ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

there's 10 more today this is just an intermission

There's another 10 coming today.

I've never heard of Zaki Ibrahim, Cooly G got a fair amount of attention here and in other (UK) venues. Just one datapoint obviously.

I still don't really get why this album places this high, and there has been like zero appreciation for Zaki Ibrahim's album.

Has she covered Coldplay?

it's true about gengras mr drugs a money, and i quite liked his solo album from 2012 too. it's mostly a keystroke thing rather than a slight on his contribution and now you've made me type 99 more characters explaining myself

cooly g is not austere imo. there's plenty of sensual squelch there, every other sound is draped in velvet

Lol my bad but im not sure i was talking about you per se

Xp

wish i hadn't written "sensual squelch" there

i'll be in the shower

xp

It was an effective phrase. My brain was all unconsciously busy "sensual squelch? sensual squelch? hmmmm, I guess so."

"draped in velvet" was a good phrase though

i've never heard zaki ibrahim, the name is ringing a slight bell though? i have a feeling i meant to check her out last year on someone's (?) recommendation and then clean forgot

Sorry for ignoring Gengras, Nick's right, it's mostly down to not wanting to type the whole name. Also I know Sun Araw and Congos stuff better.

There are elements of absraction in Cooly G. So from a couple of other tracks apart from the cover you can almost see the joins in the assembly. Kinda bits and pieces glued together (well, I think). That goes part of the way to an approach that is taken even further by the Villalobos track but I wouldn't place them together or use austere to belittle.

Cooly G has been on Hyperdub and building a rep for years before this album came out, it's pretty obvious why she's higher-profile that Zaki Ibrahim.

(I don't actually like Cooly G that much and am perfectly open to the possibility that the Zaki Ibrahim album is better).

Zaki Ibrahim vs. Farrah Abraham

Tim F. started a thread about Zaki Ibrahim! And then he put the Cooly G album higher on his list. Again, I voted for Playin Me, but honestly I'm not 100% sold on all of it. If I'm paying close attention it loses me a bit at the end. (Of course, that's sort of true of Zaki Ibrahim's too.)

Only vote today was for Orbital. I can't claim it's up there with their 90s stuff but it's such a massive improvement on their 00s decline I enjoy every song, even the dubstep rework of Satan that seems to bug people. It may be inextricable from nostalgia but there's a keen pleasure to hearing one of your favourite bands pull out of a terminal dive. And I don't get the same kind of melodic opulence from any current dance acts outside of the Lindstrom/Terje axis.

Just listened to Icon Give Thank (an endorsement from emil.y is generally good enough for me) and really love it!

http://i.imgur.com/J0IH3Cs.png

50. NIKI & THE DOVE Instinct (306 Points, 9 Votes, 2 First Place Votes) Spotify

^_^

JF was very happy about this one.

mah #1 (since 2010, basically, being that half the songs here had been floating around as freebies and ep tracks.)

Have listened to a bit of the Converge album and it's really good! As far as shouty man guitar rock goes, it completely shits all over the Metz record (and I enjoyed that one too)

Just listened to Icon Give Thank (an endorsement from emil.y is generally good enough for me) and really love it!

― Dr. Alfred P. Falfa (WilliamC), Tuesday, January 29, 2013 7:32 AM (9 minutes ago)

co-sign!

Great album, but in truth most of the highlights for me were (as JF mentioned) on prior releases. One exception that didn't seem to get much traction is Somebody, which is essentially a Revolution-era Prince song.

i think i voted for niki and converge too

I wish I could force people to love this as much as I do, but it's a fruitless endeavor I guess? It falls somewhere between the blown-outness of Florence and the nuances of Bat For Lashes. Kate Bush comparisons are lazy, but she does sound a bit like her at times. And fuck, "The Drummer" is a jam and a half to speed down the interstate to.

"come into my room" by cooly g is a classic but i couldn't get into the rest of that album

xp this is a pretty cool record actually! i think i like it.

"come into my room" by cooly g is a classic but i couldn't get into the rest of that album

really?! wow, why 'come into my room"? (i love it, but it doesn't seem wildly different/better to the rest of the album.)

i don't hate what niki's going for but it's the mannered voice, the way she garbles her vowels, that really turns me off, sorry JF

feel like im on some unperson shit with this list but i enjoyed that gunplay tape a fair bit

I like some X and the Y type artists, but could not get into Niki.

ilm makes me sad again ;_;

hi five to my co #1 voter, though.

http://i.imgur.com/phRsK3v.png

49. DEATH GRIPS The Money Store (307 Points, 12 Votes) Spotify

Out of stuff here I havent heard, I most want to check out Vatican Shadow, Laurel Halo, and Shackleton. And Gunplay, due to the brief ahem exegesis on Cartoons & Cereal in the tracks poll

xps - Landing at #50 is not bad! I'd be ecstatic if Sa Dingding had placed at #50 (or 77 even).

Xp I also need to give Death Grips a listen, loved Black Jack

Every time I've heard Death Grips I've liked it less.

wow this sun araw/congos, which i wasn't aware of, is pretty botched IMO, got really excited as heart of the congos i believe is one of the most magical albums ever....but yeah sun araw seems to just have gotten them as some kind of press stunt without much thought to how to actually use or showcase some of the most beautiful voices ever...the tracks are fairly tuneless, muddled, and unnecessarily cluttered with overly busy "cool" production crap. so much effort being expelled to accomplish so little.

:(

Is that the only cover not altered by grayscaling so far?

Every time I've heard Death Grips I've liked it less.

― questino (seandalai), Tuesday, January 29, 2013 10:55 AM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Voted for both DG albums, doubt NLDW is gonna place though.

Is that the only cover not altered by grayscaling so far?

I'd guestimate probably 40% of the covers so far were already b&w before I even got to them. It's trendy!

Tracks comment comparing Death Grips to Atari Teen Riot nailed it for me. More interesting in concept than execution, tolerable in small doses.

Nah, 40% was high. But there have been quite a few.

Problem with Death Grips is that they've sort of only got one song which they do pretty well. I wish they'd somehow use their aesthetic to do a really wild Ill Communication-style genre hopper that worked like a cool shouty fucked up mixtape. If someone can give me a reason for owning more than one album by them, I'd like to know. Otherwise I'm not sure they'll amount to much more than a slightly-more-decent Dälek.

Is that the only cover not altered by grayscaling so far?

metz, lower dens, shackleton, silent servant, japandroids and converge are all o.g. b&w too iirc

maybe somebody could post the original after JF posts?