ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Late Nights isn't as good as his first album and there is nothing in the same league as Another Song (his best moment by a mile) but it's a really good album, only a little filler. Agree that his take on the Goapele track is pointless, the original is already perfect.

http://i.imgur.com/VBMFhzP.png

75. BIGBANG Alive EP (210 Points, 6 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

Is this k-Pop?

It is.

Highlight from the Big Bang album in my opinion http://youtu.be/1qnV55LUFVM

Many people will point to 'Fantastic Baby', though.

'Monster' is on there too yeah? Or was that a special edition?

all the k-pop i see makes me think it's where the spirit of early-00s pop-rap/pop-r&b went

the videos are incredible too

have you heard gangnam style yet lex?

not that one

The videos I've seen are always incredibly fun. It's good to see unabashed excess at a time where a lot of Western music errs on the side of restrained tastefulness. That said, personally I'm not convinced I'd really want to listen to much K-pop outside of a YouTubing context.

bah, that was badly worded.

I bumped that 2NE1 tracks from last year's poll in my car for a long while, but yeah...I'm more of a day tripper in the K-Pop world than a regular.

Big Bang is on the same label as Psy (although he didn't start out there), hip-hop and rnb-centered YG Entertainment. Founded by a member (who mostly just danced) of one of the influential k-pop groups of the 90s. Important for all of k-pop's homebred sounds.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb684lWq2d1qhnjc2o1_1349022389_cover.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/61vbpNN.png

74. DAPHNI Jiaolong (213 Points, 9 Votes) Spotify

ah glad to see big bang place, narrowly missed out on my ballot

I'm getting into this Daphni album on a cursory listen. The synths are meaty.

Oh we've started, cool. Couldn't really get into Jiaolong, a bit too functional for me.

I was one of the Centipede Hz voters; it's far from AC's recent peak and the production doesn't help, but it's still an album I enjoy. I'm not going to waste keyboard strokes defending it though. Nobody who disliked Feels or MPP is going to be won over by CHertz.

I've had it hanging around for a few weeks. Been meaning to give it a proper listen but have been put off cos I'm not a big fan of Snaith as Caribou (at least, I didn't really understand the praise for his last album, Swim - it really felt like an indie guy's idea of what a dance record should sound like). Still, whenever a track from Jiaolong pops up on shuffle I end up quite enjoying it. There's one track that comes up quite often that has a classic disco beat that's been chopped up and it sounds a lot more satisfying than anything on Swim.

Oh, is this Snaith? I had no idea. I totally missed this all year.

a bit too functional for me

I could see this, but the synth parts look intersting

daphni album is cool, makes me happy whenever i hear it, didn't strike me as ~essential~ enough to come near my votes but it's way better than anything i've heard in his caribou guise

The remix of the old funky Togolese song is the highlight of the Daphni album for me. I suppose it is a very slight type of album, but I still play it very often. I think I voted for it.

what's the deal with Daphni? how does it differ in concept to Caribou?

Manitoba/Caribou has always had a psychedelic tinge and iirc a ton of live instrumentation. This seems largely sample-based and electronic.

It's a Snaith fully embracing dance music type side project.

glad to see the BIGBANG EP place, was my #1

Yeah Daphni is him basically doing straight-up house and techno. It's pretty good but got culled from my ballot.

I am loving these chords on "Ahora"!

http://i.imgur.com/7uQHzdK.png

73. TWIN SHADOW Confess (214 Points, 8 Votes) Spotify

i constantly get mixed up between this and gazelle twin

it's the one they're all talking about

i constantly get mixed up between this and gazelle twin

― more like bog satin (dog latin), Monday, January 28, 2013 1:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

even for a dl post this is amazing to me

i don't know what either sound like TBF

i gawped a bit, didn't know how to respond.

if only more people confused them to the extent of repping for gazelle twin instead ;_;

I do like some tracks on this album, but it's not as much my thing as the debut was.

i always get Twin Shadow confused with Wild Nothing in the sense that i gave both of their albums a cursory once over earlier in the year and they were both fairly innocuous things that didn't stick.

Surprised this is so low, thought it had a lot more support. I still haven't got round to hearing his first album.

I haven't heard the Daphni album yet, but from all descriptions I thought it'd be more ilx-bait than a 74 placing.

And poor old Animal Collective.

Did "Today's Supernatural" make the singles poll? I voted for that, but the album itself? Nah.

http://i.imgur.com/lK9Q2t7.png

72. VATICAN SHADOW Ghosts of Chechnya (216 Points, 7 Votes) Spotify

Next up DJ Shadow.

The Shadows.

This was the only thing in the top 77 I'd never even heard of. Where/what thread were people stanning for it?

I think he had his own thread?

yes!!!!

first of my votes to place. spent a lot of time with it this winter. heard it too late for it to make some of my other ballots (eg guardian) but it snuck into my top 10.

despite the lolaustere titles, it's actually a rather beautiful and beguiling album, eg "snipers as a breed tend to be superstitious" - even at its doomiest, it's never just about being forbidding - love how "the hamburg cell was born in chechnya" builds, the brutal percussion set against the imperious synths. i think i could even imagine "peace rage" on a dancefloor.

Oh, and there was definitely chatter on the mutant techno thread, whatever unwieldy title that had. xp

yes

Vatican Shadow has released SO MUCH STUFF this year, it's pretty hard to know where to start, or even what's what. I'm a fan of his power-electronics alter-ego Prurient who released a fantastic album about a year or two ago called Bermuda Drain. Ghosts of Chechnya I've only given a quick listen to, but it's very good. Not quite dance, not quite industrial, not quite ambient, there's a foreign affairs concept running through all these works which I like, and the music itself is plaintive, esoteric and very much something to get lost in.

(vat shad released another album this year which was a lot more industrial, which i couldn't get into - i've been vaguely aware of him for a while but not a fan til GOC, he seems to be quite prolific, i believe ghosts of chechnya is his first overtly techno-y album?)

Oh, almost all of that took place around xmas when I was out of town and away from computers.

The poll results got me listening to several albums that I missed this past year, all good ones:

School of Seven Bells
Chairlift
Blondes
John Talabot