ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

not feeling the rollout so far :/

Yay, second one of mine to place. Four Tet production really suited her voice and 'Fallen Leaves' was robbed in the tracks poll.

I like the Neneh record but not as much as her last one.

This is more like real music than most of what I voted for

what on earth does this MEAN

Oh there's a '50 ways to leave your lover' beat sample on 'faster than the truth' and it works! Yeah really liking this on first listen.

https://i.imgur.com/Jr9wqBC.jpg
#46: Saba - Care for Me - 276 points – 9 votes - 1 first place vote

Saba - CARE FOR ME

Justin Ivey: "With Care For Me, Saba accomplished his objective by making an album that can endure for years to come. His higher aspirations won’t afford him the visibility of the rappers acting out for attention, but projects like Care For Me should put him into the discussions of his generation’s best Hip Hop artists."

AV Club: "There’s an introspective urgency to Saba’s songs, like they’re the only thing keeping the 23-year-old from succumbing to the systemic and social madness that surrounds him on Chicago’s West Side, and that rawness has only expanded on sophomore effort Care For Me."

not feeling the rollout so far :/

Oh good, I was worried Noname was going to place and not this which would have been strange.

Rollout accomplished its objective by convincing me never to visit hiphopdx dot com

Sweet, first one of mine that made it. Possibly the hip hop album I listened to the most last year.

this was my number one

xpost: hahaha I'm using quote sources from aoty wont quote hiphopdx anymore I promise.

i think about prom / king almost every day, it's an incredible climax made stronger by the subtle foreshadowing seeded throughout the record. and then the catharsis on heaven all around me.

beautiful

'Prom / King' is already classic imho.

https://i.imgur.com/81aB1va.jpg
#45: Helena Hauff - Qualm - 280 points – 9 votes

Helena Hauff - Hyper-Intelligent Genetically Enriched Cyborg

Elizabeth Aubrey: "The attraction of Qualm is often in its simplicity and its desire to create something with a more infectiously raw, cerebral quality."

Paul Simpson: "Qualm generally shifts away from the Drexciyan melodies of Discreet Desires, but it's just as precisely focused as that album, and anyone who has enjoyed her prior recordings or Hauff's unrelenting DJ sets should enjoy this one as well."

too low

id no idea Neneh Cherry had an album out this year!

not feeling the rollout so far :/

― ||||||||, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 11:41 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm surprised this is one of the better years so far imo

I imagine the GEETARS are quite alienating for some. I expect they'll peter out as we go on.

The first half just bored me (with a literal drill), but the second half is mostly bangin'.

GEETARS GUD.

https://i.imgur.com/OmBdFKP.jpg
#44: Eiko Ishibashi - The Dream My Bones Dream - 282 points – 10 votes

Helena Hauff - Hyper-Intelligent Genetically Enriched Cyborg

Scott A. Gray: "Trading in grandiose sophistication and insistent grooves with plenty of room for quirks, the sound of The Dream My Bones Dream immediately calls to mind Stereolab mixed with the slinky trip-hop-isms of Cibo Matto."

Patrick St. Michel: "Rather than offer answers, The Dream My Bones Dream grapples with memories that aren’t one’s own and tries to find some kernel of wisdom within them. It’s a multilayered, foggy work and one of Ishibashi’s fullest collections to date, showing us how the past can propel us forward."

a beautiful record!

The Helena Hauff is very good though, my second one to place.

Yeahhhhhh. I fell very deeply for this record. Beautiful is the word.

ok this one I have absolutely not heard of!

only records I’d go to mat for so far are mariah and hauff

skee mask compro and yamantaka I’d probably like but not spent any time w

the rest eh

yeah the eiko record owns too

I think I listened to this after the Quietus list went out and enjoyed it

Not Burna Boy for you, ||||||||?

*No

i really like this list so far lots of interesting stuff

Yeah this is bringing the variety. You'll even get some AOR synthpop later I'm sure

https://i.imgur.com/3YU4gOS.jpg
#43: Black Dresses - Wasteisolation - 285 points – 7 votes - 1 first place vote

Sasha Geffen: "By alchemizing tension into pop, Rook and Dizzy make music that doesn’t force listeners into an arbitrarily optimistic mindset. “The intention is for people to resonate with it if they’ve been in that dark place,” Dizzy says. “I just want to bring that dancing energy.” Black Dresses’s songs offer comfort and catharsis not because they promise that everything will get better but because they show you how to riot through hell."

Yeah this is bringing the variety. You'll even get some AOR synthpop later I'm sure

― imago

here you go

Fantastic to see Eiko place so high. On eof my top 5 of the year.

I missed burna - yes, good album !

I never voted (shame on me) but if I had, I’d hope these would place

don toliver
kacey*
holter*
DJ richard
lil baby
the beths*
popcaan
teyana taylor
rico nasty
jacquees
shy layers
twin sister*
doja cat
tracey thorn*
terekke

loooool

Really happy to see Eiko Ishibashi! Imitation of Life is another great recent album of hers, as is the one she did with Tatsuya Yoshida

the majority of those will place xxp

The smoothest, slickest, most put-together synth duo in the biz. My #8. Settle in for an evening of sweet relaxation, folks

hell yeh black dresses, another vote here

I tried Black Dresses but found it unlistenable, just can't hang with abrasive synths I guess

eiko ishibashi is nice, one of my december discoveries. soundtracked some very long flights and made them a lot more bearable.

I was surprised prom / king didn't get nominated in the tracks poll. I was somewhat randomly driving about MLK Dr on the ss of chicago earlier this winter, going to eat, and it came on a shuffling spotify mix I'd made. Eerie to hear the whole song at that moment but what jumped out was "Sometimes I fucking hate Chicago, cuz I hate this feelin/ Innocent niggas get shot at, in the broad day the AM" ... meanwhile I'm driving past bucket boys at noon on a weekday. They contend with this place - obligations, family, the police, money - every day.

Saba flips the script on Chance's optimism, giving voice to the darkness that can take hold as a member of this community. Children walking to school in a war zone, friends and family killed with unimaginable regularity - and they're just supposed to be hardened to it all.

The song on the album that crushes me and speaks to this most viscerally is "calligraphy": "We cannot bear all of the fucked up shit we been through/ Why God keeping us here?" then the close with "Runnin" on repeat....ugh.

yeah simon the * picks are ones I think will place

If the mature and delicate sounds of Black Dresses have put you in the mood for more, check out the new album (which came out today!) https://blackdresses.bandcamp.com/album/thank-you

It looks like quite a few significant members of #teamafroetcetera didn’t vote, not just dog latin...

genuinely dislike black dresses

they're working thru some shit