ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

less singular singers

like prince

but yeah ventriloquism was awesome and it voted it in my top 10

Btw, the image for Ventriloquism seems to be broken?

― Tuomas

I can see it just fine, anyone else has this problem? here's the direct link https://imgur.com/zJ3dPCk

it's broken for me too, the direct link works though

doesn't work on my phone!

Ah yes I can see the problem now... I deleted it as there was an error in the scores and I can still see it because it's saved in my cache.

updated the album playlist.
https://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/4DzRiNP3gnIu4icC69zypd?si=x8wLH-X3TsqaZZANnIRuOQ

perhaps worth noting: this is the first year on ILX that all 77 tracks and (I think? Didn't check the top 33 yet so as to not spoil but it seems a safe bet) 77 albums are on spotify. world-eating company has eaten the world.

(to get that album playlist in the proper descending order, click the calendar icon)

ty forks, was hoping for this update

oooh just seeing this all now! glad Sleep, Gang Gang, Noname and Mewithoutyou all got love on here.

Voted for tThe Armed too. Easily my favorite live show of the year. It's like a performance art hardcore show and it's so much damn fun. Definately go. However, i voted for Deafheaven ahead of the Armed, not as good of a live show but I loved that album so much too.

seeing The Armed in 2 weeks, so hyped

Catching up:

Foxing = I could not get into this at all. 100% not my thing.

The Armed = So stoked this got in; I thought it had no chance after yesterday. My #2. This year's Fetch, except that I personally think it's way better than Fetch

The Breeders = my #24. I uh emphatically did not think this was a vast improvement on the previous two albums, and for a while couldn't really find my way in, apart from the great Side 2 run of "Summit"/"Archangels Thunderbird"/"Dawn" but songs kept opening up to me:. "Blues at the Acropolis", the title track, "Spacewoman". I still think "Wait in the Car" is ham-handed and would make the 11th best song off Pacer

Deafheaven, Sleep = I haven't listened to either one of these albums but there's plenty of discussion to be had over here:

The 2018 ILX Metal n' Heavy Rock Poll VOTING + CAMPAIGNING thread! Ballots due Saturday, Feb. 9th!

Gang Gang Dance = a late cut. "J-Tree" is meh, "Lotus" is better (real Japan vibes there), but it's the title track that sold me, fusing together the gnomic abstruse electronica of the first OOIOO album with the high cheese of the last Ozric Tentacles one

Meshell Ndegeocello = my #19. I really love Meshell's unique sense of musicality and it really makes this sound more personal than a covers album should, not so much songs performed as portraits painted of certain perhaps-crucial pop moments in her life

i relistened to the snail mail record and there are a few diverting tracks in the second half

it is still largely an indistinguishable mass to me, i don't even like "heatwave"

I saw her live and really soured on the record after that

Not that great live i have to admit

great list so far, some rad stuff i hadnt encountered before and that brad review is an awesome read as an example for something ive just discovered!

xp Are you talking about Tirzah or Snail Mail (re: live performance)?

I usually like a small handful of techno* albums each year, but for whatever reason I failed to discover many this year so the Koze album ended up kind of standing in for that whole vibe.

assuming ilm is immune to the allure of the industrial-ebm-techno trend and the Ancient Methods album was somewhere in the 780s

I wanted to like the Koze album more than I did but it sort of felt like it had been left out in the sun too long. Terrible pacing and choice of vocalists as well.

octo - snail mail

re: the mewithoutyou record, this was my favorite lyric of last year:

While all hiding inside our painting-of-a-house-hung-up-inside-
that same-painted-house-which-ever-implies-another-painted-
house-inside lives

nadwuar's snail mail interview was good

tbh I was unaware of an industrial-ebm-techno trend but I'd be all over that if I was

Ventriloquism is a great album and I really don't know what Tuomas is talking about re: "less singular singers" unless he thinks "singular" is synonymous with "rangy"

i was really lucky and got two pieces of art last year that perfectly reflected the inside of my head, the mewithoutyou record and mandy. which is one of the reasons i'm not mad when someone dislikes or doesn't jibe with either of them

also it's been a bad time inside of my head obv

*forges axe, hammers distortion pedal*

orange in the grass, roll away!
mother mckenzie in the nightshade!
joshua resurrected hemingway!
(hemingway hemingway)

this gang gang dance record is GREAT. how did i miss this?

Ventriloquism is a great album and I really don't know what Tuomas is talking about re: "less singular singers" unless he thinks "singular" is synonymous with "rangy"

― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Tuesday, February 5, 2019 4:29 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think he was specifically saying "less singular than Nina Simone," which makes a little more sense. But still--Prince, Janet, Sade, Tina, even George Clinton, they're all pretty singular.

Enjoying the Noname I think

best result from youtubing eiko ishibashi was finding an unreleased mark e. smith interview.

this might be too much but the gang gang dance has always made me think of aerial in its laterally expanding curvature

Each GGD dance album just feels like a ride and while this one is gentler than the others, the view from up there is amazing.

I liked the last 2 GGD albums a lot more than this one :/

for Colonel Poo: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3311

there are some other articles/guides but this is decent

of course you will find perspectives from all sides that say that things are not, in fact, industrial, ebm, or techno but there is a kind of genre grey area where a bunch of junk currently lives

I'm thinking of stuff like Final Cut

The three things so far that were on my (unranked) ballot: Tirzah, Noname and Everything's Fine

Some things I definitely need to listen to some more: Eiko Ishibashi, Dominique Dumont, Hailu Mergia, Saba, Kadhja Bonet, Neneh Cherry, Kamisi Washington

I liked the last 2 GGD albums a lot more than this one :/

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 3:57 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same. I tried, but it just felt too gauzy and meandering. Nothing like the immediacy of "First Communion" or "MindKilla."

"J-Tree" is pretty immediate i thought. it's a very natural continuation from Eye Contact, just more chilled out

Great poll so far and it's kind of refreshing to see hard rock and metal back on the menu. I'm excited to check out the albums by Sleep and Yob. The Armed are fun and I can see the appeal but maybe a bit exhausting

I really enjoyed the Parquet Courts album and would have placed it high. on my ballot. I'd completely lost interest in them circa Sunbathing Animal but this album is a hoot - a big grab bag of influences; a nice twist on their usual sound.

This Black Dresses album is so horrible. I don't know if it's ugly pretty or just ugly but the production is frankly unacceptable. Turning everything up so everything peaks way too much isn't really a sound design aesthetic I can parse.

All told, there's loads here I've either never heard of or haven't checked out properly yet.

Ventriloquism is a great album and I really don't know what Tuomas is talking about re: "less singular singers" unless he thinks "singular" is synonymous with "rangy"

― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Tuesday, February 5, 2019 4:29 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think he was specifically saying "less singular than Nina Simone," which makes a little more sense. But still--Prince, Janet, Sade, Tina, even George Clinton, they're all pretty singular.

The Nina Simone debut album was a bit of a disappointment too, I liked the arrangements and production, but the truth is that as a singer Ndgeocello simply doesn't have the range and versatility needed to cover those tunes. (There was a good reason why she didn't sing herself on her jazz album, but instead had guest singers better fitted for the genre.) A good case in point is "Four Women": in the original version, Simone alters her voice to fit the role of each of the four women in the song, and the final "PEACHES" that closes the tune is absolutely dripping of both sarcasm and barely suppressed rage. But Ndegeocello sings the whole song with her trademark monotone voice, there's no variation between the different women's lyrics, which makes the whole tune half as effective and expressive as the Simone version.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 16:21

xxp J-TREE was one of the tracks I liked yeah

i am happy that already two albums from my unranked ballot placed. first the phantastic breeders comeback which beams me back 25 years with the same kind of brash energy and infectious drive as "the last splash". then meshell ndegecello's beautiful cover album which made me discover a couple of great songs i didn't know before. i love her voice which often sounds as if it was behind a curtain, warm but at the same time far away. occasionally it reminds me of sade. it also has a dreamlike quality. and the instruments and production of ventriloquism are great, no frills but there is a lot of love to the
detail which can be heard and felt.

imago, lets talk after. curious to see what you think of the show. I left with a such a smile on my face. after going to hardcore shows for a decade+, seeing them flipped it all on its head. they are a blast. the show was also like 5 bucks and half capacity. it was very awesome

Glad to see GGD place - one of my votes.

Today is as good a day as any to finally give "The Dream My Bones Dream" a whirl - hoping to it now.

(Also voted for Mariah. Need to get caught up on Kamasi.)

Dj Healer isn't going to make it is? ;_;

Ought aren't gonna make this either it seems