed them, obviously) o_0

how embarrassing, maybe they'll write a song about it ("i killed alex macpherson with my big fucking dick")

Quarantine and No Love Deep Web should have traded album covers

should've thrown some numbers into that name, sorry lex

not a lot of people expressing enthusiasm for most of today's choices

I thought the laurel halo album was strange, but astonishingly beautiful, the best thing she's ever done, and unlike anything else I've ever heard

I really really liked the Daphni record.

Like other posters I'm very conflicted about Quarantine...I want to like it, and a couple of times it's been on and I've gone "hey, this is cool, what is this?", but any time I've sat down to give it a proper listen I've given up before the end.

#1 album in The Wire's list btw

Lower Dens sounded great today too, even though I'd heard it before and previously held a lesser opinion of it.

Two of mine (AnCo and Nite Jewel) placed today, that's about as well as I ever do in these things.

how embarrassing, maybe they'll write a song about it ("i killed alex macpherson with my big fucking dick")

And now it don't work no mo'

Thanks ILM for the tips on Vatican Shadow & a reminder about the what-if FSOL did breakbeat of Lone. The rest, well ee gustibus non est disputandum.

The Laurel Halo album is indeed an interesting experiment but I can't convince myself I love it or anything. The fact she did that (or rather, didn't do anything) with her vocal tracks is cool but they sound very lazily pasted over the tracks, like a very quick overdub with no mastering at all.

77. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Centipede Hz (204 Points, 8 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
76. JEREMIH Late Nights With Jeremih (206 Points, 10 Votes)
75. BIGBANG Alive EP (210 Points, 6 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
74. DAPHNI Jiaolong (213 Points, 9 Votes)
73. TWIN SHADOW Confess (214 Points, 8 Votes)
72. VATICAN SHADOW Ghosts of Chechnya (216 Points, 7 Votes)
71. NITE JEWEL One Second of Love (216 Points, 8 Votes)
70. LONE Galaxy Garden (216 Points, 9 Votes)
69. NINA KRAVIZ Nina Kraviz (218 Points, 7 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
68. METZ Metz (219 Points, 10 Votes)
67. GUNPLAY Bogota Rich: The Prequel (220 Points, 9 Votes)
66. KATY B Danger EP (223 Points, 8 Votes)
65. LOWER DENS Nootropics (227 Points, 7 Votes)
64. ACTION BRONSON & PARTY SUPPLIES Blue Chips (230 Points, 7 Votes)
63. CHRISTIAN MISTRESS Possession (232 Points, 8 Votes)
62. GRIZZLY BEAR Shields (233 Points, 8 Votes)
61. LAUREL HALO Quarantine (246 Points, 8 Votes)

Lower Dens sounded great today too, even though I'd heard it before and previously held a lesser opinion of it.

Glad to hear it JF. I was getting upset about some of the underwhelming descriptions of Lower Dens upthread.

Just remembered...add Nina Kraviz to the list of albums I liked today (Daphni and Lower Dens).

of the things I've paged through on Spotify, Lower Dens was easily my favorite

Laureal Halo is the only thing I voted for so far. Still find the sounds on it compelling and I think it's actually got a lot of beauty to it that people are just totally missing. I mean this sounds ravishing to me in a totally interesting way: Tumor

L'oreal Halo

I doubt any of my album votes are going to make it this year. Admittedly, I submitted a short album ballot. The one from near the bottom of my ballot that I thought might have a chance is probably not going to appear if it hasn't shown up on the first day.

Few things I voted for today:

Animal Collective - I actually like this more than the last couple albums. I'm glad that it's a bit more noisy and aggressive.

Nite Jewel - Fantastic, this really keeps growing on me. The songs are often fairly subtle and low key and deserve multiple listenings to sink in. I really like the production style much more than her previous stuff.

Lone - Been a favorite of mine all year. Not really IDM at all, very shiny, bouncy music and best album cover of the year.

Laurel Halo - just skipped voting for this. It was ok, but didn't quite do it for me.

only thing from my ballot to show up so far is gunplay

Only Lone and Nite Jewel off my ballot, and they were rather low down. Still holding out for Eyvind Kang an Motorpsycho this week, but I'm doubtful.

Still holding out for Eyvind Kang

I have voted as well, but probably no bloody chance. I was expecting it to place in the 70's at best.

Hwat Kang record was that? The one with Jessica Kenney?

Yeah. The Narrow Garden and it is some extreme beautiful shit.

The Narrow Garden is the one that was nominated, not the duo with JK xp

Oh yeah its Visible Breath JK is on.

Actually I think the Kenney one was 2011. Haven't heard The Narrow Garden at all.

Kenney also plays on The Narrow Garden iirc. "The Face of the Earth" duo album (their second?) is also from 2012, it too is worth checking out.

The Narrow Garden is frankly amazing

the christian mistress didn't really hit me on first listen but this second listen is pretty killer

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson),

Yeah, this was my #7 pick. I loved the Agony and Opium album and I really didn't think this one compared. But after sitting with it for a few months I think Possession is the far better album. I don't really even listen to AAO anymore.

I love the Laurel Halo album and it would have been in the upper reaches of my list had I voted so therefore I am going to bitch n moan about its fairly low placement.

The Laurel Halo record is pretty obviously supposed to be alienating and nasty to listen to but I just think can I be arsed really? I'd take it over something as tepid as Grizzly Bear any day though.

Lower Dens started off amazing but tailed off, it doesn't really match those first two songs. The couple of Christian Mistress tracks I listened to were a lot of fun though.

0/17 so far (in both heard in full and voted for terms). Liked what little I've heard of the Laurel Halo record though. Need to check out Lone and Nina Kraviz next time I have Spotify access.

Nice to see Christian Mistress place. Another one I voted for. Nicely straddles the fence between hard rock and metal. I like the Heart comparison but don't see hooks/riffs as an either/or. On this one, the riffs are hooks, at least to my ears. I do think perhaps the dynamics/tempos could use a bit more variety over the course of the album, but still an outstanding effort and I look forward to hearing what they do next.

If there were other great Action Bronson mixtapes this year I must have missed them. The only other thing I heard was the "Rare Chandeliers EP" which didn't grab me as much as "Blue Chips". It seemed like maybe he was trying to sound a bit "harder" on that one but in a more conventional way, with the gourmet cooking show allusions as garnish.

I really really liked the first three songs on Lower Dens and then switched to another album

I've just played the entire Laurel Halo album and this is something I would have been much more receptive towards 20 years ago before I slowly started pushing ambient music out of my life (something I don't think I even consciously acknowledged happening until just now)

The Laurel Halo record is pretty obviously supposed to be alienating and nasty to listen to

I dispute that, some of it's really lovely! But yes, first song is called Airsick for a reason.

Loveliest thing she did all year though was the Sunlight On THe Faded single, which unfortunately wasn't on the album.

Well, this Metz album is... bracing. This would have been my shit 15 years ago. Noisy rock music has gone from being a natural home to a complete blind spot in recent years though, I'd never even heard of it before today.