Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

if her voice reminds me of anyone it's actually Jonathan Donahue and even then the overlap is well under 10%

Her voice is so deep that some people mistook her for a man when they first came out

It's true - she still reminds me of either the bloke from Cast or the bloke from the Delays.

All the greats basically.

Matt DC - BH sound like Heaven or Las Vegas more than any other Cocteaus album. How many bands out at the moment seem to fall somewhere between this album and something by Slowdive? It's become such a default production aesthetic in the last few years that I'd be desensitised to it, if, that is, I wasn't so utterly bored and averse to it.

but this is assuming you hear bands sounding like Slowdive in the same way you hear singers sounding like Liz Fraser right?

at Pitchfork while Beach House was playing I told a friend, "She's one album away from abandoning the synths, picking up a tambourine, and twirling like Stevie Nicks."

Sorry dl, but your argument's nonsense. Beach House have such a distinctive aesthetic - it's not like they're part of some big "90s revival", whatever that might sound like. If you think they're just neo-shoegazers then I would suggest you're not listening very closely.

anyway I like the album better than its predecessors and its gauze reminds me of 4AD acts but I don't hear Fraser in her mannerisms; for one thing, she believes in enunciating.

the only thing i've heard this year that reminded me of Cocteaus = around half of the Sleigh Bells LP (its biggest virtue by some measure). i'd quite happily hear a few others, if actually out there.

i'm not wrong about everything all the time, you know? just quite often.

Anyway, the Quietus have their list up now but their site is running slow.

There definitely is some Cocteaus in Beach House's sound, but for me it's mostly in the guitar sounds and the unhurried flow of the music

Good list! Is that NV on the cover of the Hirsute Pursuit record?

That was with reference to this btw:

http://thequietus.com/articles/10924-the-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2012

vatican shadow in the top 10 :)

my reaction to seeing laurel halo place isn't even annoyance, it's like...i have to restrain myself from pointing and laughing. if you like that dreadful joke of an album then irl lol at you

It doesn't reflect my own tastes much but I love the Quietus for its consistent voice - here is a realm where Swans, late Scott Walker and former members of Throbbing Gristle will never go underappreciated.

i love the quietus list. although i'll never understand their love for VCMG. Totally agree with Swans and Scott Walker in the top two. HAven't heard the TG albums.

my reaction to seeing laurel halo place isn't even annoyance, it's like...i have to restrain myself from pointing and laughing. if you like that dreadful joke of an album then irl lol at you

mature attitude.

it's so grown-up to constantly follow someone around a messageboard nitpicking over their posts!

love this quote from the Quietus list:

If someone introduces you to something new and it's not going to hurt you, go along with it and see how far you can go - Cedric Myton

it's so grown-up to constantly follow someone around a messageboard nitpicking over their posts!

you make it sound like finding a ludicrously rude and arrogant post takes some work or time.

Good list! Is that NV on the cover of the Hirsute Pursuit record?

― Albert Crampus (NickB), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 1:31 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Damn son!

i said it takes a level of maturity to which i obviously cannot aspire xp

not as long as you're pretending you're a 13-year-old

it's nice that you've taken on the selfless task of policing every flippant and dismissive post on ilx but i wouldn't want to keep you, there's a lot more out there for your eagle eye to find. run along now

lex stop acting like lex

what are you fucking piling on for now?

flippant and dismissive is fine. refusal to show any respect for subjectivity has always been taken to task on ilx and that's what i like about this place.

cause you're shitting up this thread even more than usual today

and ronan isn't?

disrespect for subjectivity = any time i express an opinion on the rap thread these days

The Laurel Halo album is fine. I can see it would be disappointing if you're coming at it from Strawberry Skies and were hoping for something a bit more pop, or maybe if you're coming from Hour Logic and expecting something you could loosely call dancey. But if view it as an outgrowth from stuff like Oneohtrix or Stellar Om Source or whatever else have you, where they're building odd little worlds out of the debris of yesterday's synths, then it makes a lot more sense. It's like she's taking that aesthetic and finding her own way of introducing song into it, as opposed to trying to twist that kind of sonic environment to fit into conventional song form and then singing on top of that.

would like a remixes LP of Quarantine (mainly aiming just to replace most of her vocals with monstrous beats - drowning them in reverb would help in this case but there's been too much of that generally over the last couple of years for sure). would also like more epic sub-bangers like Hour Logic but with her normal/nice singing on it. not heard her new single yet.

The new single is very pretty!

do find the Quarantine artwork describes the sound perfectly. sweetness soured beyond repair. beautiful yet horrendous. apart from the practically instrumental Holoday which is just the former.

this album is horrible, what the hell

xpost One of the things I like most about the Laurel Halo album is that her vocals *aren't* drowned in the usual chillwave reverb. But I also get why others find this annoying.

i might check it out in that case. why is it so bad?

xpost One of the things I like most about the Laurel Halo album is that her vocals *aren't* drowned in the usual chillwave reverb. But I also get why others find this annoying.

― mike t-diva, Tuesday, December 11, 2012 10:27 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that would be great, if she could sing

it's even worse because she CAN sing and just...chooses not to

You guys are actually making me want to hear the LH album, and I wasn't really very interested before...

yeah, it sounds awesome

it's fine, nothing really special one way or the other

at least that's how I feel about the first 3 songs

If you're on the Dirty Projectors bandwagon, there isn't much about the way she sings that should bother you too much.

that's how i got sucked in emil.y and dog latin. I found it dull.

Here's the Crack Magazine (disclaimer: I write for them, and wrote a few of the blurbs) 25-1 lists:

http://crackmagazine.net/music/albums-of-2012-25-11/
http://crackmagazine.net/music/the-top-100-albums-of-2012-10-1/

10. SWANS - THE SEER
9. ITAL - DREAM ON
8. METZ - METZ
7. FLYING LOTUS - UNTIL THE QUIET COMES
6. FRANK OCEAN - CHANNEL ORANGE
5. KENDRICK LAMAR - GOOD KID. M.AA.D CITY
4. THE MEN - OPEN YOUR HEART
3. PORTCIO QUARTET - PORTICO QUARTET
2. TAME IMPALA - LONERISM
1. JOHN TALABOT - FIN

^ A list of things I feel like I ought to like, but I really don't. Other than Talabot and Swans. Is this what getting old is like?

some of the others are okay i guess

Apollo's Bounteous Harvest: The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2012
http://thequietus.com/articles/10924-the-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2012

01. Swans - The Seer
02. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
03. Carter Tutti Void – Transverse
04. XTG - Desertshore/The Final Report
05. VCMG – SSSS
06. Vatican Shadow - Ghosts Of Chechynya
07. Dragged Into Sunlight – Widowmaker
08. Laurel Halo – Quarantine
09. Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas
10. KTL - V
11. Kassem Mosse & Mix Mup - MM/KM
12. Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland - Black Is Beautiful
13. Land Observations - Roman Roads
14. Jam City - Classical Curves
15. Liars – WIXIW
16. Neneh Cherry & The Thing – Cherry Thing
17. Lee Gamble - Dutch Tvashar Plumes
18. Sun Araw & The Congos - Icon Give Thank
19. Actress – RIP
20. Darren Hayman & The Long Parliament - The Violence
21. White Hills – Frying On This Rock
22. Silent Servant - Negative Fascination
23. Gravenhurst – The Ghost In Daylight
24. Eccentronic Research Council ft Maxine Peake – 1612 Underture
25. Necessary – Galgeberg/Gimle
26. Emptyset – Medium
27. High On Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis
28. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
29. Alex Tucker – Third Mouth
30. Fairhorns - Doki Doki Run
31. Thomas Koner - Novaya Zemlya
32. Raime - Quarter Turns Over A Living Line
33. Holly Herndon – Movement
34. Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour/Drawbar Organ EPs
35. Killer Mike – RAP Music
36. JK Flesh – Post Human
37. Richard Skelton - Verse Of Birds
38. Daphni – Jiaolong
39. Dope Body – Natural History
40. Oren Ambarchi - Sagittarian Domain
41. Chromatics - Kill For Love
42. Hexvessel - No Holier Vessel
43. Toy – Toy
44. Traxman – Da Mind Of Traxman
45. Vindicatrix – Mengamuk
46. Kendrick Lamaar – good kid m.A.A.d city
47. UFOmammut – ORO Opus Primum/Alter
48. John Foxx & The Maths - The Shape Of Things To Come
49. Bee Mask - When We Were Eating Unripe Pears
50. Robert Hood - Motor City: Nighttime World 3
51. Melody's Echo Chamber - Melody's Echo Chamber
52. Hirsute Pursuit - Tighten That Muscle Ring
53. Burial - Kindred
54. Black Breath – Sentenced To Life
55. The Pre New – Music For People Who Hate Themselves
56. Forward Strategy Group - Labour Division
57. Beak - >>
58. Turbonegro - Sexual Harassment
59. Killing Joke – MMXII
60. New War - New War
61. Angel Haze - Reservation
62. Rolo Tomassi – Astraea
63. Tim Burgess - Oh No I Love You
64. Sir Richard Bishop – Intermezzo
65. Bo Ningen – Line The Wall
66. John Talabot – fIN
67. Mark Lannegan – Blues Funeral
68. Devilman - Devilman
69. Motorpsycho And Ståle Storløkken – The Death Defying Unicorn
70. Goat – World Music
71. Guardian Alien - See The World Given To A One Love Entity
72. Carlton Melton - Photos Of Photos
73. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
74. Six Organs Of Admittance - Ascent
75. Man Forever – Pansophical Cataract

That's a pretty interesting list, loads in there I haven't heard of or seen anywhere else.

okay I really, really liked the VCMG album but top five of 2012 seems silly, like they meant to put Wonky there as a surprise comeback album and then had a massive brain fart