ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2019

i did vote for Blossom but yeah i'd be pretty surprised if any more SA house showed up higher than Isphithiphithi

i think i'd love glass beach much more if their jazzy smoothness was backed up by having like a prefab sprout/steely dan-esque crooning vocalist rather than the more-pop-punk-end-of-emo vocalist they have

Can we get a rundown of whats placed so far, please?

I too need the chords to be good, if someone could just play the best chords and ignore the rest then it would save everyone a lot of bother.

otm

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#77 – Cate le Bon – Reward (181 points, 6 votes)
#76 – Laurel Halo – DJ Kicks (182 points, 5 votes)
#75 – Better Oblivion Community Center – s/t (182 points, 6 votes)
#74 – Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow (183 points, 6 votes)
#73 – Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter 4: Memphis (184 points, 6 votes)
#72 – Jme – Grime MC (187 points, 7 votes)
#71 – clipping. – There Existed an Addiction to Blood (188 points, 7 votes, 1 #1 vote)
#70 – Blanck Mass – Animated Violence Mild (189 points, 6 votes)
#69 – Sampa the Great – The Return (194 points, 7 votes, 1 #1 vote)
#68 – The National – I Am Easy to Find (195 points, 8 votes)
#67 – Caterina Barbieri – Ecstatic Computation (200 points, 7 votes)
#66 – Tyler, the Creator – IGOR (202 points, 8 votes)
#65 – Fontaines D.C. – Dogrel (204 points, 7 votes)
#64 – Miranda Lambert – Wildcard (208 points, 8 votes)
#63 – Barker – Utility (210 points, 8 votes)
#62 – Rapsody – Eve (211 points, 8 votes)
#61 – Sacred Paws – Run Around the Sun (212 points, 8 votes)
#60 – Andy Stott – It Should Be Us (214 points, 9 votes)
#59 – Moodymann – Sinner (216 points, 6 votes, 1 number 1 vote)
#58 – Thom Yorke – Anima (216 points, 8 votes)
#57 – Samthing Soweto – Isiphithiphithi (220 points, 7 votes)
#56 – Various Artists – 環境音楽 Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990 (222 points, 8 votes)
#55 – American Football – American Football (223 points, 7 votes, 2 number 1 votes)
#54 – Clairo – Immunity (223 points, 9 votes)
#53 – Koffee – Rapture (224 points, 7 votes, 1 number 1 vote)
#52 – Carla dal Forno - Look Up Sharp (228 points, 8 votes)
#51 – Lambchop - This (is what I wanted to tell you) (234 points, 8 votes)
#50 – Glass Beach - The First Glass Beach Album (242 points, 8 votes)
#49 – Chemical Brothers - No Geography (244 points, 7 votes)
#48 – Hatchie - Keepsake (266 points, 11 votes)
#47 – Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q. (268 points, 9 votes)
#46 – Solange - When I Get Home (277 points, 12 votes)
#45 – Kali Malone - The Sacrificial Code (278 points, 8 votes)
#44 – Shura - Forevher (278 points, 9 votes)
#43 – Angel Olsen - All Mirrors (284 points, 10 votes)
#41(TIE) - Kim Gordon - No Home Record (288 points, 10 votes)
#41(TIE) - SAULT - 7 (288 points, 10 votes)
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Thanks breastcrawl - will check

Also props to Tim, Brad & karl for the Khidja & Balabas and Tapan recs

i really really need to spend more time with Sault

for chords to be good it often requires lots of them to be played and none to be discounted - i mean 'good' of course in the context of a sequence, no one chord is good in isolation. maybe a tritone

pvmic

this khidja and balabas thing... oh this is great!

I like the Kali record when I'm listening to it but I kinda feel almost guilty, like why am I listening to this and not the reams of organ music I've never listened to going back centuries? I feel the same way about modern minimal piano music as well, like why am I listening to this when I could be listening to Debussy or Chopin or Satie?

Because it's designed to work better as background music and we're all cramped for time and vainly struggling to overcome our bottomless attention deficit.

look, a chord!

I... just wouldn't be so hard on yourself really. Why read historical fiction when you could be reading the classics? Two different things for a start. Arguably Kali's music inhabits the modern drone/ambient/art music realm rather than the classical pantheon. Plus it's recorded in a really interesting way compared to, say, a Bach recital

tbh modern organ/piano music might have different compositional and tonal strictures and may be more interesting in the context of other modern music in that sense. or what dl just said

I like the Kali record when I'm listening to it but I kinda feel almost guilty, like why am I listening to this and not the reams of organ music I've never listened to going back centuries?

I love classical organ music, but I can't think of too many composers for that instrument whose material would sound similar to Malone. Even 20th century organ experimentalists like Messiaen have a very different sensibility... Maybe someone like Maurice Duruflé could be to your liking, in that his organ compositions are quite peaceful and calm? I'm sure Pomenitul can give better recommendations.

Might as well use this opportunity to recommend that everyone check out Wolfgang Mitterer's coloured noise if you're curious about what the organ can achieve in our current century. Spoiler: it's not very peaceful, though.

Horațiu Rădulescu's Works for Organ & for Cello also very much worth your time if we're sticking to 2019 releases.

And much, much closer to Kali Malone's aesthetic of quietude, Eva-Maria Houben's Breath for Organ from 2018 is my jam.

Last but not least (and maybe I'm picking on Kali Malone because I suspect this one won't place despite being infinitely more compelling), Maja S. K. Ratkje's Sult, for voice and pump organ, is one of the most gorgeous things I heard last year.

tbf pomenitul, ILM is a pop messageboard primarily, and Malone is at the pop end of modern organ work - in that context I have no problem with ILM preferring it to more recondite options. have put on the Mitterer to check it out and it sounds mighty impressive but it'd be more likely to get any acclaim in the metal poll if anything

I know, I know, I'm just playing my part.

ty for the recommendations though!

yw :)

As a side note, hearing Mitterer improvise live on the electric organ over a screening of Murnau's Nosferatu remains one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed in my admittedly short lifetime.

I always thought listening to classics was more indulgent than wading through contemporary stuff. quite an interesting list so far, glad to have been reminded to listen to Kankyō Ongaku which I'm enjoying v much

ILM is a pop messageboard primarily

Pom seems to be doing his modest best to bring some more classical music into ILM and I for one am here for those recommendations!

Enjoying 'Sult'. Something about it reminds me of that King Creosote/Jon Hopkins album from a few years back

lol, now next year's track list will be chocka with obscure drone organ stuff and we'll be all 'why is the rest of the world not paying attention??'

ILM is a pop messageboard primarily

Pom seems to be doing his modest best to bring some more classical music into ILM and I for one am here for those recommendations!

Yeah, me too. That Eva-Maria Houben album is right up my alley, so I ordered it, thanks for recommending it, Pom!

My pleasure!

I'm enjoying the Barker and Tyler The Creator albums

I'm not sure about clipping.

Last but not least (and maybe I'm picking on Kali Malone because I suspect this one won't place despite being infinitely more compelling), Maja S. K. Ratkje's Sult, for voice and pump organ, is one of the most gorgeous things I heard last year.

Oh I voted for this!

there's a whole heterogenous but alligned set of sparse, slightly numbed music that i've had trouble really connecting with this year, stuff like andy stott and carla dal forno, that whole blackest ever black aesthetic, greyscale gloom. don't know if my inner goth is dying but i used to live for that stuff. the one exception has been htrk, still spellbound by what they do

"grayscale gloom" is a dead-on descriptor for a *lot* of stuff.

There's a line between a sort of empty sonic nothingness and music that moves the listener. (in the same way that harsh noise wall is generic and a pose generally but certain artists can elevate it.) I'd put K. Malone on the enjoyable side of that line, but a lot of music in this realm is dead; certain labels traffic in it and when I hear about releases from some of them I just shrug.

clearly some of this grayscale stuff DOES move enough ilxors to vote for it - not me obv but i do think we should have some respect for the process here

maybe i just got burnt by boomkat sales pitches too many times

Does anyone know whether the following, from the Lambchop record, was meant to be taken as a David Berman reference?

I am breathing actual air / Sorry dude, that just kind of slipped out

It's been catching my ear for months, but I've no evidence either way. I do like the idea of Berman haunting this poll via OTHER FOLKS' SONGS too. :)

my guess is it probably is

i don't think wagner would be unaware of a phrase he was borrowing from somebody else in his field who was acclaimed for their lyrics etc.

I think there are a few quasi-genres I used to love and now I'm a bit done with. Yeah the post-industrial gloom thing only works a few times in ten for me, but back in my Quietus-reading days it was my bread and butter.

And as I said on the tracks thread, all the 'mid-tempo artsy pop-not-pop solo female singer' gang are starting to blend into one to the point where I can't tell my Angel Olsons from my Shuras from my Hatchies from my Clairos etc... I used to lap that up, and obvs someone's going to come along and slap my wrists to tell me these acts are NOTHING ALIKE, and of course there are some real standouts (I still love a bit of Susanne Sundfor and Christine & the Queens), just feeling oversaturated as this whole thing has been a staple on ILM since at least the mid-2000s.

I always thought listening to classics was more indulgent than wading through contemporary stuff.

Why?

Sult was my #1 vote obv.

those records really do sound nothing alike dl lol

if yr ears flatten Sundfor and CatQ into anything near the same genre then yes it might be time to give yr ears a break

think i only listened to 2 albums more than once last year but it's now 3 thanks to checking out the caterini barbieri. good job voters!

the sacred paws record was acceptable too.

dl I'm sure you don't mean it to come across as such but grouping those acts together is leaning on "women all make the same music" territory

I mean the Hatchie is a noisy post-shoegaze album and the Clairo is a hushed intimate bedroom pop affair and I can't imagine hearing them as being that similar at all?

'Indulgent' might mean 'something to luxuriate in' tbf but I struggled to parse that comment as well.

there's something to dl's criticism (which boils down to 'y'all vote for too much basic melancholy art-pop') but it needs to be both much more careful and less gender-specific. also lol Hatchie is noisy post-shoegaze in no universe whatsoever, this is just synthy 80's art-pop with gauzy production

also angel olson isn't nearly as basic as you might think!!