Best Album of the Year

[ChezGiven 0]

You heard much of Deepchord? Sampled a few bits and bobs and I think they might be right up my strasse. They're a bit like a chilled out Basic Channel.

My Boulevard, your Strasse? I've read bits and bobs on them but not an artist/label i've listened to really. Its difficult keeping up such diverse interests

[Ayatollah Hermione 13856]

Fuck, didn't realise Bill Fay had an album out! Love his s/t and the album of demos. Will be on that in a hurry.

[Bonamental 0]

For me its between El Camino (Wiki tells me it was December 11 but so fuck that's close enough), Slash's Apocalyptic Love and Black Country Communion's Afterglow. However, best song this year is by far and away this:

 

 

What makes it even more ridiculous is that he wrote it in one go, bar a bit of cleaning up some of the rhymes.

 

(I can never remember how the fuck to do youtube on here)

Edited December 12, 2012 by Bonamental

[Andrew 4747]

Sorry to be a pedant but he'd actually had the dttd chorus sitting around for a while

 

Dislocated boy he wrote in one shot (awesome song) though

 

[Andrew 4747]

Also I'm not sorry to be a pedant at all, I love it

[JawD 99]

Any of you listen to Josh Stone? (Not Joss Stone ) - Just been listening to clips of his last album and sounds canny. wondered if anyone knew it?

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/here-i-am-feat.-katerina-scarlata/id474194745?i=474194770&wdId=32800

[Park Life 71]

Edit - copying fucking playlists, ffs.

 

Got that on now AH, not that into it. Here's my top 20 tunes anyway, easier than albums as the play count on itunes doesnt lie

 

Gone Tomorrow - Lambchop ( Mr. M)

Genesis - Grimes (Visions)

Sonnet - Hundred Waters (Hundred Waters)

Cosmic Concerto - Bill Fay (Life is People)

Dark Star - POLICA (Give You the Ghost)

Midnight Sun - Isaac Delusion (Midnight Sun)

Running - Jessie Ware (Devotion)

Flutes - Hot Chip (In Our Heads)

New York - Angel Haze (Reservation)

Sweet Life - Frank Ocean (Channel Orange)

The Full Retard - El-P (Cancer for cure)

Paradise - Wild Nothing (Nocturn)

Stupid - Bobby Womack (The Bravest Man)

I'm His Girl - Friends (Manifest!)

November Skies - Tomas Barfod (Salton Seas)

Everything is Embarrassing - Sky Ferreira (Ghost)

Millions - Eternal Summers (Correct Behaviour)

Goddess Eyes II - Julia Holter (Ekstasis)

Air Conditioning - DIIV (Oshin)

Speak in Rounds - Grizzly Bear (Shields)

 

Like all the Grizzly Bear stuff.

[Park Life 71]

Same here tbh. It's been hyped for ages but I don't see it like. For my synth pop, I've been listening to the Chairlift record. Some great choruses on there.

 

 

 

All I really liked about her was that she was in that cult and liked the Cocteau Twins.

[ChezGiven 0]

Like all the Grizzly Bear stuff.

Prefer this album to the last one.

 

That Grimes is no.2 in the Guardian's end of year review btw, not that that means anything of course.

[Park Life 71]

Prefer this album to the last one.

 

That Grimes is no.2 in the Guardian's end of year review btw, not that that means anything of course.

 

Just saw that today. I really do like her...Maybe I was expecting too much at the gig. She played Berlin a few days before and the reviews were better. Think she's 'in development'...Next album. It bothered me a bit that she just turned all the synths on and started bopping up and down pretending to fiddle with eq's.

[ChezGiven 0]

She does loads of live shows but its not massively the sort of music i'd want to hear at a gig tbh.

[Park Life 71]

She does loads of live shows but its not massively the sort of music i'd want to hear at a gig tbh.

 

Got in free.

[ChezGiven 0]

I'd expect nothing less.

[Happy Face 29]

I'd have deffo had Killer Mike, Alt-J & Django Django in a top 10, probably Swans and maybe Kendrick Lamar too, but in the spirit of new discoveries which others have provided me with their top tens, I'm gonna restrict myself by not including owt in anyone elses top 10 here or anything in the Metacritic top 10 either....

 

 

 

 

BBNG2 by BADBADNOTGOOD

The LP is as chilled-out and smooth as one would expect from the genre, but the hip-hop influence gives the music such swagger that it could as easily soundtrack a joyride in a convertible as a study session. But most importantly (in my opinion), BBNG2 is proof that young musicians are capable of much more than angst and electropop. Badbadnotgood, along with peers like Blake and Odd Future, are bringing jazz back to the younger generations the way early hip-hop did, and I, for one, am immensely grateful.

http://indiecurrent....g2-album-review

 

 

Attack on Memory by Cloud Nothings

Some albums move you. Others push you to buy a guitar. Cloud Nothings‘ third LP, Attack on Memory, does both, acting as an aural assault on the heart and the fingers. Singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi vocally gnaws at the microphone, though only when he’s butchering his strings over his now trademark garage punk. Pegged as a lo-fi venture by critics everywhere, Cloud Nothings’ last two albums hinted at genius, though they never fully resolved the balance between grit and wit. In a way, the band’s name felt poetically accurate: They were there, but with what? Well, now they’re with a band, and producer Steve Albini doesn’t hurt, either.

http://consequenceof...tack-on-memory/

 

 

The Money Store by Death Grips

Anger is an energy, some old punk once said; but it’s never quite been articulated like this, with negativity turned on its head and thrown at an audience as something to embrace. From the sci-fi dub sounds of ‘The Cage’ to the beating-M.I.A.-at-her-own-sort-of-eastern-sounds game that is ‘Punk Weight’, via the dälek-at-double-speed screams of ‘System Blower’, The Money Store thrills like no other set heard this year.

http://drownedinsoun...reviews/4144782

 

 

Here by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes

it's hard to find many flaws in this new disc from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Without Ray Lamontagne's writerly maudlin streak or Arcade Fire's song-hawker zealousness, Here nonetheless manages to exhibit just a little of both. These nine songs combine folk and indie-rock in a loosely produced midnight hootenanny that, while sepia-toned, is much more than sentimental fare. This is no Boy Scout jamboree: the Magnetic Zeros have both a sing-along community spirit and a lyrical bent that suggests a friendly sectarian church.

http://thephoenix.co...tic-zeros-here/

 

 

Cancer 4 Cure by El-P

El-P is an auteur in peak form here, weaving dense, cerebral verses packed with internal rhymes through a machine-tooled version of classic New York boom-bap with a gnarly, post-industrial edge—part KRS-One, part Cabaret Voltaire. Cancer For Cure is a triumph of imagination and intelligence in service of a pervasive sense of personal and political unease.

http://www.avclub.co...for-cure,75288/

 

 

Some Nights by Fun.

While fun.’s debut album Aim & Ignite definitely flowed in the vein of previous Format releases, the tempo, vibe, and attitude on Some Nights is decidedly more ambitious. The boys of fun. drew a lot of influence from notable hip-hop albums like Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Drake’s Take Care, two albums that perfectly fused emotion with extravagance. The result of these influences in combination with their previous indie-pop sound is what takes Some Nights to electrifying heights.

http://absolutepunk....d.php?t=2639702

 

 

Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

The allure of the opening Mladic hinges on thudding rhythmic threats, all eight musicians lost in a storm of feral energy. After the menacing ambience of We Drift Like Worried Fire, the euphoric Their Helicopters Sing provides a celebratory release: an improvisational squall rises and falls before the band soar off on a Neu!-like rhythmic pulse. It's beautiful, thrilling and exhausting. The Godspeed ethos of wordlessly eliciting universal truths is remains as devastatingly effective as ever.

http://www.guardian....ont-bend-review

 

 

Beware & Be Grateful by Maps & Atlases

The most interesting thing about Beware and Be Grateful is how it transposes traditional instrumentation onto more free-form structures. "Old and Gray" is in many ways a rock song, utilizing standard instruments, a verse-chorus structure, and a narrative vocal arc. But the way it mixes up and repeats elements, many of them products of singer Dave Davison's voice, is disorienting and thrilling. It recalls recent work by TV on the Radio, another group that reconstitutes nonverbal contributions from its singers within an intricate mélange of organic and electronic sources.

http://www.slantmaga...e-grateful/2760

 

 

On The impossible Past by The Menzingers

The Menzingers have moved past whatever they used to be. Once a punk rock group amongst a community of punk rock groups, On the Impossible Past has transformed them into a band of great American storytellers that not only deserve to be mentioned along with the best in the scene, but deserve your actual, undivided attention. This isn’t an album that should be listened to while you’re on Facebook in the background; this is an album that should have come out decades ago, before music would leak a month before its release date, so we could all sit at the foot of our beds and read along with the lyrics in the insert while we watched the record spin on our turntables. This is something that has no expiration date.

http://www.absolutep...d.php?t=2623232

 

 

The Something Rain by Tindersticks

It is a record that younger artists simply couldn’t comprehend, let alone create. And the reason for that is perfectly simple: it doesn’t fret or fuss in an attempt to answer its own questions. It does not attempt to shoehorn in choruses, solos or unnecessary middle-eights; nor does it rush to conclusions. It trusts itself: trusts its own skin, its own means and it does what it does in its own time. Never early, never late: it keeps its own measure and metre. And when intertwined through songs like these - urgent, beautiful and crafted out of fine woods and metals - the result is sumptuous and richly rewarding. To be able to create something this beautiful at such an advanced stage in a bands lifespan is a true testament to the skill and sorcery found in every limb, larynx and lovelorn heart of this band. The rain may continue to fall, but Tindersticks still provide an umbrella of exquisite solace. A record built on restraint, tinged by poignancy and wrapped up in poetic human emotion. Quite wonderful.

http://drownedinsoun...reviews/4144500

[Bonamental 0]

Sorry to be a pedant but he'd actually had the dttd chorus sitting around for a while

 

Dislocated boy he wrote in one shot (awesome song) though

 

Ah fuck you're right. Think I've just transferred that onto DTTD cos its a phenomenal song.

[Park Life 71]

The 3 most beautiful albums of 2012.

 

1. CHROMATICS - KILL FOR LOVE

2.AZUZA PLANE - WHERE THE SANDS TURN TO GOLD

3.LONE - GALAXY GARDEN.

Edited December 13, 2012 by Park Life

[Happy Face 29]

The 3 most beautiful albums of 2012.

 

1. CHROMATICS - KILL FOR LOVE

 

What a coincidence. Just downloaded that. We'll see.

[ChezGiven 0]

Its probably in my best alternative/pop/indie top 10. These Streets Will Never Look The Same is luuusshhh.

[ChezGiven 0]

I'd have deffo had Killer Mike, Alt-J & Django Django in a top 10, probably Swans and maybe Kendrick Lamar too, but in the spirit of new discoveries which others have provided me with their top tens, I'm gonna restrict myself by not including owt in anyone elses top 10 here or anything in the Metacritic top 10 either....

 

 

 

 

Its good that. Is that using the Nexus 6 replicant tablet on google play or something?

 

Thanks for the list anyway, going to work my way through a few of those.

[Park Life 71]

Its probably in my best alternative/pop/indie top 10. These Streets Will Never Look The Same is luuusshhh.

 

Remember looking down on the square listening to that. Time began to miss fractions of itself.

 

[Happy Face 29]

 

Its good that. Is that using the Nexus 6 replicant tablet on google play or something?

 

Thanks for the list anyway, going to work my way through a few of those.

 

Thanks for the heads up that the Caribou fella is doing stuff under another name. Downloaded that one on your advice.

 

Only gig I ever saw in Sunderland was Caribou. Never expected him to do the arena or owt but that mackem pub was beneath him.

[Tooj 17]

I remember going to a Morrissey gig at Sunderland, he introduced himself to the crowd by saying he'd only woke up a couple of hours ago in the only place to be in the North East.... Newcastle.

[Park Life 71]

I remember going to a Morrissey gig at Sunderland, he introduced himself to the crowd by saying he'd only woke up a couple of hours ago in the only place to be in the North East.... Newcastle.

 

[Park Life 71]

[ChezGiven 0]

Thanks for the heads up that the Caribou fella is doing stuff under another name. Downloaded that one on your advice.

 

Only gig I ever saw in Sunderland was Caribou. Never expected him to do the arena or owt but that mackem pub was beneath him.

I used to go clubbing in Sunderland in the early 90s, saw someone get murdered outside the Blue Monkey whilst off my head. Stopped going there after that.

 

That Daphi album has some amazing tracks on it. As an album its not that coherent or solid but imo has 2 of the best club tracks of the year on it. It needs full volume and bass of course.