ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

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.

I love it that Metz have a song called Sad Pricks. I had this for a while but lazily dismissed it. It sounds better now, The Jesus Lizard comparison made my sad prick ears prick up.

Sad Pricks is no Game of Pricks

glad to see christian mistress place, i didn't vote but would have made my list...really love this new mini-movement of nwobh/hard rock synthesis stuff with actual metal singing that doesn't sound like a lovecraft creature trying to shit out a broken lightbulb....chuck wrote a great piece on it in spin:

http://www.spin.com/articles/strange-brew-metals-new-obsession-with-witchcraft-biker-blues-and-tina-turner

^two other bands in the same vein mentioned, royal thunder and witch mountain are also, great and witch mountain features an ilxor of some note :)

also hope pallbearer places

So far I voted for Lone and Nina Kraviz.

I love the Nina Kraviz album for it's warm, intimate deep house vibe. It's almost an album aimed more at the boudoir than the dancefloor. Saw her dj a few months ago at this flashy new club that I can't really deal with. She played nothing like the album, all she played was banging, super-minimal techno, which I can't really deal with either, and left very disappointed. I suspect that's what Lex would have wanted from her.

The Lone album was the most colorful thing I heard all year. Love that dude so much. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like Rustie or old HudMo or whatever that I don't really get down with, but it's less obnoxiously trebly and more rhythmically dexterous than either of those. I'd never been able to articulate exactly what the style of rhythm he favors is, but Dan hit on the head with "samba".

I like the Gunplay but never devoted enough attention to it. I love "773 Love" and "F U All the Time", but the rest of the Jeremih tape didn't make any impression on me. The Katy B EP is a nice trifle. The Laurel Halo album is terrible and I liked Hour Logic. Bronson I've never managed to get past the question of if he needs to exist, but I don't begrudge him that much for being a Ghostface biter because he's currently making better music than Ghost himself is. I need to check out Daphni and maybe Vatican Shadow and maybe maybe Christian Mistress?

btw, this happened mad early. When I got out of class at 10AM, this had already been entirely rolled out.

Vatican Shadow just missed my ballot and, in retrospect, I wish I'd put it on there over a couple of things that popped up near the end pretty much solely due to the number of times I'd played specific songs on them (looking at you, ultimately-disappointing-but-still-decent Sleigh Bells album)

the action bronson & daphni albums are both good fun but i voted for vatican shadow, gunplay & the dreaded laurel halo. vatican shadow is cartoonishly bleak. reminiscent of metal gear solid. bogota rich was my fav unacceptable album of the year, relentlessly hard&catchy even if there was marginally less precision-bellowing than on inglorious bastard. i like how perverse quarantine is. it's so internet. that sort of numb sensitivity you get w/ sleep deprivation. her dispassionate bleating just endeared it to me more aggressively.

btw, this happened mad early. When I got out of class at 10AM, this had already been entirely rolled out.

Yeah, I woke up and went into work super early today. Rolling out the results made the time go by crazy fast too, so there's a good chance I'll stick with this schedule all week (soz west coasties).

:((((

This is a Monday boast. We'll see what time I actually get up and go into work tomorrow. crut can attest to my usual tardiness.

:((((

― The Reverend, Monday, January 28, 2013 12:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Worked for me and I'm a Mountain Time man.

suits me - i got into work just as it started rolling out, and my boss wasn't around so bonus.

PS i will prob be in trouble tomorrow now though.

Mean ol' albums taught me to weep and moan
Got what it takes to make a Mountain Time Man leave his home

Just disappointed there hasn't been a single hint of a clusterfuck yet. What's going on ILM?