ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2021

okay really feeling track 2 of this lil ugly mane album ' with iron & bleach & accidents' then straight into some DJ shadow type beats for track 3. loving this.

lol "styrofoam" has indeed convinced me that the album isn't all drab indie

https://i.imgur.com/RxGRami.jpg
27. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
262 points / 8 votes
Song from the album: “Bug Eggs”
Dry Cleaning

help there's bug eggs in my dry cleaning!

congrats to lil ugly mane, can't wait to see where al jolson places

didn't enjoy this as much as Liquid Colours, I must say. The concept was cool but I didn't think the execution really shone through

― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin)

Totally agree. Liquid Colours was one of my favourite discoveries from our 2019 poll and I expected to love this just as much.

Dry Cleaning are definitely one of the better bands of this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?), but I couldn't take a whole album of them.

There's a new music taking over the country and it's called sprechstimme

now Dry Cleaning, that's an apt stage name

this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?)

podcrust

brexiphone

brexit-core

first track on this dry cleaning consists of what appears to be jo brand droning over a franz ferdinand b side

U used to call me on my Brexitphone device at night

I'm patiently and diligently working my way through all of these, and so far it's all been good (surprisingly so with Doja Cat and Hayley Williams, for whom my skip button was primed). Spelling/Emeka Ogboh/Eris Drew is a great run, and Eris Drew sounds sublime, my favourite thus far.

I thought it was sprechsgesang?

they're interchangeable afaict

Finishing up this Deafheaven album and was thinking 'Other Language' sounds like the heavier songs on Paramore's s/t, e.g., 'Future' and now see Justin Meldal-Johnsen produced this record, too

Can't get into Dry Cleaning. I really like the LUM album sonically, but thematically it's just too much self-pity for me to stomach.

oh or,

Though sometimes used interchangeably, Sprechgesang is directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing (in which pitches are sung, but the articulation is rapid and loose like speech), whereas Sprechstimme is closer to speech itself (because it does not emphasise any particular pitches)

Ah, okay! I did go away to look it up but on a tired skim I didn't note the difference.

Sund4r is saying that actually sprechstimme and sprechsgegang are being horribly misused and we should feel bad, or something

https://i.imgur.com/Xonh5xE.jpg
26. Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future
279 points / 13 votes
Song from the album: “To Never Forget the Source”
London jazz wizard Shabaka Hutchings: Sons of Kemet / The Comet Is Coming / Shabaka & the Ancestors

nice

Voted for "To Never Forget the Source" in the tracks poll; didn't vote for the album here but I do enjoy it. Just nice grooves.

this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?)

smokore

i did not vote in the poll but i love the dry cleaning album, while not really getting into most of the other british talk-singing indie rock bands. they are much better musically than the rest of the pack, with actual musical hooks to carry the interest without vocal hooks. but i prefer the chilly/abstract vibe of their singer to the "OI I'M ON THE DOLE AND LONDON IS RUBBISH" thing that a lot of these other bands are doing. the line "I've been thinking about eating that hotdog for hours" still cracks me up every time.

Yeah, I've not heard the whole Dry Cleaning album in full yet but their guitarist knows his onions

good to see SoK. have we passed a vote threshold or was this a low-enthusiasm choice for many?

Yeah, I've not heard the whole Dry Cleaning album in full yet but their guitarist knows his onions

― imago,

Green even!

Dry Cleaning are right at the top end of the sprechcore spectrum for me (with Yard Act right at the bottom end).

n/a otm

https://i.imgur.com/WmmKpIr.jpg
25. Erika de Casier - Sensational
283 points / 13 votes
Video from the album: “Drama”
Erika de Casier - Essentials

This one is sensational.

I think I enjoy this one even more than the first, but both are great. Her songwriting is a bit sharper here.

agreed with those upthread that the guitarist for dry cleaning makes them worth hearing, even if i don't have much time for them

this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?)

Gabber

this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?)

one-tone

I keep getting Dry Cleaning and Wet Leg confused. It doesn't help that the Dry Cleaning album also has "Leg" in the title.

Sprechstimme and sprechgesang are interchangeable afaik. I'm not sure I recognize the distinction made in that Wikipedia quote - the sprechstimme in Pierrot Lunaire has notated pitches with x's on them like the sprechgesang in Wozzeck. It is a technique that aiui involves attempting to hit a note, then letting go of the pitch and sliding to the next in an attempt to follow the intonation patterns found in speech - the effect, at least in the pieces I know, is closer to swoops and sighs and not at all to my ears like rap or slam poetry or Kim Gordon spoken word so these comparisons, which get made even by people with graduate degrees in music, always annoy me, like they are based purely on a literal translation of the terminology itself and not on what the music sounds like.

Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyfUd7_sBdg

Detailed explanation with demonstrations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBVu1s-5E0

too low

yeah had Schoenberg in my top ten, v disappointing

My man

This recording came out last year. Didn't hear it: https://www.discogs.com/release/18685474-Schoenberg-Patricia-Kopatchinskaja-Pierrot-Lunaire

https://i.imgur.com/U6O8Foi.jpg
24. Mr Twin Sister - Al Mundo Azul
286 points / 12 votes
Video from the album: “Beezle”
Mr Twin Sister

too low

today has been a beguiling mix of imagocore with TimFcore lol

simultaneously their most accessible and experimental work to date

ugh what a good album

this whole post punk spoken word scene (what are calling this again?)

The Fallout

the 2021 album whose vocals and lyrics reminded me of the Fall in any way at all was by audiobooks, and it wasn't nominated

this Mr Twin Sister preview track is...much livelier than I remember them being? Hypersophistipop?