ILM's 2018 End of Year Tracks & Albums Poll / VOTING THREAD

It's my own fault for slacking off re: nominations, but I just noticed that no one put up Amen Dunes' "Blue Rose." Oh well, I guess I'll just get him on my albums ballot.

i like the two four tet remixes upthread but also listened to the originals they were based on and the differences are not especially pronounced? i might prefer the unremixed daniel avery track. (remember when people were praising four tet's remix of that eric prydz track left and right, writing thinkpieces about people's reactions to it in clubs and blahblahblah and then it turned out when you listened to the original all the good/interesting/'innovative' parts were actually there all along, just nobody had bothered to notice b/c no one expected anything good to come from eric prydz? good times.)

I love this Yubin, "Lady" track. Much thanks to whomever nominated it. I included it in the weighted top 4 of my mixed tracks ballot.

Tracks ballot in tonight, btw. I'll come back and do albums in a day or two.

i think i will submit my ballot soon. here are some tracks i like a lot that i will probably vote highly for.

kash doll - for everybody :: "if a girl answers (don't hang up)" for 2018, but actually even better. (it actually first came out in 2017 but got picked up and re-released by republic a year later.) one part knowingly over-the-top catfight, an equal part tough love, plus a lucid rumination on sexual politics lurking just beneath the surface. in the moments when the bass falls back and the piano line descends to a vamp on its more somber chords, my mind inevitably wanders to the man, un-pictured yet firmly and sadly at the center. i've heard very little else from this artist, but of what i've heard nothing grabbed me anywhere close to how this did.

gerardo ortiz - egoísta :: i worked in texas for a month this year, giving me more opportunity than i usually have to listen to spanish-language radio and otherwise experience latin music in spaces where it's not just a crossover curiosity but an all-consuming phenom. i don't think i'll ever quite forget driving down the highway late at night hearing the hauntingly ethereal cumbia of raymix's "oye mujer" or seeing the way the glorious peal of ozuna's supernatural voice delivering the "te boté" chorus got an entire packed club moving. but surprise, it's actually this, a romantic ballad over a beautiful-tho-conventional banda arrangement that had me coming back the most. i wish i had better reasons to justify it, but it really just comes down to that chorus: enormous and booming, unfurled so immediately like a revelation from the mountaintops. completely gorgeous.

kurt vile - bassackwards :: i'm so glad he finally managed to release a great song that doesn't sound like one of his older great songs for the first time in who-knows-how-long. (don't tell me if there's actually another song of his i've overlooked that sounds just like this -- i prefer my ignorance.) a lush, unrelenting arrangement i can just let myself completely sink into, plus a beautifully freeform, wandering lyric: "there was no format because, well, we like it like that."

marsha ambrosius - old times :: every year there's always a handful of r&b singles that i feel are more slept-on than they should be, even here, in favor of bigger hits and buzzblog-friendlier work alike, so i do feel the need to echo the love i've seen others express here-n-there for songs like jacquees's "you", mariah's "with you", and toni braxton's "long as i live". and then there's this, a hauntingly sublime rendering of our need to hide those we love from the world, unsure whether we're actually protecting them or shielding ourselves from heartbreak -- or trying both but accomplishing neither. marsha's vocal is pained and impassioned, at times broken like a sob, and when the anguish collapses to the final fadeout, it gives way to a mood not quite serene but also certainly not resigned.

VOTED

I'd like to rep for:

Emerson Kitamura - Rock Your Baby: a cover of the George McCrae classic that doubles down on its potential as a lullaby. Balearic? Soporific? I think it's really beautiful.

DJ Koze - The Love Truck: the B-side of "Pick Up", Koze doing what he does best IMO; certainly this is better than most of his album.

ZHU and Tame Impala - My Life. The collaboration nobody asked for and, as one wag puts it, "I can't believe they made a whole song based around the Windows 10 eject USB sound effect" but I love getting lost in this.

And finally, as all of the above are a bit on the smooth side, how about some funky 70s-style crime caper 'n' car chase music from Calibro 35?

just voted!

Voted (again) for albums. I'm done now!

Emerson Kitamura - Rock Your Baby: a cover of the George McCrae classic that doubles down on its potential as a lullaby. Balearic? Soporific? I think it's really beautiful.

oh this rules, thank you jeff

A little lobbying for my most-listened song of the year. The Regrettes doing a song from Hamilton turns out to be the perfect Taylor Swift pop-punk song Taylor has failed to write.

The Regrettes - Helpless

i'd like to get into a bit more detail on my recommendations, but i would strongly recommend that anyone who hasn't already listened to the dj koze album do so..

I heard that neutron record when I got locked in the changing rooms at superdry in birkenhead and I overheard some people saying "this is Limmy"

― saer, Friday, January 11, 2019 6:30 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stellar post imo

Voted.

Voted; it was fun!

seandalai, I submitted my albums ballot a second time because there were two things I couldn't live with leaving off. Disregard my first attempt please!

yep, got it

who the fuck nominated this Audrey Chen asmr track that sounds like someone gagging on spaghetti?? My night is ruined now.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, January 12, 2019 12:10 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yeah this was a fun discovery on the playlist

did 20/20 instead of 25/25 this year because i'm lazy and didn't nominate some stuff

twin sister - top and bottoms

twin sis crew vote for that one ok?

assuming it was nominated..

It's probably too late to rep for anything now, but for what it's worth here are a few tracks I intend to throw votes at:

Raveena - Honey - Raveena is an Indian-American singer making soft, delicate, Strother-sister R&B and this is my pick of her numerous singles which I presume are leading into a longer project of some sort.

Georgia - Started Out - I had no cognisance of Georgia before this single but apparently she had a bit of a push, as "Georgia Barnes", a few years ago as a Kate Tempest-type on Domino records. Anyway she's using a mononym now and is instead mining the "wonky underwater Kylie" aesthetic of Tove Lo's "disco tits".

Brame & Hamo - Roy Keane - this was my pick of songs I'd not previously heard from the Mixmag list. It's basically just the Keane Brothers' version of Dancing In The Moonlight with a donk on it. Lots of fun and certainly less hackneyed than Toploader.

Delta Goodrem - Think About You - A lusty single with sound design that at once reminds me of Selena Gomez' Revival and parts of the last Kelela record (no, really), with one of my favourite dumb couplets of the year: "In a crowded bar, or a restaurant/Everybody doesn't know that you've got nothing on".

that one wasn't nominated xp

i just voted for the album instead

yeah i voted for jaipur

"Echo Arms" because it is not on the Mr Twin Sister album and then I can not feel guilty for voting for both, please

Jaipur for me (but album also).

Gutted I forgot to nominate Ought's 'Disgraced in America':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN4MEzle8Hs

Instead will vote extra hard for the album, as I recommend you all to do. Post-punk w/ a singer who echoes Scott Walker what is not to like I dare ask you.

Most beautiful song of last year was Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore's extended take on the Child ballad Fair Annie: https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/track/fair-annie

that raveena track is very beautiful

It can be the 2nd-most beautiful

that Baird/Lattimore is excellent, thank you!

that raveena track is very beautiful

― dyl

Yeah, that was one of my favourites when I went through the playlist.

I also fell in love with:

Fabiana Palladino - Shimmer
Musya Totibadze - Останусь с тобой
Rina Sawayama - Cherry
Faye Webster - Kingston
Le SuperHomard - Paper Girl
Claire Laffut - Verite
Vendredi sur Mer - Ecoute Cherie
Tessa Violet – Crush

These were all new discoveries for me that might get my vote. Also realised I'd totally been sleeping on the new Dumblonde song and the Lindstrøm/Ronika collaboration. No idea how I'm going to get my tracks list down to 25!

ooh those are great picks monotony, thanks for sharing - "Honey" is especially great. never would have expected delta to come out with a single that sounds like kelela also

"Power of Two" must be the best non-album Mr Twin Sister track, no?

tessa violet's schtick and subsequent singles are instantly stale but dang if "crush" didn't hit a sweet spot for me

xxp nor did I, but it was one of the year's most pleasant surprises. There's a remix by Initial Talk that really accentuates its Mariah-in-the-90s-isms that's kinda fun too.

That Fabiana Palladino single is great - I think she and her brother have both served as touring bass players for Jessie Ware, but I wasn't aware she was releasing her own stuff.

Pulse Emitter - Xenharmonic Passages
https://pulseemitter.bandcamp.com/album/xenharmonic-passages
exotic tunings, big synth-wizard bells tolling outward towards infinity - listen to "chateau, night"

That Fabiana Palladino single is great - I think she and her brother have both served as touring bass players for Jessie Ware, but I wasn't aware she was releasing her own stuff.

― monotony,

Oh cool, I didn't know there was a Jessie Ware connection. The Spotify playlist gets off to a strong start with Shimmer next to Jessie's Overtime. When Sticky came on as the third song I immediately knew I was going to be in trouble having to narrow my long-list down.

Rocco was definitely playing for her in the Devotion days and I think Fabiana has more recently. Of course they're both descended from bass-playing royalty!

Voted for the first time! I will actually nominate stuff next year which is a warning more than anything else

I already voted (and I'm with Matt on preferring my ballot to reflect my actual year of listening) but dang that Raveena track is sweet! And the newer one, "Temptation," is the lead single from her debut album, per NPR.

wow @ Raveena's "Honey"

OK, have voted. As ever, the last few cuts were incredibly painful.

Oh it was more than the last few surely, I didn't play too many but there were some rough times in there. Not boding too well

Talisto - Te Llamé ft. Diego Adrián & Ms Nina Woozy neoperreo reggaeton from Argentina via Stockholm

― ShariVari, Monday, January 7, 2019 4:26 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is great!

I'll just accept that there's no way to do an in-depth examination of the year when you've started checking stuff mainly in November. I'll be excited to discover everything that I have missed during the roll-out. Thanks to the team for the huge amount of work ! Hope you're all still having fun.

Oof, I am really struggling with getting things into any order. Arrrrgh.

You could do an unranked ballot!