ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Met Before, Take It Out On Me and Ghost Tonight are all up there with IBIYA for me. They do the 80s pop thing better than anyone else at the moment.

funny, i don't think there's anything strictly 80s about their sound, though IBIYA does hint at paul simon pretty strongly

xpost:

Yeah, 'Ghost Tonight' is another one. I love '80s pop/synth pop in general, so the Chairlift record was always going to be right up my street.

http://i.imgur.com/H55TZvS.png

34. LE1F Dark York (396 Points, 12 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)

If the Chairlift record is this low, I'm not expecting the Daily Bread album to poll now :(

I'm not expecting the Daily Bread album to poll now

Did anyone even care about it besides me and you?

Wow this is really high for Dark York. Good mixtape - my favs were Fresh and Lavandin as well as Wut - but it did have enough flaws (mixing, several subpar trax) to miss my ballot. Didn't expect it to place tbh. Should def not be higher than Haze

#1 vote gonna be soooo happy!

Yeah, I'd never heard of Le1f till the tracks poll. I like his steez though.

I'm fine with it being higher than Haze. (Ranked it higher than Haze) I love Reservation but took far more pleasure out of Dark York last year. More jams, more quotables, more awesomeness, etc.

Haze is more polished in some ways, but not as consistently jawdropping for me.

And you know I love them both.

Did anyone even care about it besides me and you?

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, January 30, 2013 6:33 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know. They SHOULD have done!

#1 vote gonna be soooo happy!

naw

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

33. NENEH CHERRY & THE THING The Cherry Thing (396 Points, 13 Votes) Spotify

yaaaaaay
i think this is the only time that the thing or a thing-related project will ever reach this many people, so hooray!

First thing off my ballot! Cool beans.

I really love this album now. Wished I had nommed it pushed it up a bit higher.

voted I mean

The Cherry Thing is the one record I knew I would like and just didn't get round to listening to until 'Dream Baby Dream' placed in the tracks poll. It's pretty great.

Once I had voted for "Dream Baby Dream" in trax I couldn't find space for the album too, but I'm very glad to see it turn up here.

http://i.imgur.com/AkjAGx6.png

32. VOICES FROM THE LAKE Voices From the Lake (419 Points, 17 Votes, 2 First Place Votes) Spotify

This Le1f album is good but the mastering is AWFUL!

Yes my no.1!

Ah crap, Spotify link is wrong again. Sorry!

what is voices from the lake?

Austere techno, but very pretty - almost ambient

yeah, looks intriguing!

I don't think you can appreciate how good this album is by listening to tracks in isolation, its the whole journey man!

In other news, yay the Cherry Thing. A thrilling record

I haven't heard this release, but I kinda like the one that is on Spotify.

Mad abuse of the term 'austere' going on ITT. I think I appreciated the detail in Voices From The Lake more than I enjoyed it, could never really get into the headspace for it and lacked the motivation to bother most of the time.

Cherry Thing made my ballot - found myself wishing they'd reinterpret, like, every song in the world in that way. No way was it the "difficult" album I saw it described as. Loved Accordion and Cashback

Xp yesssss VFTL!! Most immersive record I heard last year. Best listened to when hungover or ill or when it's miserable outside

voices from the lake was my #2, absolutely amazing.

Hehe, I'm only running with the theme established earlier wrt 'austere techno'. It's not that austere, very lush in fact

voices from the lake record is very nice

Omg VFTL is not austere either, jeez

ok i'll give it a try one of these days
austere (cold) not really my thing but austere (lush) sounds delightful

sooo lush

No not cold at all.

i don't want to clog up the thread w/youtube embeds so just search this on youtube:

Voices From The Lake Feat. Donato Dozzy & Neel - S.T. (Vftl Rework)

VFTL kind of felt like...solitude, but nature breathing/existing/living around you

i just got a record from the environments series and the "wind in the trees" track is like that -- it almost sounds like electronic static with birds, but it's just wind in the trees.

VFTL felt like its album cover, like a foggy forest w/a highway bisecting it running into a metropolis.

the music here is subtle. when the faint, optimistic bass melody comes to the foreground halfway through it feels almost cathartic

http://i.imgur.com/amqtAt1.png

31. SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS Ghostory (422 Points, 14 Votes) Spotify

glad to see the thing/neneh and so7b make it

i just got a record from the environments series and the "wind in the trees" track is like that -- it almost sounds like electronic static with birds, but it's just wind in the trees.

― this customer is a jerk (La Lechera), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah its ambient crossed w/hints of environmental sound recordings, except there seems to be a lot more of the former w/not quite as much as the latter. This from a couple of tracks.

Great idea that I've never heard anyone quite make a really really good go of it - although I suspect Milton would know. xps

TOO LOW

TOO HIGH

JUST RIGHT

TOO GREYSCALED