ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

ah OPN cool
one i haven't given much time to, which is odd as i loved returnal and replica.
will have to have a listen now..

So glad that MIA managed to, if not transcend her feelings of being embattled, then find fun in them. On MAYA she was trying to shoot her way out of a tight spot, on Matangi she's dancing her way out. It's defiantly enjoyable.

great album

agree with DJP's ranking of MIA albums. and agree with Rev's and Alfred's comparison with the best tracks on Kala

wow, didn't expect OPN this high! this was another great one

rev otm, the highs on kala are so high - probably her best songs ever - that you forget the lows, and there are more than you think

i checked out this OPN album in the EOY listfest at the end of last year & i honestly can't remember a thing about it. drones?

drones and arpeggios

stoned video game music maybe

wow, glad to see both MIA and Oneohtrix on here. I was starting to think neither would make it.

OPN was my #2 and the MIA album is fantastic.

Remarkably high. Never fully got my head round oneohtrix outside of his Games project and this album sounded a bit like a retread of that James Ferraro album with the iPad on the front but more conceptually disconnected.

ha an opening track title of 'boring angel' isn't going to help

Has there ever been this much ambient in an ILM poll before?

surprised to see this so high. was better than replica but i don't love either like i loved the sheer sonic bliss of returnal

Also, Matangi is another one of this year's albums that serve as an awesome counterpoint to White Feminism(tm). BROWN GIRL, BROWN GIRL, TURN YOUR SHIT DOWN/ YOU KNOW THAT AMERICA DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR SOUND.

xp its just this and hecker isnt it? unless you consider the hopkins record ambient

has anyone heard OPN's Bling Ring score? worth checking out?

and i dunno if OPN is even ambient, i don't think i'd call it that

Tim Hecker is about as ambient as a plane taking off tbh

boring angel is a great song with a great video

And Donato Dozzy as well, although half the Jon Hopkins record is ambient. Possibly something else I've forgotten.

Field Of Reeds is a fabulous record in toto but its two longest tracks imo tower over the rest. V (Island Song), the 9-minute centrepiece, is unreal - my number 1 song - and you're all well-advised to check it out either in full, or in slightly shortened video form (on Youtube) - the video is wonderful but they do elide the song's most gorgeous transition - if you want a quick way in. Not my favourite art-rock album of the year (or even on this list - Yamantaka // Sonic Titan has overtaken it, and I always slightly preferred the MBV) but a fine consensus choice, with some really imaginative uses of orchestra in an ostensibly low-key colour palette that nonetheless contains naphtha

the only real lows on Kala IMO are "Mango Pickle Down Rive" and "Come Around" and, depending on my mood, I can find myself enjoying either of them (I long ago came to terms with the screechy verse on "Jimmy")

I've never heard "It Takes A Muscle" or "It Iz What It Iz" and thought "I thought I didn't like this but now I'm enjoying it; it's always been an almost immediate phobic "why does this suck so much" reaction

lol talking about M.I.A. while playing TNP and reading about OPN, it's acronym day at the ILM music poll

Whoa, didn't expect Oneohtrix - actually haven't listened to this one much but I approve generally.

oh i remember now, yeah, video game synths but a real lack of variation and none of say ikonika's club elements to stop those noises being a bit annoying

So I've never been a big fan of what people at one time referred to as IDM. For me, OPN fits squarely into this category because it is abstracted, largely beatless electronic music, but there's a strong compositional core to his tracks that make them much more enjoyable than a lot of other recordings that I'd lump in with IDM.

I liked this ok but didn't return to it much.

barwick is kind of ambient in a way

I think Run the Jewels still has a chance. Dawn Richard is the one I question showing up.

this music makes me so happy.

xp wow thanks dave for that video!
i remember the one for problem areas, enjoyed that

I think Run the Jewels still has a chance. Dawn Richard is the one I question showing up.

otm MarkoP

I'd be okay with both of those missing out altogether if it meant some other surprise sneaking in.

like ...the National!

http://i.imgur.com/bEoLz0k.jpg

12 DAWN RICHARD Goldenheart (733 points, 24 votes, 1 first place vote)

Spotify

these threads tend to have impeccable timing

Haha! Guess I was wrong.

hahaha

i said El-P didn't do it, so get the fuck outta here

OH THANK GOD I WAS SO NERVOUS

Meh. "86" is the only song off of that I managed to love.

Doesn't really deserve to be this high but neither does MIA I suppose and both of those have made enough records I love by this stage.

I didn't vote for this but every year I cherish those albums that place high on ILX and are invisible in every other poll.

i like that this record placed even though i never have any desire to listen to it

Did inspire my favorite post of the year tho:

LARP&B

― Ξ̿̿̿̿̿̿Ξ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿Ξ̿̿̿̿̿̿ (乒乓), Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:53 AM Bookmark

Meh. "86" is the only song off of that I managed to love.

― raggett neds of your summer dress (The Reverend),

me too. I preferred lex's encomia.

lol like the tnp record i find it really impressive but impossible to pin down

the font on the goldenheart cover is unconscionable

I didn't write about this Goldenheart on Facebook but it's great

"Pretty Wicked Things", "86", "Riot", "Return of a Queen", "Northern Lights", "Gleaux"... all wonderful

I was playing the title track the other day and my wife was transfixed, all "OMG WHO IS THIS BECAUSE THIS IS AMAZING AND WONDERFUL CLARE DE LUNE 4EVA"

M.I.A was my #1. So far I've enjoyed every M.I.A album more than the previous one.

Just realised that my problem with this is much the same as Run The Jewels in that both of them favour a kind of monolithic stomp over the musical landscape at the expense of groove and lightness of touch. Both have their moments but the overall effect is just wearying.

this album is so monumental to me. i know it disappointed a lot of people but it's just an album that needs an incredible amount of time to sink into, to wrap your head around. the amount of ideas here is overwhelming. i can understand if people didn't want to do that but trust me, it was so worth it for me. i could actually rarely listen to it except all the way through as an album - it just made so much sense that way. if pushed to pick out highlights

"return of a queen" - sets out her battlefield from the get-go, the terms on which she's fighting, what she's fighting for
"riot" and "northern lights" - probably the album's two best "bangers", the first a more straightforward EDM thing (albeit opening with a quote from william penn) and the second this incredibly polyrhythmic NOLA bounce inspired track
"frequency" - and then we get into the slow jam section; ladies and gentlemen dawn richard is floating in space
"300" - and then the penultimate song, the post mortem, summing up what's been won and lost and where we're going next. "we could've parted seas just / to walk on the floor of oceans / ohhhhh"

if you're talking albums to get lost in, this was the MOST lost i've been in music for a long time.

(imago you especially would be into this prog-r&b opus)