ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

lex youve been really quiet here compared to the tracks poll. Have you heard anything yet you hadnt hesrd but like?

not really. it's harder to check out new albums (especially as my hard drive died at the weekend and took my entire music collection with it). other than marling and wruhme, i wasn't enthusiastic about any i'd already heard. i checked out a few tracks of the ones i haven't heard but nothing's grabbed me, though hatchback might be the likeliest yet. (well i assume i'll like grouper but i also assume i know what it sounds like and can hear it at my leisure)

yeah "white diamond" is the old hatchback song i liked

w.r.t. the title track, i love how they perfectly mix the poppy boppy vibe with the soaring wanky psych guitar solos

I might be wrong but it I am sure I was listening to it in summer 2010. I might be losing my marbles.

Pleasantly surprised that moon duo placed - I liked it well enough.

http://i.imgur.com/Tj5oC.jpg

48. Tom Waits — Bad As Me (352 points, 14 votes)

P4K: DNP
P&J: 5

Spotify

xp

Maybe you are thinking of Escape?

My initial reaction to the new one was "too poppy" and "too repetitive" but those riffs drove their way into my brain in a good way.

I might be wrong but it I am sure I was listening to it in summer 2010. I might be losing my marbles.

The Escape EP was from 2010, but Mazes came out in March of 2011.

Didn't vote for the Waits, but its a good record. I picked a good time to check back in on him.

Didn't really like the Moon Duo album the one time i heard it, but forget the nature of my gripes.

Ah Bad As Me, which I voted for and gave a positive write up when it came out, but now...? I dunno, I've gone right off it. Too many dull ballads and hoary rockers. I'd say there are maybe four decent tracks here but I skip so much off this thing. Do like Let's Get Lost and Hell Broke Luce.

Was kind of like Wet Hair iirc? xp re Moon Duo

lex i'd be pretty surprised if you didn't like the Hatchback album. really should've placed higher, imo.

demdike stare and moon duo = my first votes to make the countdown. yay!

i've cooled on the former a bit since late 2010/early 2011, as their assembled body of work tilts a little too steeply towards spooky aural wallpaper for my taste, but the high points (in my estimation, the denser and more beat-driven tracks like "forest of evil dawn" and "repository of light") are spectacular.

moon duo are easily my favorite thing to come out of the wooden shjips axis, and mazes is leaps and bounds beyond anything they've done prior. could listen to the title track forever. so effortlessly cool and catchy. motorik beach pop!

oh tom waits, nice. didn't quite make my ballot but i was really pleasantly surprised by it - it sounds like he really enjoyed making it, it has this fantastically unforced feel to it - just tom being tom and doing what he's best at. these were my favourites

talking at the same time
hell broke luce
last leaf

tried to listen to laura marling's "the beast" but couldn't make it through

Demdike Stare is fantastic, but I didn't vote for it because I kind of thought of it more as a comp/reissue.

only played the TW album once so far but Hell Broke Luce completely owns

basically a really nice balance between drunken rollicking explosions and chants / sentimental balladeering / casting a caustic observer's eye over the financial crisis

xps

Lex, I agree it's def Tom's chillin out having fun being human album - think that's what made me like it in the first place, but I do miss his more character-based/theatrical side.

http://i.imgur.com/wl1sI.jpg

47. Clams Casino — Instrumentals (354 points, 12 votes)

P4K: 17
P&J: 61

cannot stand Last Leaf! Chicago and Face to the Highway are both great (among the other quality tracks mentioned)

XPOST

oh god i just can't be bothered with clams casino until and unless rappers rap over it

so bored of 2am lonely laptop music in any case

Man. So many albums I literally haven't even heard of. I'm excited.

ooo ooo ooo ooo ~melancholy~ ooo oooo ooooooooooooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Clams is sweet. Shame 'I'm God' wasn't on the mixtape though, that's amazing.

XP

LOLex

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/reviews/2010/dialcd22.jpg

cover connexion

clams is cool... he has a few classic beats but the actual rap songs are good enough that i don't see the point of the instrumentals

what does this sound like?

i am CONCERNED yall. we're 20 albums in and my favourites are by TOM WAITS and LAURA MARLING. and my favourite new music i've heard this week is by LEONARD COHEN. what is happening to me!!!

otoh i am downloading this hatchback album based on the awesome title track. wish i'd known about it last year, i felt like i wanted music like this a lot. psychgawsple did you like the almunia album?

i mean karl...

or er both of you

i like but don't love clams, prefer his music with rappers too.

so bored of 2am lonely laptop music in any case

so reductive

Ha, that John Roberts album is songreat and none of you bastards voted for it last year at all. Clams Casino was like the Balam Acab record for me, pretty but kind of dull.

lex, also check out White Elephant's Sir John (plus Mark E Remix) and Torn Sail's Birds.

I like that Clams album a lot. Surprised it's this low, to be honest.

Lex you being a tom waits fan is so crazy to me! In a good/unpredictable way

yeah, i voted for the Almunia album. i think my ballot was unweighted, though. i couldn't pick 25 albums to fill it out.

lex, also check out White Elephant's Sir John (plus Mark E Remix) and Torn Sail's Birds.

love both of these - they were on a great compilation called future balearica that i had. past tense. gone in my hard drive death ;_;

lex i bet all your faves are much higher in poll if tracks results are anything to go by.

Thought the Almunia album was ok (the title track is a jam) but it was only like my 5th favourite beach vibez album of the year after Hatchback, Gatto Fritto, Out of City and probably something else I'm forgetting.

http://i.imgur.com/Ri9hd.jpg

46. Azari & III — Azari & III (358 points, 12 votes)

P4K: DNP
P&J: 737

Demdike Stare is fantastic, but I didn't vote for it because I kind of thought of it more as a comp/reissue.

― Gonjasufjanstephen O'Malley (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 11:24 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, but i figure that if an album got okayed by the nomination process and the sounds contained are among my favorites on the choose-from list, then that's reason enough to throw it some points. a big part of my goal is to bring attention to music that i think deserves it, and i don't want technical considerations to limit me in that regard.

I was stunned by how much I loved that Azari & III record.

contenderizer - that's fair, I just didn't even see it on the nom list tbh

yeahhhhh azari & iii!

actually i'm not sure this quite made my ballot either but it's a super great album - undecided was my favourite of the previously unreleased tracks

they've come such a long way, can't believe they'll be supporting madonna on her next tour. they should be fucking producing for her

a & iii put on a fantastic live show too - "into the night" as final slow dance <3 <3 <3

Really happy that Laura Marling placed, I suppose the difference between her and KT Tunstall is largely the darkness (ie she is 1x massive goth) - I think of her as closer to Will Oldham than any of the Mumfords set.

Also Laura is a better songwriter by fucking miles.

Hatchback is just precision loveliness.

A few hours late with this since I've been cooking/hosting dinner, but the Ferraro is a fun album - breezy/blank but quite psychedelic and non-intuitive in how things are assembled. One of my dearest friends has been raving about Ferraro for a few years now, so I view Ferraro via my friend's more artworld kinda axis (Cory Doctorow/Paper Rad/etc). High concept, sure, but not any more low-stakes gamesmanship than, I dunno, Brian "Windows 95 sound" Eno's ambient stuff. Reminds me a bit of 50s generic happy modern machine music & other optimistic chintz - cheers me up a lot more than the other ambient-y stuff I was listening to this year (Roll the Dice/Blanck Mass/Hauscka/etc).

ogmor probably put this better tbh.

i was pretty shocked that azari & III finished in the 700s in P&J

despite absolutely loving the pre-album singles i still haven't gotten to that azari & III album