ILM 2023 Listening Club

"Nightstand" - dreamy little ballad from Dev Lemons, who I guess runs a fairly popular music account on TikTok? this was my first exposure to her via spotify recs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EZre5OC9cA

checked out her other stuff and she's got a bunch of great hyperpop tracks as well

That Dev Lemons song is great! Nice find.

The Avalon Emerson/Bullion is enjoyable in a very The Sundays kind of way, sort of a drastically different direction from what I know of AE.

That Treanor/James track was good enough that I am working through the album. Plenty of keepers!

Lisa O'Neil's "Old Note" is very much a song where I can connect if I'm in the right headspace and otherwise I run screaming. Nice to have those kind of tracks available to help accentuate moods properly.

Aiming for Enrike are another major find for sure. The full Empty Airports cycle is worth bathing in.

Fever Ray's new one is great of course; they're playing at Terminal 5 later this year and I may have to force myself to get over the ticket price and the venue just to have the experience.

Will dig into the Braxton and Aperly High shortly.

Liking that Dev Lemons song a lot

I don’t know when this will be out on spotify - I guess at midnight? - but I stan Men I Trust and their new song “ring of past” sounds good and has a nice archival music video of skating rings to boot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSGwL5wORJY

i just started a thread for her but I'm adding Anna B Savage's new one, Pavlov's Dog, here too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRT-49MXcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT1XdNPCH0Q

Zoran Simjanović - Dvije Polovine Srca

Hopefully being reissued this year

have been really enjoying the new album from abracadabra (a duo from oakland who have been at it for a few years now i think), an enjoyable mix of talking heads/tom tom club/esg/lizzy mercier descloux-style post-punk along with more dubby/psychedelic sounds and some good bloopy synths. bandcamp blurb also references deerhoof and mort garsson, and as the album goes on you do feel there's a richer fusion of influences than your initial impressions might have led you to believe. anyhow this is the lead track from it, the steel pan drums lending a lovely sparkle to things, like sunshine reflecting off a lake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT6eesjkSL4
abracadabra - talk talk

Yeh good little album

does it... reach out and grab ya?

i really like the idea of this thread - essentially a non-genre based rolling 2023 thread - and had been trying to get the motivation to start something like it when i saw that this thread was already going. i listened to the playlist so far and there's lots of cool stuff on there. the abracadabra song was the one that jumped out the most.

i'm adding wretched lie by the tubs, from their album dead meat. it is indie rock, kind of halfway in between a new zealand jangle and a more aggressive u.s. sound. their singer sounds like richard thompson and writes some great vocal hooks. fans of the goon sax or the smiths might be into it.

pretty terrible video though

I just got the Tubs and it RULES, haven't loved an indie rock record like this in a while.

Trouble in Mind is such a great label.

the Richard Thompson thing is kind of uncanny but seems like it's just his voice.

another influence that stuck out is Bob Mould, but specifically early solo and some Sugar stuff not Huskers

"wretched lie" might not be the most representative song bc it is on the extreme end of their jangliness/smithsiness but the hooks are undeniable. "i don't know how it works" and "sniveller" are two other favorites but the whole album is good

they've just got the tunes

I really am liking this new collab between Ilxor mainstay, Javiera Mena and the legendary Mexican band Moenia . It definitely takes and samples from other songs, mainly Donna Summer I Feel Love and New Orders Bizarre Love Triangle, but sounds great blasted through speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5v9r2vlfrY

I really am liking this new collab between Ilxor mainstay, Javiera Mena and the legendary Mexican band Moenia . It definitely takes and samples from other songs, mainly Donna Summer I Feel Love and New Orders Bizarre Love Triangle, but sounds great blasted through speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5v9r2vlfrY

It is actually a cover of a well known 80’s song in spain/latinamerica

Ivan - fotonovela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNscCzSL6s

Listening to this 2022 album from Adrian Quesada (Boleros Psicodelicos), the instrumental half of Black Pumas. He's kind of like the the American Inflo, flawlessly retro production & playing, but less idiosyncratic and more pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGUGd0m8CxY

I've been digging the Oakland-based Zamrock band Orchestra Gold, whose new album Medicine was released in January. The lyrics are in the Bambara language. I can see some people here dismissing this as sounding too retro, but they know how to kickstart the old sounds in a contemporary, rough-edged but hypnotic way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M5lBYBbcC8

I would have believed you if you told me it’s a reissue of an album from 1978. Sounds interesting will give the full album a listen.

This electronic/jazz collaboration between Saint Abdullah & Jason Nazary (drummer who was in Anteloper with Jaimie Branch) is out today and is sounding really interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLAQkX_KWf0

Presuming this remains a relatively benign space to make contributions, I figure this might be the one thread I continue posting to on ILX as I almost always have a new song that I want to share and would likely otherwise be abandoning the shared playlist.

Composer/saxophonist Sam Gendel continues his remarkably prodigious, diverse and and excellent recording output with the just released COOKUP LP. It's a clever, loving and suitably twisted selection of 90's/00's R&B covers. I'm only two listens in and my fave cut on the album is still a toss-up, so I'd really recommend exploring the whole thing. It's on the streaming services or Bandcamp.

That said, it's hard not to like this reimagining of "Are You That Somebody?" as a recitation of a Woman-Seeking-Man personal over synths, vibraphone and assorted trippy percussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbcLS5tFnAk

was gonna check out the rest of the gendel but i viscerally hated the aaliyah cover

lot of people whose taste i respect like gendel and i loved his 2018 album with sam wilkes, so idk why his recent stuff has been leaving me cold

digging the new album by nyc producer/dj swami sounds. atmospheric, soulful breakbeats, with reflective lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_56TNDAZI

liking that, very nice

wow I'm loving that!

Gendel's a bit hit and miss with me but I will check out anything he releases

I'm fascinated with the whole slowed and reverb / lofi remix trend, on one hand it's an algorithmic cashgrab of functional homework muzak, but sometimes it really hits the spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTOoNhM_qgE

Sei Raate Raat Chhilo Purnima - Lofi (Sanjay S Yadav remixing Kishore Kumar)

Woah this swami sound album rules

Enjoyied the last link too!

the cover of "fotonovela" is pretty good but i had never heard the original before (which Moka posted) and it rules

Yeah original “fotonovela” is great. A party staple in Spain and in my house parties lol.

have been really enjoying the new album from abracadabra (a duo from oakland who have been at it for a few years now i think), an enjoyable mix of talking heads/tom tom club/esg/lizzy mercier descloux-style post-punk along with more dubby/psychedelic sounds and some good bloopy synths. bandcamp blurb also references deerhoof and mort garsson, and as the album goes on you do feel there's a richer fusion of influences than your initial impressions might have led you to believe. anyhow this is the lead track from it, the steel pan drums lending a lovely sparkle to things, like sunshine reflecting off a lake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT6eesjkSL4
abracadabra - talk talk

― o shit the sheriff (NickB)

This just clicked listening to the playlist. Great one

Woah this swami sound album rules

yeah, this is gorgeous. i'm loving the garage remixes he has up on his youtube too e.g. Ice Spice's "In Ha Mood"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvaau6E5tE

yes those are really well done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tdPKlYTWn4

really into "barley" by water from your eyes, weird seasick rock music - makes me think of a less apocalyptic liars

wow they've only ever been mentioned one other time on ILM? weird

i think i was the other mentioner. this new one is excellent. i think i hear in these guys what a lot of other people hear in jockstrap

i listened to a few of their older songs and i was mostly into them (i prefer their noisier/more atonal side to their poppier side). great band name too

yeah the noisier stuff is what sets them apart imo

I love Gendel's whole thing, but the r&b covers album is not really clicking for me either yet.

“Barley” sounded annoying at first but it eventually settles on a groove and it’s great.

Not really hearing Jockstrap. It kept reminding me of Radiohead’s TKOL but it was probably the shaker sound.

40 thieves - don’t turn it off (session victim remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0pRy6ztQTU

Original is from 2010 and there was a really good Brennan Green remix from the time, but new remixes from session victim and bella boo were released this year.

very enjoyable

what a good thread this is

Note to forks: you added the 2010 original to the playlist! The 2023 remix is this one:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2BNc3VoxXiotAqBP6C5FV9

Or rather this one as the extended remix is better imho :p

https://open.spotify.com/track/3F1Zz6MvFDIp1dIs98fXpW

That Aaliyah cover by Gendrel is a resounding no, never imagined I would ever get annoyed by that melody but somehow it was accomplished in that track, then to be accompanied by bordering on pretentious lyrics, it managed to omit all the life of the original.

Btw I think it's Bandcamp + physical only, but there's a new Necks album (Travel) and it's always a blessing to hear The Necks.

new Nabihah Iqbal album on the way, the follow-up to her 2017 debut album, and the lead track is very much in the same vein as the best song on that ('zone 1 to 6000') - a driving cure-like number overlaid with Nabihah's spoken word vocal, somewhat sad and wistful in feeling but still hopeful nonetheless. the delay between the two records sounds like it was a rather frought time for her personally, so it's good to see her bouncing back again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFRIaix41cU
Nabihah Iqbal - 'This World Couldn’t See Us'

https://nabihahiqbal.bandcamp.com/album/dreamer

New Amsterdam Records generally focuses on experimental nu-classical stuff but their artists occasionally dabble in music that crosses over into pop. Percussionist/producer Ben Sloan, who worked with Moses Sumney on his BLACKALACHIA project, has a debut album coming out shortly with the pleasant confection "1e&a" featuring shambhala-esque singer Madeline Kenney. It's a sweet date and a Sesame Street jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJxt7OnRvc

also while I'm at it adding

Andrea - remote working

as that song and the album it comes from has been my fave discovery of the week.

Also forgot to add

melenas - bang

An early stereolab copy but good one.

This is not streaming anywhere that I can find it, but I'm extremely interested in this record by goat (Japan):

https://boomkat.com/products/joy-in-fear

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Thursday, 12 October 2023 23:35 bookmarkflaglink

This seems to be the only mention of this album on ILM - I don't know if there are any discussions of their earlier albums (they're not the easiest band to search for), but this album is great on first listen.

let's do 2024?

yyy

So there’s some options.

Empty the playlist and Change the name of the playlist to 2024… previous songs can be send to an archive.Or make a new playlist… but if we’re doing this every year I’ve found is easier to just keep using the same playlist otherwise you end up with a bunch of playlists.

sounds like a good idea with an archival catch all playlist and then just keep going with this one

Aight every song from 2023 has been moved to this archive playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nDuSiSubdcuTA1u9Fh9sd

Previous playlist has been clean slated and changed name to ILM LISTENING CLUB 2024!

Adding the first song:

Bullion feat Carly Rae Jepsen - Rare

I haven’t even heard it yet but it’s Bullion and CRJ and we love them on ILM don’t we? Worth a mention methinks. Will report later on if it was a good choice or not.

Oh also new Fabiana Palladino produced by Jai Paul. And new Discovery Zone… I won’t hog the thread and add them yet but yeah probably should listen to those too.

You know what forget the Bullion track, I’m leaving it clean until I can decide which song I want to throw in. I’m seeing so many updates

oooh i look forward to hearing the discovery zone! need new thread though??

Oh wow. Had no idea that track even existed.

Thanks Moka

ILM also loves a bit of Nia and the new track finds Ms Archives in a more reflective mood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwzooIPbHw

anyone starting a matching playlist on Tidal? I would but work often keeps me too busy to keep up regularly and Tidal doesn't do collaborative playlists

and I reckon "Lucky" by Erika de Casier should go on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZOKYZtERFQ

I was just about to post that one! But then let me post another good Danish one: Astrid Sonnes dubtechno/chamberpop hybrid Say You Love Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTPiJqVgh78

enjoying this record

Posted this in the Tinashe thread and loving it now so think it deserves to be added to the playlist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlV8zVUgdLM

Agreed!

Also this one suggested by groovypanda on the other thread is great:

Open Space x Laura Groves - Tied

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvpQ3hbhERI

ahem: ILM 2024 Listening Club

Lol I think mods should lock this thread