ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

h8 that cover

your instincts were correct – i felt this one was a let down.

xpost

I LOVED the previous Andy Stott album but had zero desire to even investigate this one

aw djp - this was his goth one as well!

check out the title track for example: http://youtu.be/9BIYV3BLcno

I missed the one weird trick of prior three releases, namely overbearing sidechain compression. I'm guessing inertia and belated recognition accounts for the critical praise.

OTOH, the cover art may be the best thing about more recent Andy Stott releases.

listening to "Faith In Strangers" now

I am one who is all in favor of drawn-out intros but good god man, get on with it

much more interested in going back to the Lena Willikens album crut linked on the thread I started in Idiot Thread Repository than continuing with this, which has a slight "Squarepusher on quaaludes" vibe to it

so ponderous xp

i don't remember his last record having overbearing sidechain, it was pretty roomy. haven't heard this one yet but will check out at some point, i'm a mild admirer

I put on Scuba Death's Nitrogen Narcosis (less ambitious, and better for it) far more often when seeking soporific dub techno in 2014.

what exactly were the ambitions of this record?

to serve man

things pick up on it after the first three tracks tbh, it does get off to a very slow start

I found even the last Andy Stott album, which seemingly everyone liked, to be dreary as hell, so no way am I going near this one.

http://i.imgur.com/mOLc0q5.jpg

33 THE SOFT PINK TRUTH Why Do the Heathen Rage? [426 points, 16 votes]

Oh thank god, finally something I voted for! Great, great record.

Ah excellent!

yesss

pro-tip: this album is rly fun sex music

:D

am i hearing the opening lyrics of this album correctly?

"ISIS, the rainbow of saphire mysteries, you are the calling I hear from the wind in my bones"

Thank fuck for this, my #7, completely amazing work, an important album even

Fuck yeah! Loved that SPT album.

This has so many good moments. And yeah I know I said upthread the whole appropriation of black metal has been done a lot, but this gets it right. It treats the source material with respect while shining a light on all its nooks and crannies, not afraid to make fun of it either.
I'm not that familiar with the original tracks - most of them are obscure even for BM - but it did make me go back and check them out. The difference in interpretations is significantly marked.
anyway so many great moments: Let There Be Ebola Frost turned into a thunderous italo house tune being one of my faves.

ok lol just realized it is probably referring to Isis, not ISIS.

lmfao

lay down that pipe son

Love the Snap! sample on "Satanic Black Devotion".

there's a sentence that piques my interest.

I enjoyed that Andy Stott album more than anything I've heard of his in the past. It seemed somehow less dysphoric and more beautiful

I'm rapidly losing coherence, coming of a straight 24 hour stretch of work...

*off

Really liked this album, especially "Let There Be Ebola Frost."

http://i.imgur.com/h2nE71J.jpg

32 ARIEL PINK Pom Pom [430 points, 15 votes, 1 first place vote]

"put your number in my phone" is great - i was sure it was going to place on the singles poll

Do the familiar song titles on SPT mean that it's an album of covers?

megalol @ that SPT album cover

possibly the most metal album of the year, almost certainly the most fun of the year imo

xfuckingposts

Dan, yes, it's an album of black metal covers.

if you turn the ariel pink record the right way up, it's actually called 'wool wool'

take that sheeple

Also time to rep for the SPT statement of intent, which I think is pitched perfectly (unlike the shitty shitty politics of AP).

Disclaimer: Aesthetics and Politics are neither equivalent nor separable. Black metal fandom all too often entails a tacit endorsement or strategic looking-the-other-way with regards to the racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic bullshit politics that (still) pervade the scene, on behalf of either escapist fantasy talk, shaky invocations of art as a crypto-religious path to transcendence, or--the oldest cop out in the book--the quietist declaration that “I just like how it sounds.” Just as blasphemy both affirms and assaults the sacred powers it invokes and inverts, so too this record celebrates black metal and offers queer critique / mockery / profanation of its ideological morass in equal measure. Mixed emotions about a murky, diverse and self-differential scene are all very well, but, as Barack Obama is so fond of saying at press conferences just before legitimizing drone warfare, let’s be clear: No apologies, no excuses, and no escape clauses are hereby offered. Murderers are murderers. No safe space for fascist garbage. The Soft Pink Truth hereby abjures black metal homophobes, racists, and Nazis categorically and absolutely: MAY THIS CURSE BIND! Remember Magne Andreassen!

oh, thanks Emil.y, I'll have to check SPT out too

xps

Thank god Ariel Pink is out of the way.

I actually really liked about half of the Ariel Pink record, a first for me

ariel pink truth

good album imo

Great manifesto from Drew. What are Ariel Pink's shifty politics? My gf absolutely loves the album...

I loved the Ariel Pink album on first listen, but when I tried to listen to it a second time it didn't seem as good. "Put Your Number In My Phone" is a great single though!

lol, shitty, even

in interviews ariel pink comes across as a drugged out insane challoping "aren't i so un-PC" moron

^^^

imago: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/15/ariel-pink-pom-pom-4ad