Hype and Slander: What are you voting for in ILM's 2021 End of Year Tracks and Albums Poll?

Spotify playlists:
ILM 2021 Tracks Poll Nominations
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6pdEOuQY93Cfg75I4NiaA8

ILM 2021 Album Poll Nominations
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ogkGSVMJL9OCrKePshxZp

Defend your taste!

ILM's 2021 End of Year Tracks & Albums Poll / NOMINATIONS THREAD

Track Nominations

Album Nominations

this is the most amazing thing I heard this year and will probably be my #1, extremely deep telepathic improv

https://anarchiveslabel.bandcamp.com/album/eihwaz

gonna rep for 4 of mine and 5 of yours

MINE:

Rhododendron - Last Of The Painted Hills
yknow when you have a particularly killer music dream, like when it's a band you love and they've made this incredible ten-minute song that soars above and beyond anything you'd think of consciously, and then you wake up and can't remember it...well here it is, this is the ten-minute song Smashing Pumpkins made in your dream, and it's played by teenagers, and one of them has come up with a guitar solo to rival anything else in rock history, and it's real: the core, the heart music

Backxwash ft. Ada Rook - I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES
you're allowed to make the rap soty or you're allowed to make the metal soty. you're not allowed to do both. bad Backxwash.

Springtime - Will To Power
genuinely one of the best songs Gareth Liddiard has been involved with. whether it's the same for Jim White or Chris Abrahams i do not know, but i suspect it must be. there's a moment in it that's like falling out of your chair and into another dimension

Black Midi - Slow
state-of-the-art zine-approved jazz-prog banger with the video oty, dive in folks the water's irradiated

THINE:

Death's Dynamic Shroud.wmv - Last Minutes Of The Memory
vaporwave hero Keith Rankin aka Giant Claw dismantles Ariana Grande song and reconstitutes it as 24th-century pop drama of the most exquisite order

Fely Tchaco - Cawe Yoko
the enormous, careening Afro-techno strutter you didn't know you needed to hear repeatedly, def my pick of nominations playlist discoveries so far, and being the deluxe edition of this sort of thing, is fitted with *quite* the guitar solo

Yes Junior 24 - We Are Next Up!
are we going with 'k-hyperpop' or 'hyperk-pop' then

Kam-BU - Black On Black
showing that it's possible to make UK hip-hop with a string section and have it be elegant and poetic rather than portentous and corny. no shade whatsoever

Ola Kvernberg - Arpystarts off like a fairly typical although particularly lovely Norwegian post-jazz-prog exercise, then suddenly someone flicks a switch and we are RIDING A HORSE THROUGH SPACE

plenty else besides, but this'll do for now

Will rep for some stuff soon but am definitely going to check out RIDING A HORSE THROUGH SPACE and if I don't get a full and satisfying cosmic whinny vibe I'll be sad.

These are the two 2021 tracks I ended up listening to the most this year, somehow randomly they are both electronic tracks based around a piano riff

Paul Frick - Neo Biedermeier (Daniel Brandt's Version)
Gooooose - 搂起来

i fed the Spotify playlists to "smarterplaylists" to make a shuffled playlist of the overlap: max 1 nommed track per nommed album. 411 tracks.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kOWSSt3Nls0yKUd58DAiZ?si=ff5ec5b5822b4769

just helps me parse through some album highlights. let me know if this isn't welcome here.

oops fixed that. the overlap is only 112 tracks.

nice, thanks for that!

Silverfish, I have been listening to Neo Biedermeier for a few days. What a great, driving track! I like the Gooooooooooooose song toooooooooooooo

Papolious Jones - We're the OG Ghosts
Saer shared this lovely playful slice of fun on the Bobbins thread and I love it so much. Not available on digital (I wrote to the label) so I bought the EP on vinyl. Played it out at my pub DJ gig that week and two people separately came up to ask what it was. One of them, the bar server, also bought it there on the spot.

There is just an insane amount of music on that playlist, I'm having fun just playing random tracks in the albums playlist and finding a ton of good stuff I haven't heard.

Stuff I nominated that I want to rep:

georg-i - YCO002
Especially because it's NOT on Spotify. My favorite electronic EP of the year, on a label run by aya (who also has a big album on Hyperdub this year) and BFTT, the perfect blend between body music and next-level sound design.

aya - im hole
Varied and heartfelt album from a master of sound design who can make synths sing. If I wanted to had to only give someone two words, they would have to be "IDM SOPHIE".

Sam Gendel - Fresh Bread
Representing the L.A. lo-fi ambient jazz contingent, he had a big year with this monumental release (50+ tracks), More Music for Saxofone and Bass Guitar w/Sam Wilkes (also nommed), and Pino Pallodino's album (also nommed). The textures alone, he's incredibly good at making a saxophone never sound like a saxophone. All big 'first half of 2021' lockdown-ish music for me.

Sunareht - Amorama
French producer who has a totally unique style of deconstructed French house, often without drums, very ecstatic.

I could go on and on and on but want to keep it tight.

Stuff I didn't nominate that I want to rep:

Illuvia - Iridescence of Clouds
Gorgeous swoony ambient drum & bass, which is better than that sounds since both the breaks and the synths are brilliantly done.

I was really honored to see my album on the playlist (thanks Sund4r!), so what the heck, check out Chants - Poly Pointillism if you're interested in rhythmically obsessive, minimal programmed kalimba pieces.

Btw dog latin I'm waiting for you to rep the Howie Lee album.

:) Good album! xp

a few to start off with

Albums
Yuta Orisaka - State of Mind
jazzy singer-songwriter with gorgeous melodies and an incredible sense of space. i recommend these two live performances as an introduction.

dltzk - frailty
"emo hyperpop/digicore", something like clarity, perfume's discography, and a bunch of video game soundtracks all thrown in a blender. this is a good introduction

Tracks
Tyla feat DJ Lag & Kooldrink - Overdue
one of last year's amapiano highlights. this is probably going to be overlooked in favour of "getting late" which was her earlier hit but "overdue" is even better

batten girls - watashi koi hajimetatteyo!
soaring, meditative, breakbeat j-pop

thanks to imago for shouting out "we are next up!" too

BTW, I am done with both playlists; let me know if your music isn't on there and you think I can add it.

Here's the ILM Hivemind Awards aka Vote Splitting Alert for the most nominated tracks by the same lead artist. If you don't know any of these names, this is who you should most likely get familiar with.

at least 2 tracks - 42 Dugg, Ada Lea, Agnes, Amyl and the Sniffers, Arca, Ariana Grande, Arooj Aftab, Ashley Monroe, Bachelor with Jay Som and Palehound, beabadoobee, Beach House, Black Midi, Blxst, Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak are Silk Sonic, Burna Boy, Cardi B, Cate Le Bon, CFCF, Christine and the Queens, CHUNG HA, Ckay, Clairo, C. Tangana, DARKSIDE, DJ Black Low, DJ Manny, Donato Dozzy, Drake, Dry Cleaning, Dua Saleh, Fred again..., girl in red, Hannah Peel, HEALTH, HTRK, Indigo De Souza, Javiera Mena, Julian Lage, Kabza de Small, Kenz and Ami Faku, Koffee, Koreless, Laura Mvula, LAYCON, Lil Nas X, Lily Konigsberg, LOONA, Lorde, L'Rain, LSDXOXO, Marie Davidson, MARINA, Matt Sweeney and Bonnie Prince Billy, Megan Thee Stallion, Men I Trust, Mitski, Moses Boyd, Nicolas Godin, Nightmares on Wax, Overmono, Pale Waves, Parquet Courts, Paul McCartney, Polo G, Pop Smoke, Rauw Alejandro, Rema, Remble, Remi Wolf, Richard Dawson, Roza Terenzi and D Tiffany, RXKNephew, Rx Papi, Sam Fender, serpentwithfeet, Skepta, Soccer Mommy, Sofia Kourtesis, Spellling, Squid, Sun-El Musician, Syd, Taylor Swift, Tems, Torres, TRI.BE, Tropical Fuck Storm, Tyler the Creator, UNIIQU3, Victoria Monet, Vince Staples, Weeekly, Wet Leg, WILLOW, Wizkid, Young Thug, Yu Su

at least 3 tracks - ABBA, Baltra, Big Thief, Brent Faiyaz, Cassandra Jenkins, Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul, dltzk, Duke Deuce, Genesis Owusu, Grouper, Isaiah Rashad, Jack Ingram and Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall, Japanese Breakfast, Jazmine Sullivan, Jessie Ware, Lady Blackbird, Lana del Rey, Lil Ugly Mane, Little Simz, Nas, Nite Jewel, Pa Salieu, Phoebe Bridgers, Real Lies, serpentwithfeet, Summer Walker, SZA, Wolf Alice, Yola

4 tracks - Charli XCX, CHVRCHES, Courtney Barnett, Dawn Richard, Erika De Casier, Kacey Musgraves, Magdalena Bay, Olivia Rodrigo, PinkPantheress, Tirzah

5 tracks - Low, Tinashe

6 tracks - Cleo Sol, Doja Cat

7 tracks - Billie Eilish

i do like that batten girls track ufo, do they have any other stuff with that sort of recipe?

not that i'm aware of unfortunately, from what i've heard they're not the sort of idol group that really sticks to any one sound at all

yeah i watched a live set and it wasnt really like that song at all. still fun tho

Scanning through the nominations, I noticed a few things that might be of use in a data-cleaning sort of way:

ALBUMS
-- "Nicholas Godin - Concrete and Glass": this was released in January 2020, ie nearly two years ago, it seems?
-- "Rachika Nayar- Our Hands Against the Dark": The last word in the title should be "Dusk", not "Dark".
-- "sund4r Subramanian - Electric Currents": Maybe our guy's name should be de-searchproofed in the list, lest someone inputs this name into e.g. Spotify and wrongly concludes the album is not available?

TRACKS
-- "Kerwin Du Bois - See Dem" / "Kerwin Du Bois & Teddyson John - See Dem": possibly a duplicate, with and without the TJ credit? Maybe nominator dog latin can elucidate whether the TJ-free entry refers to a separate thing?
-- "Insides - Undressing" / "Insides - Undressing": obvious duplicate.
-- "Beak> - Oh Know" / "Beak> - Oh No": apparent duplicate; the only trace I find of the latter title is a tweet from the band, where they clearly refer to the former track.

To be clear: I refer to the googledoc lists, which ought maybe to be linked prominently in this thread as well?

added up top

swift work, thanks!

Jordan I will absolutely rep the Howie Lee album - Birdy Island It's fantastic.

Think of Smile-era Beach Boys instrumentals composed by a Chinese leftfield grime producer and that's kind of getting there, but it's just a total trip.

This wasn't a big year for albums for me but this is very much up there

Re: See Dem - yes I think those are duplicates. Left Teddy Johnson off by accident when I nominated.

7 tracks - Billie Eilish

We gonna coordinate, avocadostans(?)

aya - im hole is wonderful and I'll be voting it high. Very much love.

oh wow "cawe yoko" rules

Voting is open! ILM's 2021 End of Year Tracks & Albums Poll / VOTING THREAD

under the radar stuff y'all need to check out:

Albums

DJ Manny - Signals in My Head
Footwork/Juke AOTY imho. U Want It is one of my favorite songs of the year and is catchy as all hell

Arushi Jain - Under the Lilac Sky
Probably my AOTY of electronic music - this is a transcendent album of gorgeous modular electronics, much more lush and immersive than recent Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and incorporates Jain's voice using South Asian musical inspiration. This album is far more therapeutic and ready for a trippin' than Jon Hopkins' latest effort.

Nite Jewel - No Sun
Heart breaking. Minimalist R&B perfection. Can't get over how good this is front to back.

Koreless - Agor
This has been mentioned elsewhere here, but want to bring it up again as it's seriously that good. Ambient deconstructed club record that sounds at once futuristic and nostalgic.

Altin Gün - Yol
This Turkish retro funk band BRINGS it. Every time I throw it on I'm blown away again.

Sofia Kourtesis - Fresia Magdalena
This EP has more bangers than most great albums. Easily my favorite dance record of the year, most of the songs here will probably be on my tracks ballot. Drop anything here in a set FTW.

Songs

Kind of obsessed with these couple songs - again more dance/hip hop oriented stuff, but these are the tracks that just get me excited to DJ

Mano Le Tough - Man of Aran
Herbert - Fantasy (feat. Verushka)
Nightmares on Wax - Creator SOS (feat. Haile Supreme & Wolfgang Haffner)
Nightmares on Wax - Wonder (feat. Haile Supreme & Shabaka Hutchings)
BASSIDE - NYC2MIA (SOPHIE REMIX)

More tracks (the Eomac in particular is an awesome hard hard banger):

Brijean - Hey Boy
Eomac - Mandate For Murder

+1 on Nite Jewel and Kourtesis.

Find of the day on shuffle was DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. 2 hour albums of uh.. is 'future funk' still a thing? This is the one that came on first and hooked me.

i'll hype up my very faves later on if they havent been covered... and they don't change while i'm shuffling.

the most wonderful time of the year

(oh i fixed my playlist and i'm not tinkering with that smarterplaylists junk no more. it's 266 nommed albums that had nommed tracks, on Spotify. thank u)

Sans Soucis - On Time For Her (album)
I saw this London artist recommended on Twitter and was surprised she had not been mentioned here. Good, breezy indie soul w/ diverse influences.
I nominated a different track but this is the catchiest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBQaGZzZ6-8

I am going to do my best to try to get through every nominated single. Bear in mind that I have a tendency to listen to tracks four or five times apiece unless I utterly hate them on contact so this is a bit of a process.

Is Tim F not active anymore? Enjoyed his eoy thread.

Xpost: First time hearing the Arushi Jain and loving it. Thanks.

I'm not gonna campaign for much this year, because eh, but by golly that Mabe Fratti album blew me away. Spare some votes for it if you can. I'd love to see it in top 77, even if it's in the low reaches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCjmlYPC2-g

A few tracks that not everyone may have stumbled over

Tinashe – Small Reminders – cascades of r&b sensuality over angular rocks of bass, follow the thread in the labyrinth
Dunnie feat. Oxlade – Overdose remix – pure charm poured directly over your face
Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagel - El Gran Silencio – flying into the night to explore the icy, dreamy and lyrical regions on the artistic side of electro-pop
Linn da Quebrada – I míssil – if you're missing the astuteness and sensuality of a Brazilian trans artist in your ballot
Lost Girls – Real Life – Phantomatic reverberations of krautrock by the best Scandinavian narrator talking about her email inbox
Marina Sena - Voltei Pra Mim - If you know about Marisa Monte, Céu, Tulipa Ruiz, Luia Maita and are looking for an additional album to listen to, consider 'De Primeira'

Just want to say that UK Drill made some incredible pop music this year. There's no shame in voting for Body even though it went to #1 and Tion Wayne later did a track based on an Ed Sheeran sample. Still a great great song.

Also, give the BackRoad Gee album a chance. His focus on ad libs and onomatopoeia over flows perhaps makes it lyrically weak, but the sound of it was incredible. Check the dog samples on Lost in the Flesh for instance.

Tapestry Of Sound - Maypole Theme (Surrealist Piano Roll Mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_qNpm5bCMM

breakbeat, garage, trance, or big piano house anthem? I feel like 2021 was a really good time for bobbins despite barely being able to go out dancing, this one managed to tie together so many different influences and styles, in both a classic and a fresh way.

Finn & India Jordan - The Big B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3TnDqwKNLo

big-room, hi-energy, relentless banger, made of thick bass and a hook as catchy as "Inspector Norse" or "Rej"

Very much enjoying the Spotify Tracks playlist. Definitely more hits than misses for me and lots of new discoveries. Thanks everyone.

“Getting Older” is my Billie jam.

Speaking of the Local Action crew, I want to stump for Anz - You Could Be (feat. George Riley). It's both throwback and fresh, perfect pop dance, and the bassline reminds me of Levert's Casanova.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E36658KPKac

Tyla feat DJ Lag & Kooldrink - Overdue
one of last year's amapiano highlights. this is probably going to be overlooked in favour of "getting late" which was her earlier hit but "overdue" is even better

― ufo, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 6:06 PM (yesterday)

This is nice! I don't know what ~ILM taste~ is anymore, but a few years back I would have said this had potential to be a borad anthem (though I'm not sure I personally think it's better than Getting Late)

a great punk/post-hardcore album I'll be voting for is BUMMER - Dead Horse
https://bummerkc.bandcamp.com/album/dead-horse

for fans of Pissed Jeans, Scratch Acid, Drug Church, Killdozer etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xUxcoO2js

also, this is another one I'll surely vote for. could be a good metal/regular poll crossover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ4kqVYnB04

Local Action/2 B Real is probably my favourite label this year - "Microdosing" and "Wish It Would Rain" and "Baby" were all standout bobbins for me too

Sofia Kourtesis - Fresia Magdalena
This EP has more bangers than most great albums. Easily my favorite dance record of the year, most of the songs here will probably be on my tracks ballot. Drop anything here in a set FTW.

― octobeard, Tuesday, January 4, 2022 8:38 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

+1 (my nom). I will be voting for the EP, I think; too many good tracks to just pick one.

Find of the day on shuffle was DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. 2 hour albums of uh.. is 'future funk' still a thing? This is the one that came on first and hooked me.

― maf you one two (maffew12), Tuesday, January 4, 2022 8:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Nice - another of my noms. Found it in the EOY list cycle and couldn't resist it. Reminds me of the first Avalanches album, especially bouncier songs like "Electricity". Sample-heavy dance album. Here's one of the tighter songs, as many run over 10 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7g9hWCOxs

I will rep for two country tracks:

Carly Pearce - "Next Girl"

My pop country SOTY. Clever, double entendre-laced songwriting with a muscular beat. Co-written with Shane McAnally & Josh Osborne, the tandem behind many of the great Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark, and Sam Hunt songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5KKh5gFock

Jason Eady - "French Summer Sun"

A beautiful, patient acoustic song from one of the most talented country songwriters of the last decade that delivers it's plain message about the costs of war through vivid narrative. I do believe John Prine would've loved this one.

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

Glad some folks like Cawe Yoko, Fely Tchaco is fun. The guitar on that track is ridiculous but I love it.

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

Here's another good one by her, not nominated but just fwiw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXHjlIoI-k

May as well post the one song that I will absolutely, positively be the sole voter for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5jcXNbFfKQ

Pleasant discoveries I've made from the playlists so far:

Rochelle Jordan
Linda Frederiksson
Bilal Nasser - Where the Orange Groves Grow
Maxine Funk
Joy Crookes
Insides - Soft Bonds
Moritz von Oswald Trio - Dissent

Although the last one made me put on the Soccer96 because of how incredible it sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38tfTqJFI6I

Oh cool, glad you liked Bilal's album.

I just want to rep for the LADY BLACKBIRD album, a vocal jazz album that doesn't do anything groundbreaking but it's impeccably produced and she has a really beautiful voice - somewhere between Nina Simone and Sarah Vaughn - I've been enjoying this one immensely this winter season.

There are three wonderful songs of her in the tracks nominations. My nom and vote will go towards "Fix It" which is based on Bill Evans' "peace piece" and floors me everytime. My second favorite would be the James Gang cover of 'Collage' which has a light psychedelic jazz vibe and a great bass sound to it but that one wasn't nominated.

FIX IT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9-w37kmtKA

Pleasant discoveries I've made from the playlists so far:

Rochelle Jordan
Linda Frederiksson
Bilal Nasser - Where the Orange Groves Grow
Maxine Funk
Joy Crookes
Insides - Soft Bonds
Moritz von Oswald Trio - Dissent

LindaFred album is sort of cuddly-ECM - no idea whether it got much traction anywhere but it's gorgeous.

Would love to see Insides and Rochelle make the 77 - both very high on my ballot. The Rochelle is joyously hooky and frothy and really grew in stature all year.

Find of the day on shuffle was DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. 2 hour albums of uh.. is 'future funk' still a thing? This is the one that came on first and hooked me.

Did not expect that one to come up here! Being Alone is also really really really good and was my entry point into that record. That album is crazy epic and the artist is ridiculously prolific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz8410zKbhY

The artist she reminds me of is Mylo a bit more than the Avalanches, but that turn of the millennium nostalgia is def there.

Here are a few pretty accessible tracks from me:

SUEP - Domesticated Dream
I meant to post about this on one of the indie-related threads but kept forgetting. A project from the keyboardist of Porridge Radio (and feat some other DIY pals), this is a laid-back bop that gets very earwormy and I love it.

Kanano Senritsu - Drop
J-pop with a bit of a footwork influence. Slams.

Wheelchair Sports Camp - YESS i'm a MESS
Kalyn Heffernan is a pretty new discovery for me but I'm completely won over by this hip-hoppy pean to everything being fucking awful.

Taraka - 0010110
Ex-Prince Rama member with a sick psych-pop jam.

And of course Go_A - ШУМ (SHUM)
The song that should have won the Eurovision Song Contest and should by rights win this poll too. (There's actually an alternative version I prefer but this is the official one, and it rules almost as much.)

Whoa at the J-pop + Jersey club song

crypto, i love that uncle watson track! painfully accurate

ooh "drop" is excellent, that's one track produced by kenmochi hidefumi (of wednesday campanella fame) i hadn't heard

If the table is the table is in here, I wanna see your ballot

Thanks, whoever did it, for that Moritz Von Oswald album nom! Completely overlooked it and it’s amazing.

Xenia Rubinos is probably my AOTY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_X7yrfWU_U

I really like the Griff EP and "Black Hole" in particular. Sort of expected her to make more of a splash but not yet I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2SK_jb68dk

And I just love this Mandy, Indiana track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sUSDQxUV7A

ooh "drop" is excellent, that's one track produced by kenmochi hidefumi (of wednesday campanella fame) i hadn't heard

― ufo, Wednesday, January 5, 2022 7:04 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ahaaa. Yep. I'm in.

Speaking of the Local Action crew, I want to stump for Anz - You Could Be (feat. George Riley). It's both throwback and fresh, perfect pop dance, and the bassline reminds me of Levert's Casanova.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E36658KPKac

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, January 6, 2022 2:45 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This will be close to my #1. Barely stopped rinsing it since I first heard it.

the other fantastic george riley track this year was "power", sublime r&d&b

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

quite possibly voting for both

R&b-wise, 'Amber Mark - What it is' is dead certain to be on my ballot

I'm considering about 5-10 Amapiano / SA songs, and from the top I have a hard time choosing between Ngixolele and Mmapula from Busta 929. Then there's at least Osama, Higher, LiYoshona, Phakade Lami, Gupta, Tyla, nobody nominated La vie est belle so I guess Folasade from the album with Tresor. Choices choices...

Vilde Tuv is a Norwegian artist who's worked in an interesting, melodic modern singer-songwriter landscape, but she took a couple of years off to study electronic music production, came back with those skills and a recorder flute and made an instrumental trance epic - the album Melting Songs, which is on the noms list

She's currently in the process of adding music videos to each track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLYbTcV1zBc

The k-pop lowdown:

Weeekly - After School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfVuRQX0ydQ

A fairly new group that I hadn't noticed before releases a song of pure, bright delight. The chorus is undeniable, the verses have just the right pep.

Aespa - Savage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPdWvnAAurg

Aespa's hate it or love it embrace of SM's divisive signature mashed up sound peaked with 'Savage', going from the harsh and metallic to the soaring rnb bridge. For me it's a welcome statement in a scene where some artists with international ambitions water down their sound:

SW2 & Moses Boyd's "Dirty South", a great track in its own right, was remixed by Sully into something even better, cutting up Boyd's jazz drumming from the original and turning the track into full-on drum & bass. One of my most played tracks from last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5XjEMPFNJQ

Couple of afrobeat tracks for your consideration:

(Ayra Starr is currently getting hard done by on Tom's Peoples Pop Poll of 2021 so hopefully will make more of a splash in the ILM 77)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Sp0jIHDYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_-n_RHDyuA

I was sure this was a lost C86 band when I first heard them. Gorgeous melancholy jangle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC0xoDdLbo8

xp
Tems looks to get ruthlessly vote split, so I hope people vote for the ep in the albums poll despite the brevity

I was somewhat indifferent to the music (sorry), but I loved that Vilde Tuv video

xp good one michael, very verlaines-esque

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwPyZgE-FKk

this somalian banger actually came out a few years back but it really blew up on the internet this year and it's been stuck in my head for days at a time. not really sure what's going on in the video - nimco's getting down with a load of military personnel who are super into it, meanwhile an audience in civilian clothing look on impassively

I hope I'm not the only person to vote for Rema - Bounce, which is just so much fun and has featured in so many of my DJ sets this year.
Rema as horny dude is nothing new, but he generally paints himself out as a loverboy or a ladies' man. Here he doesn't muck around though. There is one thing on his mind and he wants you to know it. By the middle-eight he's whipped himself up into such a frenzy he's just spitting the word "booty" repeatedly.
But aside from crass objectification, there's something unique about the way the "Huuuuuuh when I weigh the thing" line is delivered. In fact I'd say it's my favourite Rema vocal to date.
But by far my favourite thing about this song is the incongruously cartoonish haunted castle backing riddim which has nothing to do with the song but nevertheless propels it into sheer greatness in my eyes.

xp I love this NickB. Surprised I'd not heard it yet!

the incongruously cartoonish haunted castle backing riddim

oh wow you're not kidding, those chords are proper scooby doo

ha I hadn't quite got to "haunted castle" but that is otm

It's the first thing that struck me about it - a Scooby Doo booty anthem

given how possessed by booty he is in that middle bit, I think it ends up being more congruous than expected

Haha

Some propwash 4 my noms starts here, from RJ 2021:

75 Dollar Bill's live ateliers claus, out this year, starts with tracks from a 2016 show, right after the election: Chen says he's pissed with himself because he didn't see it coming, but takes out his frustrations in acerbic, swirling, African-influenced folk-rock-jazz, steadfast and developmental (sometimes sounding like two guitars), while Brown's found crate is very supportive. Later, in 2019, Chen also plays the lower register of soprano sax, while Andrew L.'s wide-ranging contrabass arco and Brown's "homemade horns" join in. One of their most consistent collections, https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/album/live-ateliers-claus

― dow, Thursday, June 17, 2021

omg Dedicated to Saint Escrava Anastacia.
credits
released June 19, 2021

All instruments, vocalz, and synths performed, produced, recorded, arranged & mixed By Angel Bat Dawid.
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/hush-harbor-mixtape-vol-1-doxology
First encounter w this, and don't know of course if it will seem as amazing now that I know what to expect (nothing like what I did expect from several titles, which is prob the point), but so far it's immediately compelling, often beguiling, with an eerie, tranquil intensity, and some shifting surfaces and perimeters (for inst, what's happening to the vocals going around the room---"I know I should be grateful"---in " 'Goree,' or Slave - Stick"---we also get the improbably redemption of overt Auto Tune sometimes, or maybe keys, emphasizing the inflection (of male group vocals? Or herself treated?) that suggests a African-Hebraic-Isalmic chain, rattling a little (the clarinet encourages this). One of the most affecting tracks is her untreated, a capella , "Bet"--followed, in a plausible way, by a calmly killer finale trilogy. None of this is an onslaught of sounds, though; each room is only as full as need be. Seems like a rec to fans of adventurously historical clarinetists John Carter and Matana Roberts (her Coin Coin series, and maybe all of his Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music, although the album from that I'm thinking of, and most familiar with, is Fields).

― dow, Tuesday, June 29, 2021

yes, very good release, will vote

Arthur Russell: 24 to 24 Music Live at the Kitchen Yeah
00:00 / 01:06:53: That's it, one seamlessly interweaving banger--dunno how much is through-composed, but it's all very conversational, with 0 chatter, though some clatter, of Mustafa Ahmed's congas, Jeff Berman's drums, Rome Neal's percussion--times Larry Salzman's guitar, with Peter Gordon's tenor sax crackles and Peter Zummo's trombone hums and holds and (you know it) slides along(the maestro doesn't sing, plays "Pizz Cello" upfront for first 7 minutes at most, then mans the bass function)--while Julius Eastman's organ punctuates, inflects, succinctly comments (incl. exclaims) on and over it all---and eventually, the Downtown crowd does disco, as could still happen then (spoiler)
https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/24-to-24-music-live-at-the-kitchen

*while* Peter Gordon's

also on my ballot!

My intrepid jazz buddy John Wojtowicz has sent me the bandcamp link to Lucky Man, the recently released soundtrack/audiodoc version of the 2010 film, which tracks Vietnam War vet Billy Bang's return to the country, traveling all through it, playing and talking with local musicians and maybe others--- I gotta see the whole thing for context, but it all comes into focus right away, and in effect completes a trilogy, following his Vietnam: The Aftermath, which I think first came out in 2002, and is like it says here:
As a belated document of his traumatic experience as a soldier in Southeast Asia, Vietnam: The Aftermath was a painful but cathartic album for free jazz violin great Billy Bang to make. Joined by fellow Vietnam vets including tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe, trumpeter Ted Daniel, drummer Michael Carvin, and "conductionist" Butch Morris, Bang paints a harrowing picture of the conflict on "TET Offensive." But employing Asian folk melodies like rays of sunshine through the darkness and sturdy bop lines as friendly arrows pointing the way back home, he offsets visions of death and destruction with humane insight and saving humor (then and now, there's nothing like a little '60s-styled "Saigon Phunk" to prop a grunt up). Bolstered by some richly textured ensembles, Bang rips off some of his most impressive and stirring solos. The contributors also include pianist John Hicks and flutist Sonny Fortune. --Lloyd Sachs

Frank Lowe, Bang's frontline partner in the Jazz Doctors, died before Vietnam: Reflections (2005), but it has James Spaulding, with guest Henry Threadgill on flute, joining Daniels, Hicks, Carvin, Morris,Carmen Lundy, Rob Brown, plus Vietnamese singer Co Boi Nguyen and Nhan Thanh Ngo on the 16-string dan tranh. As with The Aftermath, we get an intersection of post or late bop and Asiatic asssociations (which John says he always though of Bang's violining as having, way before he knew about any of these albums; I think it has something to do with his bluesiness too). They also perform some Vietnamese melodies, and--not seeing the credit on "Doi Moi," but it's one on of my favorite ballad tracks by anybody ever, and a poignant countercurrent to the rest of Reflections's dance thus far.

On screen, Lucky Man climaxes with a new arrangement of "Mystery of the Mekong," from The Aftermath, now performed with the Hanoi Symphony Orchestra: it's rich, dark, profuse, surefooted, river delta music for sure---but here, it's not the grand finale, it's track 4, dig.

Along the way, Bang's flying strings get matched by marching folk bands, and "Jungle Lullaby" starts nighty-night and then everybody goes wild as dreams, for a while, also into two shots of "New Saigon Phunk," rippling and loping. "Song For Don Cherry" is another good 'un, and can Bang keep up with the stone lithophone of "Dan Da"? It rings like a bell, but not too often and not too chime-y, and so far I prefer it to vibes---come back and start over, Gary Burton.

Incisive speed burns incl. excerpts of a Vietnamese woman on how her father changed after the War (with music far in the background, and what I'd hoped was an tape artifact turning about to the kind of engine still associated with war footage), and Bang in little spills of his own lifelong coming to grips. (This particular project was three years before he died.)
https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/billy-bang-lucky-man

Here's a reasonable take on the music, incl. in context of the movie, with backstory to it and relevant aspects of Bang's life: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/lucky-man-billy-bang-bbe-records

― dow, Tuesday, May 18, 2021

From Greg Tate thread---need to say more about these later:

...Meanwhile, archival 2021 release Making Love To The Dark Ages incl at very least an LP's-worth of instrumental goodness-to-greatness(good measure, in this vinyl-high, "post-album" age)---that is, my fave raves so far are the second half, at least impact-wise: "Dominata (the gabri ballad)"(15:47), and the two-part title work: https://burntsugarthearkestrachamber.bandcamp.com/album/making-love-to-the-dark-ages-livewired-2009

Now listening to yet another of their 2021 releases, younger contingent up front this time, Tate & other elders still along for the ride: https://burntsugarthearkestrachamber.bandcamp.com/album/the-darknuss Brides of Funkensteinoid for openers--

― dow, Friday, December 10, 2021 8:19 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

"No culuds, no culuds allowwwed,"The Darknuss, by REBELLUM ~ Burnt Sugar Arkestra's Avant Funk & Roll Splinter Cell

― dow, Friday, December 10, 2021 and the set finds, mined and minds a deep sweetness, w/o ever going mushy (only disappointment, at least to non-prog-me, is that Vernon Reid shows up to play what sounds like guitar synthesizer, vintage if you want to say it politely---but may come around to this cameo, in such persuasive context).

julian lage - "quiet like a fuse" was a revelation from the playlist, so thank you to the nominator

Ooo, I just got to see Lage play live with Dave King and Jorge Roeder, he was great.

that one is mine! the live version is good too.
the sadness in the song is just so heavy to me.

I would like to rep for the Sam Gendel/Sam Wilkes album and particularly the THEEM PROTOTYPE track which is a certified banger and definitely going on my ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CdSzWTx-f0

^i've listened to this like 50 times if i've listened to it once

Same, it's high on my ballot.

Dang, two Koreless tracks on the singles list but not my fave, 'Joy Squad'

Also forgot to nom James Blake feat. Monica Martin - 'Show Me'

Another nom, from RJ 2021 once again:
More Energy Fields, Current
by Carlos Niño & Friends
Tagged in label notes as 10 pristine gems of collaborative communication helmed by the Southern Californian sage, elegantly presented in his unique “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” style. And sounds like the improvisational part might feed and respond to the Space Collage: it's more jazz than set piece, like the tracks, never too long, might be scooping up something along the way, lighting in the bottle and vice-versa. Wonder if they play live, with loops, maybe? Seems like this approach could work well on right stage.

Listening on headphones, I keep getting aerial glimpses of the Pacific Coast Highway, interspersed w more time in little caves and coves: an intimate, though airy, small group sound, always incl. Niño (percussion, sound design, editing, mixing) and I think always Jamael Dean on keys, with others sometimes on drums, tenor and/or flute, synths, and voices (on one track: wordless ones, don't worry, of Laraaji and Sharada). Shabaka Hutchings, Dntel, Adam Rudolph, Aaron Shaw, a bunch of others, coming in and moving on, at least for a while, never too many at once.

First one to command my attention was "Nightswimming," then so many of the others that I gave up on linking a favorite in addition to the whole thing:
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/more-energy-fields-current

― dow, Monday, May 31, 2021 4:57 PM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Niño’s previous album on IA, Chicago Waves, is live if you’re curious! I think I described it as more like ambient/new age than jazz on the IA thread but I liked it a lot

― rob, Monday, May 31, 2021 5:08 PM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Will check, thanks! Ambient/New Age usually puts me right to sleep, but this got me more awake.
Also, this one has *kind* of a DePlume vibe, or related appeal,anyway, but maybe earlier in the day or evening, and a little more spare?
https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/

― dow, Monday, May 31, 2021

Could easily do a Top Ten of International Anthem releases, whether or not they ever put out that many in any given year.

holy shit, SHUM was a EUROVISION song?? i shoved it straight into my prospective ballot completely oblivious to this, lol

but anyway I was coming here to observe that emil.y's later batch of nominations are providing all sorts of difficult balloting decisions for me. especially Taraka. zero zero one zero one one zeroooo

Time to vote.

Also from RJ 2021:

Totally fun 2021 reissue from Downtown NYC '96,keeping me on my toes

Sleevenote 2
Working with Spanish Fly was an extraordinary experience for me as I most often work with classical music in my choreography. Their music, however, has the perfect pulse for a ballet. It's charged with an "in
Your face" attitude mixed with a sense of yearning. I began to see Images of characters right away. “Night Creatures” we called them.
Young people sliding up Avenue A, full of quirks and obsessions.We gave them names: the Snake Lady. the Sisters, the Lovers. These Characters became our guides. They lead us to Our themes and choices of style.
Lighting designer Mark Stanley created a set of massive Venetian Blinds which opened to reveal the dancers. This gave the work a
sense of spying, of voyeurism.
credits
released April 1, 2021

Steven Bernstein . trumpet, slide trumpet, cornet, crooning
Marcus Rojas : tuba, tubapercussion, tubasinging
Tronzo : slide guitar, cup guitar, prepared guitar
with Ben Perowsky : drums, percussion

FLY BY NIGHT" COMMISSIONED BY THE SAN FRANCISCO BALLET ASSOCIATION.
CHOREOGRAPHED BY CHRISTOPHER D'AMBOISE.

PREMIERED FEBRUARY 28,1996 AT CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT YERBA BUENA GARDENS.
BACKGROUND VOCALS ON TONGUE SANDWICH:
SPANISH FLY, HAL WILLNER, VICKI STANBURRY, LAURIE GALLUCCIO, AMANDA REISMAN
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/fly-by-night

― dow, Wednesday, 29 December 2021

This was too:

can't say it better than this guy does on Bandcamp:
Philip Graham---Oh how I do love this stately, swinging tumble of harmony and melody. The album seems like a slowed down, trippy echo of Duke Ellington’s “The Second Line” from New Orleans Suite. It's not really all that slow: every track has satisfying internal dynamics, which go with the mixing of emotions, rhythms, incidents, shades of this and that--yeah, Ellingtonia and NOLA and Downtown hipsters have come this far:

'Tinctures in Time' is the first original music Steven Bernstein has ever written for the Millennial Territory Orchestra, which prior to this recording had exclusively been a vehicle for his arrangements of other people's songs, from Count Basie to Prince. Most of the album was composed in 2019, a tough period for Bernstein: Henry Butler had recently passed, and there was a series of serious injuries and death in his immediate family. Like a lot of people do, Bernstein got through it by working. "I was spending a lot of time on planes, going to visit people in hospitals," he says. "So what else am I going to do with my time? I ended up with all this music."

"The tincture of time" is a phrase Bernstein's father, a doctor, uses for when there's nothing to be done but wait for something to heal; the relevance of time as healer for Bernstein himself is clear. He altered the phrase so it makes a little reference to a favorite Sly Stone tune. And "tinctures," Bernstein says, also refers to "things that people take to give feelings of euphoria." It's why he also calls this collection of compositions "cannabis music."But it's not some foggy notional bank of sands through the hourglass: everybody's very responsive, just never hyper (a tad outcat at times).Enough funk in there, also a soul anthem, not oversold, and sometimes I think Ben P. is playing a tabla?
Steven Bernstein - Trumpet, Slide Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Curtis Fowlkes - Trombone
Charlie Burnham - Violin
Doug Wieselman - Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone
Peter Apfelbaum - Tenor Saxophone
Erik Lawrence - Baritone Saxophone
Matt Munisteri - Guitar, Banjo
Ben Allison - Bass
Ben Perowsky - Drums
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/tinctures-in-time-community-music-vol-1

― dow, Thursday, 30 December 2021

Hype hype

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite - throw out everything you knew about Deafheaven, for the most part the black metal screams here serve as filigree and the sound owes more to Tears for Fears' "The Seeds of Love" than anything cooked up by Scandinavian Satan-worshippers

Ducks Ltd. - Modern Fiction - way above replacement-level jangle pop from Toronto, this is the perfect length to put on endless repeat, with nary a bad song, and expertly sequenced

i love infinite granite & the seeds of love but idk about that comparison

Wet Leg don't even have an album out yet and i have gotten adducted to this single of theirs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9jeJk2UHQ

Thanks for the DJ Sabrina stuff, I love it. I like the way it drifts and songforms kind of arise and subside.

think i'd have more interest in dj sabrina's whole thing if the albums weren't all 2-3 hours, i totally lose interest long before then

I've been enjoying it as quasi-background music. The endlessness just feels like it's a playlist or something.

If you want a break from difficult listening, may I recommend Cum Ovr (heirs to Thee Stallion throne), Fuck Him All Night (banger), and Seeing Green (Wayne's best in forever, and Drake better than anything on his album).

And then after that break, Moses Sumney's Live from Blackalachia is a hell of a thing. Would love to see this projected in a museum, played through crazy-nice speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX47qMIw_2o

OK I'm sold on Wet Leg now

whoever nom'd this in the tracks RONDÉ - Hard To Say Goodbye ...

thank you? it's been ringing in my head for weeks

The song that got Bad Bunny and everyone else screaming along in clubs - Karol G & Mariah Angeliq - EL MAKINON

booty booty booty
booty booty booty booty

my kind of jam

whoever nom'd this in the tracks RONDÉ - Hard To Say Goodbye ...

thank you? it's been ringing in my head for weeks

― blue6ave, vrijdag 7 januari 2022 7:21 (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

let’s get back to jehovah’s witnesses

wrong thread lol

dang i guess nobody nominated “american tterroristt”

They did actually!

you're right haha, i searched in the playlist for "rxk" and "nephew," but his name is listed on spotify as one word.

Whiney (and anyone else interested),I'll probably be getting mine together over the next week or so, need to listen to more tracks, tho I know where I stand with albums.

As for my AOTY, I've noted it before, but it's Anne Bourne's wave, which you can listen to and download here. You can read more about her music and life here.

Simply put, I'd often leave it on continuous replay for hours while working, reading, or doing any number of other activities. Bourne's looped cello drones encourage both active and passive listening, though Bourne was a student of Oliveros' and is very much in the Deep Listening tradition. The record's timbres have emotional heft without sounding cheesy or over-wrought, and it is an expansive record— affectively, it feels like calmly scanning a vast horizon. I played it a lot during our week on an island off the Maine coast, and all of us in the house became completely transfixed by it at one time or another, staring out at the sea as the reverberations of the cello sank into us. Sometimes I'll be listening and something will surprise me, even now, after more than half a year of listening to it. Not everyone's cuppa, sure, but I really think it's the most beautiful record to be released in 2021.

^that album isn't my usual thing, but I listened to it the other day after you posted about it table, and it is really lovely

I don't expect it to pick up any votes here, but since it's not on Spotify, I'll rep for Maestro Don & Jahvillani's "Dutty Money" produced by Teetimus, which is dancehall but also really lovely with surprisingly delicately arranged production:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehV1q4IWpMs

Speaking of dancehall, African division, I love (and nommed) this Ugandan track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUjPv94LOWo

sund4r, are you guitar friends with Bilal Nasser? I'm really taken with that album - hype description would be emotive, spacious classical guitar playing with just the right amount of production touches and occasional spoken (usually layed over screamed) vocals that actually work. I put it on my ballot in the spirit of this thread.

Yeah, kind of. We were both students of William Beauvais (albeit decades apart) and have been part of Beauvais Alumni video concerts during the pandemic. It's a nice album, with a pretty distinctive personal vision.

Cool!

Btw Aldous Harding became the official home listening choice in my household this year, we wore out Designer. But that's 2020, so I had to vote for 'Old Peel' on the singles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V7rHcvqDyY

Designer grew on me in a big way in the past year.

hype hype

Temperance - Diamanti - symphonic pop metal with co-ed co-lead vocals, energetic hard rockers with rowsing sing-along choruses and some massive power ballads that would make the Scorpions green with envy

Rosali - No Medium - strong contender for my aoty, an astounding collection of songs, emotionally vulnerable and rich, the fuzzed-out country-folk-rock accompaniment suits the mood perfectly, think Neko Case, Drive-By Truckers, Laura Marling

Have saved like 80% of fffv's noms. Especially 8485 and Eartheater - great stuff.

Another nom, Martha Wainwright, Love Will Be Reborn--thought I'd said more than this! She's learned from the great French balladeers, as well as her own life, incl. in American and Canadian music:

New album is wild, thematic and gooooing with the floooow, theme as raft, well-lashed, only comparable contemporary sonic experience coming to mynd is Maria McKee's Pre-Raphaelite shout out to Beatrice, La Vita Nuova.

good interview:https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/07/this-much-i-know-martha-wainwright-my-divorce-has-given-me-wisdom
and concert review, w more quotes:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/04/first-live-concert-masks-martha-wainwright-pandemic

― dow, Monday, October 4, 2021

First 25 tracks, alphabetically by artist. Faves in bold

10,000 Russos - Mexicali/Calexico: I like when this meanders and dubs out into a chasm and the later sections where it drops into a complete psych pit... but at fifteen minutes long and multiple listens later, I am wearing out before it does. I appreciate the intro to these guys though; could see this being a fun band to see live while properly dosed.

3YE - Stalker: Somehow missed 3ye's album last year but clearly I should remedy that mistake. This is a banger, loads of build to that absolutely killer anthemic HIGH HIGH HIGH chorus. Just a really nicely constructed bit of k-pop, sharp and well aimed.

42 Dugg - Maybach with Future, Free Merey: I gave this guy a try when it became clear I needed to be in the loop with him and just didn't connect with his heavily accented nasal voice, flat slurring flow and nihilistic lyrics. Maybach cements my sense he's just not for me but the moment Future steps on the track, I am all in. Good production there! The lament Free Merey missed me completely.

4s4ki - Sugar Junky: Happy-go-lucky hyper jpop of the Katamari b-side variety with an old-school ending; what's not to like?

8485 - hangar: That intersection between 80's retro desire and burbling overproduction, just a soupçon of "Jack and Diane" wistfulness and falling asleep in the back of the Greyhound when you really shouldn't. Nice confessional, surprisingly open given the heavy armor of nostalgia and desire for a flying car future.

A1xJ1 - Latest Trends: Shocked to see how young and raw these kids are, there's clearly a lot of longer term opportunity for growth creatively here. At the moment, this isn't setting the world on fire but there's an effortlessness to the rapping and a clarity of purpose throughout that is plenty positively astringent.

ABBA - I Still Have Faith in You, Don't Shut Me Down, Just a Notion: Hey I Don't Think I Like ABBA. I mean, I never really listened to them except when I've had to and with a few exceptions - Gimme Gimme Gimme and _maybe_ Take a Chance? - I've never really liked when we got stuck in the same room together. All three of these new songs are the flattest of sodas on my palate; I got through one listen and then haven't been able to get through them again. Just a Notion is likely the least of objectionable of the bunch for its sheer over-the-top razzamatazz but it's hardly anything I would seek out ever again.

Abi Ocia - LTWYLM: This was a slow burner: a bit too synthetic, androgyne and radio smooth to be taken without wariness... I note that it's a key track on the "Massage Erotique" playlist as Exhibit D. Even so, the third or fourth listen clicked as a 1988 junior high slow dance and I'm no longer mad at it.

ABISHA - If You Were Mine (DJ Paulette Remix): This remix definitely saves a fairly middle-of-the-road bit of pop house from insipidness with clanks, echos, glitches and Badalamenti atmospherics. The sugary climax becomes more of an intriguing message of longing in these grey shabby rags.

ABRA - Unlock It with Playboy Carti: I'm an avowed sucker for Aaliyah-core and this track was already on my very long list of faves for the year, though likely more in the top 250 than the top 40. Carti is kind of perfectly placed as an utterly unneeded guest rapper but the telephone tones and ABRA's voice are the real special effects.

Ada Lea - damn, my love 4 u is real: I have a limited amount of patience for the lofi monotone sad indie girl's weirdly scansioned monologue over moody guitars schtick but damn is sort of about as good an example of that niche as you could hope for. Once I've gotten through that though, I definitely don't need anything more of the same so the second track can tell its story walking.

Adana Twins - 1983: Talk about stating your intent in the title! Definite "take on me" vibes with the opening drums, leading into solid Outrun-style bass and synths. It's a fun drive and I look forward to taking this with me on a jog in the near future.

Adele - Easy On Me: This is Better Than Fine. Adele's singles have the hard to define quality of sounding instantly timeless and effortlessly crossoverable. Difficult for me to get excited about but I imagine I could hear this in 20 years and still think "oh yeah, she was good at this."

Ado - 踊: Overstuffed, Latin-inflected hyper-ish j-pop that would fit in on a video game or a spy movie. Can somebody tell me what this translates as? It's pretty solid stuff and I like her Bjork-y scream.

aespa - Savage: Enjoyably schizophrenic k-pop that might benefit from a bit more fishhook and less velvet. Still a fun and repeatable listen.

AG Cook - Xcxoplex with Charli XCX: Given what they're capable of this feels like a pretty minor entry from both parties... but not bad?

Agnes - 24 Hours, Here Comes the Night: Dua does the pastiche vibe better but that doesn't mean there aren't things to enjoy within the deeply ersatz. Frankly if you're going to take so much time coordinating and calibrating this sort of OTT disco, it would be a bit snotty to not appreciate the effort. Not sure it's anything I'd seek out but fine as filler. The fact that one is as good as the next speaks more to its status as product.

Aisha Noel - One Dance: Solid dancehall pop that I plucked as a fave off the ILX thread some months ago. Entirely enjoyable if maybe not exemplary.

Aldous Harding - Old Peel: Oooof, this is emphatically Not My Thing. Kept waiting for it to become anything and it mostly sat in its petri dish and gnawed on its flagella.

Alec Troniq - Dwight: Delightful oontz oontz of the techno albums that are doing it wrong variety. Another one that I'm looking forward to joining me on a trail jog.

Ola Kvernberg - Arpystarts off like a fairly typical although particularly lovely Norwegian post-jazz-prog exercise, then suddenly someone flicks a switch and we are RIDING A HORSE THROUGH SPACE

Lmao

The entire Ola Kvernberg album is super enjoyable btw. After Arpy & another slight neo-prog fantasia called The Vault, it switches gears almost entirely, into what I might call Geir Hongro's Platonic Ideal if a Fela Kuti album, riding interesting and surprising chords over afrobeat rhythms for much of the remainder of the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvBOejHbmP4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMeDr5jzOBI

Controversial (and vmic) opinion: as extended compositions featuring a jazz soloist vs traditional classical ensemble go, Douglas Cuomo's Seven Limbs for Nels Cline and Azari Quartet is a much greater achievement than Floating Points's Promises for Pharoah Sanders and LSO.

*Aizuri Quartet

I never cared for the torch song stylings of his solo work but last year's Cathal Coughlan album "Song of Co-Aklan" is up there with his Microdisney/Fatima Mansions output. I think hes one of the great lyricists and he really shines here. Music is a mix of Sparksian theatricality, post-punk and world-weary balladry.

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

putting in a good word for 'skater's world', the poppiest track off parris's album, some sort of bass music-meets-cheerleader chant thing, just supercute and catchy imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsl_N6pazY

Ok I lied before, I also want to rep for the HTRK album. It’s beautiful and melancholic and it’s giving me the best kind of Mazzy Star vibes.

Voted for both the album and this song:

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

It has a surprisingly loud sub-bass going on, in case you’re playing from your home setup.

Faves in bold

Alessia Cara - Shapeshifter: It feels cynical and unkind to adversely compare this slinky Winehouse-y track to the kind of work Lovato or Angie Stone or Katy B or any of a dozen other pop R&B types pull off so much better than Cara does but I guess I just did. This is nice enough but I wish it didn't sound like she was working so hard.

Alewya - Play: Nice and sinewy dance music that didn’t leave much of a mark. This was one of those tracks where I play it five times over before I realize that I’ve heard it already. Pleasant enough nonetheless.

Alexa Rose - Clearwater Park: Sad to say I have no time for this kind of Joni Mitchell pastiche. Hits me in a space where I simply don’t want to stay.

Alexis Taylor - Dying in Heaven: I like Hot Chip well enough but this underlines that it’s less the vocals that hold me than their production. This wafer of AM rock ain’t doing it for me.

Alicai Harley - Put It On You: Solid enough pop dancehall but maybe a bit too overprocessed for me to get passionate about.

Alice Cooper - Shut Up and Rock: Okay, this is objectively terrible and corny as all get out and I have such a soft spot for Alice, so I don’t care. Total old man waves fist at social media batshittery of the first degree and, I’m afraid, easily weaponizable as conservative talking points, but the edges are all nerf and the song is over in just over two minutes so let’s let grampa have his moment. Perhaps we should shut up and rock?

Ali Sethi and Nicolas Jaar - Yakjehti Mein: Here’s one of those songs that makes this sort of listening exercise worthwhile: spaced out psych ghazal segueing into full electronic head trip and then boomeranging back. Sethi’s vocals are lovely and Jaar’s production is remarkably balanced. Just a great planet to orbit and visit.

Allie X - Limited Love: This is what the kids call Shambhala, no? For my money, the Allie X track of the year was ‘Fresh Laundry’, a meditation on the encroaching middle age desire for domesticity that runs somewhat diametrically opposed to Limited Love’s desire for connected passion. Both are a very good time!

Allison Russell - Persephone: I like Russell’s cornpone songwriting a bit better than her bird warble voice but not so much more that I didn’t get a great deal of enjoyment from her country album Outside Child. Persephone isn’t likely my fave track from Outside, I’d maybe lean into the single Nightflyer, which does much the same work but shakes a bit harder. Even so, this is nice.

Altin Gün - Ordunun Dereleri: Turkish New Order-influenced psych? Yes please! Dominated by the heavy footsteps of bass, twinkly synths and atmospheric keys, the vocals really elevate this into something special. This is good enough to merit consideration for a top 30 had I found it earlier in the year. Strongly recommended!

Aly and AJ - Symptom of Your Touch: Am I alone in finding these two a bit less interesting in each successive project? Maybe I’m just a crank. This is okay but difficult for me to get excited about.

Amaarae with Kali Uchis - SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY: Oily gross capitalist land grab, like a rethinking of a Drake bachata hit that he stole from someone else. I like Uchis’ verse well enough but not enough to keep putting money in the meter here.

Amalia Zehin - Çek: I’m not going to front like I know anything about Turkmen pop but this has the snap and pop of solid K-pop so I don’t mind latching on. Willing to bet that my lack of comprehension of the lyrics is a feature not a bug tho.

Amber Mark - What It Is: Having just heard this four days ago, I’m going to have to really think about issues of recency bias when voting but I think this track might well make my ballot. If it doesn’t it really should. Have we been talking about Amber Mark in the R&B thread? She was new to me and this song sent me on a fruitful search for more. Who woulda thunk she’d be doing solid covers of Nirvana and Sisquo? Mark’s other ’21 singles are solid too but this one is crisp and just shy of perfect… I dunno if that guitar solo at the end was entirely necessary? Eh, I can cope.

Amberoom with Blakkat - Radio Slave 'New Age of Love' Remix: I’m a sucker for moody deep house so I am a sucker for this.

Amyl and the Sniffers - Guided by Angels, Hertz: I’m late to this band though their names had cropped up often enough that I had some sense of what the mouthfeel was. First listens reminded me of Viagra Boys, so I was pleased to see that there’s been some crossover there and that I’m not too desperately seeking analogs. Both tracks are indistinguishably good fun punk; if these are representative and not exemplary, I should likely give the album a shot as this is a perfectly good time.

Amythyst Kiah - Tender Organs: This is my nomination and will definitely be making my ballot. Amethyst has gotten zero traction on this board (a quick look suggests no one but me has ever mentioned her name) but that’s clearly my fault as I should be a louder proselytizer. I though her album Wary and Strange was one of the best of the year, solid country and folk pop with an honest twang and remarkable songwriting throughout. Tender Organs is maybe the best of the bunch, a frightened meditation on fragility and fallibility that showcases Kiah’s blazing voice, careful phrasing and emotional drive. She’s a powerhouse and I wish you’d give this a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fL1KS9y-iU

Analog Tara - Undecagon: Wonderful EDM of the trance out with your pants off variety. Is the rest of the EP this good? I’ll be finding out shortly.

The Anchoress - The Art of Losing: A big sloppy slice of prog that curdled on contact for me.

Andrew WK - Babalon: Abundant, badly spelled, goofy, thoroughly enjoyable art metal with filaments of something more carefully thought out in spite of itself. Desires you to throw up the horns unironically and I suppose I might as well.

Andronicus - Make You Whole (Coco Bryce Remix): Stepping onto the dance floor with an earful of pop rocks and coke with a mentos chaser. ZING ZANG ZUNG

Andy Shauf - Green Glass Took a few listens but this has ear wormed into my just awake brain as the first thing I thought about today. I was unfamiliar with Shauf and could use some recommendations of other singles by him worth exploring? This reminded me of early AC Newman solo work, all whiteboy ennui and Matthew Sweet melodies. I appreciate being handed this as a gift as there is zero chance I would’ve stumbled into it on my own.

Andy Stott and Alison Skidmore - The beginning: Inventive and curious EDM that holds the attention and the imagination longer than you might figure its fairly restrained palette could manage. Genuinely pretty, which is a hard pickup for this sort of knobtwiddling.

Angèle - Bruxelles je t'aime: The one singing French from the Dua Lipa track, eh? I wasn’t aware she was such a big deal but on the strength of this, I could see it. Inarguably sharp pop with good crossover appeal.

Not a misspelling!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon

i stand corrected

Loving your work here forks

Think I nominated Limited Love. Fresh Laundry was a 2019 track forks xps

(The other new tracks on the Deluxe edition of Cape God that came out this year are worth a listen too)

Very busy day at work but I just want to say it's been a particularly good year for soca - especially the first half of the year which seemed to be frontloaded with iconic tunes.

Many of the songs reflected the Covid pandemic, either directly or tangentially referencing lockdown, and perhaps a glimmer of optimism about the prospect of 2021 being a bit easier than the previous year.

It's sometimes hard to remember what my mindset was like in those early months of the year. Fraught, lonely, perhaps a little frightened. My Dad intimated to me around this time that a cashier had said "Have a nice day" to him. He left the shop ambushed by unexpected emotion at this humble gesture. Similarly, there's a line in Machel Montano's 'High Life' where he sings "Hope you have a good day and everything is o... kay" that leaves a tabanca-shaped lump in my throat despite the otherwise relentless cheeriness of the song.

Similarly upbeat, and all the more rowdy we have System32 & Shal Marshall's All Day (24 Hour Riddim), notable for its clever reference to Jack Bauer and aggressive, repetitive synth horns. The antidote to Covid blues? "Play more soca fi dem".

But it wasn't all sunshine and good vibes. Teddy Johnson and Kerwin Du Bois' cynical take on false friendships nevertheless sounds weightless and airy, with very little in the way of drums and percussion. Any heads know if they ever made a road version of this? A peculiar song to release during a time when we were all missing our friends, but nevertheless an irresistible tune.

You want it darker? Olatunji's calypso-style 'Drunk History' doesn't pull any punches: "I wouldn't lie to you / I'm talking the truth... Last year alcohol nearly killed me". It's the most aggressively upbeat song about drinking yourself to an early grave, I sometimes worry if it's even in good taste to put these in my DJ sets. Depending on who you are, you're either going to find it brazenly amusing or depressingly relatable.

Bringing things back into sunnier territory, Aisha Noel's 'One Dance' succeeds on the way it bobs along on a warm breeze, then dives deep into tropical waters on the "You-oooo-ooooou" refrain on the chorus.

But if there's one soca tune that addresses this year's lockdown (indeed to the point many soca fans were absolutely tired of it by mid-summer), was Farmer Nappy's Backyard Jam, which as the title suggests is about removing Carnival to the back garden. It's a big celebratory sound with a really fun breakdown in the middle and I still get a bg kick about the "ting-a-licky, ting-a-licky, ting-a-licky" part.

Favourite discovery of the second half of the tracks playlist (which I am finally done with! albeit with a lot of unforkslike skimming and skipping) probably the cutely bonkers hyperindiepop of audiobooks - LaLaLa It's The Good Life, with shout-outs to the aforementioned Taraka, Spellling's menacing, glowering haunted art-pop soul number Boys At School, Pigeon's Afro-fusion banger Yagana, Sewerslvt's looming sorrow descent Looming.Sorrow.Descent and Melodien's, um, highly melodic techno workout Telos Oxygono. Plus, I may not be a secret hairdresser, but ILX Comps legend snoball surely is, given certain similarities...

audiobooks - Lalala It's The Good Life deserves a link actually, both for the song and the video

groovypanda: my bad, didn't realize that was all one album spread over multiple years. time is a flat circle

dog latin: glad anyone cares! your soca collection has been a real source of joy for me this year and Backyard Jam, Drunk History, See Dem, All Day and One Dance (roughly in that order) are all strong contenders for my ballot.

imago: i am listening to audiobooks now! sounds like crazy frog's graduate thesis

I'm glad you care Forks!

I was really pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the Spellling tune I heard when shuffling the other day - Little Dear? Wasn't sure about the voice at first but it grew on me and the instrumentation is wonderful

That one's good too yeah. The album wasn't quite consistent enough for me to absolutely love but I'd say it's worth hearing for sure. Boys At School the clear standout tho imo

Still on the Brazilian pop side and because I'm relistening: Meu Pisêro is effortlessly bright, groovy and creative (as opposed to all the stuff that is creative but feels forced to me). That's only available to vote for as an album though.

I have no idea what this is but I absolutely love it; or at least the first half of it before the cheap keyboard chorus notes come in. They don't ruin it though.

Anadol ‎– Ay Çürüdü

Song for the closing credits of an imaginary 70s romantic comedy with the lovers strolling through Central Park hand in hand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MafKP-__5pI

backyard jam is super fun, def perked up when that came on the playlist

I'll also put in a word for Ieva Jokubaviciute's Northscapes - a solo piano album of recent Nordic compositions, with a good balance of approachability and compositional depth. Avataar's Worldview is a beautiful album of modern original jazz/rock/world fusion. Thumbscrew's Never Is Enough is possibly my album of the year: Mary Halvorson-led jazz guitar trio doing knotty tunes with a lot of Halvorson's pitch-bending effects. And, like Jordan, I'm honoured to have been nominated (thanks Michael B) so check out Electric Currents for solo proggy/jazzy/fingerpicked/processed electric guitar.

Aldous Harding - Old Peel: Oooof, this is emphatically Not My Thing. Kept waiting for it to become anything and it mostly sat in its petri dish and gnawed on its flagella

I didn't like it at first either, but it's not representative Aldous, you have to at least watch the video for 'The Barrel' (or just listen to Designer, or Party).

So far my biggest discovery from the poll is that Maxine Funke album, another New Zealander. Singer/songwriter solo album w/electric guitar that's hushed and intimate in a way that's near-ASMR.

it's likely to place so doesn't need more hype really but koffee's "west indies" is a minor miracle imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvOABOa3IrU

yeah, banger

Not sure I was as fussed about that one as the initial string of singles froma couple of years back like 'Toast'. I was pretty excited by her particular voice and style, but I don't really hear anything raising the bar here. Maybe needs to grow on me

I wouldn't rank West Indies as highly as Toast or Lockdown personally—it's a bit too mellow/wavey in comparison—but in terms of what's changed, her singing skill has levelled up impressively to my ears. Her range on WI is much wider than I would have expected based on the Toast-era stuff

Funny how “LaLaLa It’s The Good Life” has so much in common with “Chaise Longue”: spoken verses + earworm choruses + videos that feel like TikTok with a budget.

the thing i love about "west indies" is that it takes the concept of partying and applies it to all of life - the video especially makes it clear. i feel like it makes this argument that partying is a spiritual state (c.f.prince's line that life is just a party). the softness of the song is such a tender counterpoint to the pride in the chorus and some of the material brags. i feel like it's asking, "why can't everything i do be joyful?" and sort of presenting s thesis about how that might look.

it's trying to do this trick of total escapism and spiritual rootedness that i feel like we should all know is impossible to pull off, but then it succeeds somehow. what i mean by it being a minor miracle.

andrew wkoffee

it's a very rich production job, which probably helps to fuse those two things

Funny how “LaLaLa It’s The Good Life” has so much in common with “Chaise Longue”: spoken verses + earworm choruses + videos that feel like TikTok with a budget.

― ... (Eazy), Monday, 10 January 2022 16:44 (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and yet of the two, it's unsurprisingly The Chap Gone Hyperpop that does it for me

Ok forks, you need to do a list of highlights now for the remaining 25 alphabet letters.

great posts map!

Yeah I had missed the Koffee track but found it on the playlist, it's great. More Koffee in '22 plz.

supposedly her debut album is coming out this year

that track kind of leaves me cold.

Xp I have another 28 tracks just for A!

you should skip to the bottom of the list afterward, to give those alphabetically challenged songs some love

Speaking of more tracks---for my (Album)nom (from Holy Modal Rounders, Classic or Dud?

Just listened to the first half of this on Bandcamp--take it away, Louisiana Music Factory:
Louisiana Red Hot Records release “Peter Stampfel’s 20th Century” is an epic 100 song collection. The 5 Disc box set is augmented by an impressive 30,000+ words in an 88 page booklet that outlines the history of each selection alongside tales from the singular life of the artist, with pithy production notes from producer Mark Bingham added for good measure...Features Mark Bingham, Michael Cerveris, Jonathan Frelich, Michot’s Melody Makers, Alex McMurray, Amasa Miller and Sarah Quintana
Seemed a bit too much like faded sheet music imagery, wallpaper at first (hey, he should do Statler Bros' "Flowers on the Wall," also Sahm-Dylan duet "Wallflower"--maybe next time--could happen, given the range here), with singing close to a groan, just a little slow strumming for his bed---but pretty soon he and the music perked up, in bloom when it's the right time , sprouting and shedding and grafting instruments and styles(I won't tell you where the drums and wah-wah show up), also happiness and sadness and excitement and reveries and diving and rolling and popping up again, gracefully shadowing words and bridges and intros I didn't know about (a lot of old songs have intros rarely played later on), and I never know quite what he and helpers will go and do next, though it all hangs together.
I do recall, during maybe the first 20, thinking that there might be some duplication of effort, that I might end up just liking 50 or so. But so far I like almost that many, and pretty sure will be more keepers in the second half (it's not divided up on Bandcamp, I just ran out of listening time 'til tomorrow).
https://louisianaredhotrecords.bandcamp.com/album/peter-stampfels-20th-century

― dow, Tuesday, November 23, 2021 7:31 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

diving and rolling and popping up again,, like Ishmael and Melville and RIP Dave Hickey, getting high on what they know and can still do, back in the saddle again. And again. ("Once more, with feeling.")

― dow, Tuesday, November 23, 2021 9:57 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

I knew there would be some gaps between further listening sessions, but had to jump more than expected,so right now I can't remember exactly which ones I'm likely to start skipping from last week's sessions, which sessions added up to the first 42 or so.
But right now, I'm tempted to begin again with 12. "Ragtime Cowboy Joe"----then, for continuity x momentum's sake, skip some of the good 'uns along with duds, and jump to 50. "It Isn’t Fair" and maybe
51."Jezebel"--then def. 53."Tennessee Wig Walk," and proceed from there for quite a ways---he reinvents Roundery folk-rock, with itchy warm blankets, corn cobs, corn plasters, potbellied stoves, bear breath, bear everything---eventually, in the late 70s-80s-90s-etc. material, the music becomes more like it was then, but not (when it's good) too close to original effect: he's still turning up aspects I'd forgotten about or never noticed, as in the reeely olde stuff he started with.
For inst.,(skip 74. "September Gurls" and 75."Tangled Up In Blue, " go to 76.) the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is no longer nerf pop, it's a slowed, gathering, electric bluesy approach, trying not to scare her away---and that along with several varied but compatible reworkings soon after, overall gives me a flashback to youg weirdo romanitc Jonathan Richman---then Stampfel goes on to other things.
Skip 81. "Dancing With Myself" (voice totally inert there). Skip 86. "My Hometown" and 87. "Don’t Dream It’s Over"---then everything else is fine!!
I'm sure I'll find more keepers; this was just a single playlist.

― dow, Wednesday, December 1, 2021 8:40 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

And as xgau indicated, damn if Stampfel and "Earth To Grandma" don't seem genetically bonded, via Wussy's Chuck Cleaver, ditto "Yellow," with clouds of Chris Martin vocals cleared away--lovely compatibles also incl. "Loser," "Tubthumping," "I Will Survive," and Prine-DeMent homage "In Spite of Ourselves."A duet with Lilli Lewis on the 2nd vocal. No runny eggs on this track."

― dow, Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Now it's seeming like 70 keepers, and not your usual kinds of keepers: sweet!

very glad imago heard "LaLaLa It's The Good Life"

i presumed he nominated it!

voting for quite a few of ufo's this year

Amythyst Kiah - Tender Organs: This is my nomination and will definitely be making my ballot. Amethyst has gotten zero traction on this board (a quick look suggests no one but me has ever mentioned her name) but that’s clearly my fault as I should be a louder proselytizer. I though her album Wary and Strange was one of the best of the year, solid country and folk pop with an honest twang and remarkable songwriting throughout. Tender Organs is maybe the best of the bunch, a frightened meditation on fragility and fallibility that showcases Kiah’s blazing voice, careful phrasing and emotional drive. She’s a powerhouse and I wish you’d give this a listen.
All Holy Shit, forks, I just did and you're so right!Wary and Strange might come from a school report on her, but ain't sorry. Some sort-of-post-Armatrading? ballads, but/and keeps building to this folkbluestronic grind, while staying thematic (a break-up or at least can't-get-no-satisfaction album overall), like "Fancy Drones" has this doleful grunty wry lick, but is also about fancy drones of the sterile insect people, in which she includes herself, unless it's just the usuall rhetorical "we," but doesn't sound like it. Voice can delivery dark volleys of notes, short shots, never oversung. Most of the "tronica" part is in unobtrustive beats with guitar guts hanging over the balcony.Thanks again!
https://amythystkiah1.bandcamp.com/

Yay a convert! Glad you agree and can hear what i'm hearing; much of what joy i get from life these days is on the back of that sentiment.
I caught her live at the start of '19 when she was working toward a fuller voice through banjo blues and even then she was a revelation. Her first LP, Dig, is worth more than a sample spin but yes to everything you said about Wary and Strange and a bucket of mud to boot. You know who she's been making me think of is Swordfishtrombones-era Tom Waits: the same funky and weird instrumentation and world building and virtuosity.

True, though I like her voice better than his! Kind of like if Giddens continued deep in the vein of Carolina Chocolate Drops' cover of "Hit 'Em Up Style," adding electric guitar and other homewired-sounding sources.

Kiah happens to be part of a "supergroup" band with Giddens, Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla. Their album Songs of Our Native Daughters is a meditation on the Black roots of americana, minstrelsy and folk. It's recommended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Our_Native_Daughters

I feel like Giddens gets handwaved off as NPR bait by a certain sort of lazy listener which i find indefensible. She's fuckin' great and has developed into one of the most influential, curious and enjoyable artists of her generation.

Analog Tara - Undecagon: Wonderful EDM of the trance out with your pants off variety. Is the rest of the EP this good? I’ll be finding out shortly.

that analog tara track was one of mine. i love the vocal on that, it's like the grubby basement dive version of metro area's 'miura'

I feel like Giddens gets handwaved off as NPR bait by a certain sort of lazy listener which i find indefensible. She's fuckin' great and has developed into one of the most influential, curious and enjoyable artists of her generation.

Amen to this. She invites the NPR-friendly tag of course, but she's a huge talent. Amazing to see live in any context.

thanks for analog tara nick; I am listening now

some rap songs i'm voting for:

remble - "touchable": remble became a meme of sorts for his crisp enunciation ("remble raps in m.l.a. format," "remble raps like the model of a modern major general"), but he also just makes great songs, like this gleefully violent, bell-tolling slapper that reels off memorable line after memorable line

isaiah rashad - "lay wit ya" ft. duke deuce: guttural and grimy, slithering around at ground level until duke nukem blows the whole thing wide open

tisakorean - "how i walk in the club": "they say the club on capacity...ION CARE!"

yaw tog - "sore": apocalyptic drill out of ghana. idk why i nommed the uk-ified remix, but whatever, the song is massive.

bawo - "starts with a text": lackadaisical, yet technical, with a gorgeous, electric keys-driven beat.

wiardon - "stay down": the best song i heard in 2021 by anyone who was too young to vote in the 2020 election.

young dolph & key glock "aspen": long live dolph

Somebody beat me to nominating this, which is good, because I didn't hear it before nomination deadline---from What Are You Listening To in 2022?

Cliche listening choice for a rainy winter's day (3 times in a row, which never happens, and getting more into details and the overall each time)jazz-blues-r&b ballads, small group, female singer, that 60s-early 70s vibe extended even though new songs, yet the scene is now/you are there: Lady Blackbird's Black Acid Soul, which title I thought was just hype before listening, but recording set-brings out just enough hyperreal, dry edge to voice and baby grand piano, also occasional vibes, used for inst. on one track as piccolo bass-range drone, sparingly, countering the upright bass on that same and I think every other track. Eventually some variety of instruments and tempo (also the closing title track sees and raises previous sonic designs' increasingly bolder, splashier advance into the 21st Century).
Stylish singing, writing, playing, recording never affected, always and increasingly affecting---that one you might be hearing on local public radio, that you're thinking (esp. w piano) might be written by Laura Nyro? Actually Tim Fuckin Hardin, and nothing like "If I Were A Carpenter," although I could imagine Blackbird (whose opener, "Blackbird," is not the Beatles') getting away with that too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkuqQifTC_k

(Sorry, Tim---actually I heard him doing a pretty decent version of that song recently)
Have yet to hie my ass to listen to Our Native Daughters, though I'm a fan of all members.

The upright bass*, which is* on that same and I think every other track, I meant, though maybe just that once also w the vibes.

recording set*-up*, that is.

I like Analog Tara, just a classic palette but every instrument sounds amazing.

I haven't seen much slander. I suppose it's ok and everyone is just saving it for the results thread :P

I'll be voting for Lorde's Mood Ring

ban

that do?

tbf there's been a lot on the tracks playlist that's filled me with revulsion but honestly nothing so much as Lorde's Mood Ring so I'm v happy to play along here

It's the best

I don't think I've heard anything which makes me angry enough to slander it in the playlist yet. Actual results are always were the complaints usually come through ime. Have no idea what to expect this year tbh, it seems like a rather slow and unremarkable year for mainstream pop and hip hop acts, but a good year elsewhere.

I predict: lots of disco and synthpop

Re Lorde, I felt like this better captured the vibe she was going for. Plus I like the hokey '90s rhythm track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTE2J0bWizc

Is Tim F not active anymore? Enjoyed his eoy thread.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 05:25 (one week ago) link

not dead, but too busy with work to actually do anything w/r/t this poll or write up my songs of the year yet :-/

I still have plans though

Hopefully you can still vote though

FromA catch-all thread for the current jazz scene in London, including Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Camilla George, Theon Cross, Zara McFarlane, Daniel Casimir, SEED Ensemble, ---first nomspotting:

Nérija member Rosie Turton's EP Expansions and Transformations: Part I & II is totally refreshing from first notes, riding with Turton's deep, luminous trombone--fave so far is "part II," where she's in call and response w violin---skylight electronics passing over them both at one point, with piano periphery and roiling bass and drums---they kick up the tempo on "The Unknown (Rework)," a new version of a song from 2018 alb Rosie's 5ive. And a closing remix of "Part II" keeps it up, without getting gimmicky: whole thing is reflective grain of acoustic jazz with electronics (and influence of associated dynamics) folded into the planes o'flow, the grid of orbit:
https://rosieturton.bandcamp.com/album/expansions-and-transformations-part-i-ii

― dow, Wednesday, June 23

I've listened to around 250 tunes from the Tracks playlist so far. I pretty much focused on new 'bobbins' / breakbeat / techno / garage last year so a lot of what I've heard so far has been new to me (apart from the neo-soul / house / jazzy bits my wife has been playing).

Standouts so far:
Julian Lage - Saint Rose (I adore the rhythm section on this, it would be great even without the guitar imo)
Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul - HAHA (guess you had to be there tbf)
Pa Salieu - Style & Fashion
Paul Frick & Daniel Brandt - Neo Beidermeir
Zakes Bantwini - Osama
Megan Thee Stallion - Thot Shit (crikey)

I'm still weirded out by the trend of huge artists just straight up not having drums on their tunes. For example tracks like Drake - Champagne Poetry or Billie Eilish. I'm so used to drums being the focal point of the genres I listen to (and spend so much time fiddling with drums in Ableton) that it is jarring to come across finished huge pop songs that don't even have a hihat let alone a snare drum.

** Meant to type 'Billie Eilish - Getting Older' up there btw

Faves in bold

Angel Haze - Weight: Few artist burned their bridges more thoroughly than Angel, who dropped Dirty Gold, a contracted album, for free on the internet in 2013 when she got incensed her rollout wasn’t moving fast enough. I’m sure the facts of the matter are more complicated than that sentence but I’m also sure most anyone running a label is going to think twice about working with her. That’s a bummer because she’s a fucking great rapper and either that debacle or something in her life stopped her career dead shortly thereafter. This mostly unremarked upon single marked her return earlier in 2021. I didn’t nominate Weight but it’s on my shortlist; she sounds just as sharp as she did a decade ago (!!!!!), still underrated and still ready to compete with anyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOycRO6mabo

Annie - April: Bombastic plastic which is good or bad depending on where your head is at. I fluctuate. Right now I’m into it but my mood sometimes makes this a slog.

The Anxiety - Meet Me at Our Spot: Willow is Having a Moment right now, something that feels like the precursor to her getting serious chart success as a mature artist. I was a fan of her first two albums so it’s a particular bummer that I can’t connect with anything she’s been doing lately. I guess that's hardly a surprise as I didn’t care for Avril or Travis Barker back in the aughts so their immediate rock deification seems like chasing false gods.

Anz - You Could Be: I still really need to listen to the All Hours EP (and am gonna queue that up now that I’m thinking about it) but holy fuck this single is amazing. Pure free skate energy, disco ball sparkle and perfect vocals, this deserves US crossover success in the worst way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra9waH-J6Lc

AprilBlue - Clarity: 90’s Indie Pop with a bit of 00’s guitar attitude and declamatory dancing-in-front-of-the-closet-mirror vocals. This is a madeleine of sorts for music that I have limited love for but it brings enough of its own soul to the table that I’m won over.

Arca - Born Yesterday (with Sia), Queer (with Planningtorock): It finally solidified in my mind last year when I heard Arca’s installation at the Museum of Modern Art that I don’t like her music. The squelch and zap and trap of it all feels disjointed and amelodic in a way that only rarely seems to catch my attention or properly support the vocals. As it happens, I think this Sia track has something good at its core in a Total Eclipse of the Heart kinda way but the pep and pop is swallowed up by the electric hydra. The effect on Queer is even more pronounced and more of a turn off somehow. And yes, i get this is intentional and thematically "Arca's thing" but I am sad to report it is not mine no matter how hard I've tried.

Ariana Grande - Test Drive: I loved Positions a lot but this seems like an outtake for a reason. Grande doesn’t quite project herself here in the way I want her to and the production is balsa wood construction. I don’t DISlike it and I still let it play out when it queues but it feels very placeholder.

Ari Lennox - Pressure: I always forget that I kinda like Ari Lennox. Some of it is her name, which I consistently confuse as some sort of Eurythmics-based arch do-you-get-it hipster DJ reference of the DJ Seinfeld or Ross From Friends variety. But Ari’s not a hipster, she’s a solid R&B vocalist who gets much of her heat from feature spots. Pressure sounds like and is her unvarnished hit; all tick-tock pussy power dip dive instruction, honeyed and coquettish and phenomenally good.

Arlo Parks - Black Dog: Parks was one of my favorite new artists found in the past year, a solid lyricist and pitch-perfect representation of last generation ennui and post-prozac worldview. Black Dog is a definite high-point from her debut album, a recitation of tactics to save the desperately depressed. Having been on both sides of the equation, this beautifully rendered portion of loving the lost rings painfully honest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOu0Ht0-D4M

Armand Hammer/Alchemist with Earl Sweatshirt - Falling Out of the Sky: Recently I met a sweet and tremendously creative and chatty twentysomething guy at a friend’s going away party and we got along well enough that we took some moments during the safer moments of COVID to hang out and see some concerts. This kid likes hip hop and he has strong opinions about what constitutes real hip hop. He finds my interest in the genre amusing but he also appreciates that I can quote songs and have a broad listening background so I have old head cred. As such, I text him recommendations and he clowns me for almost everything I bring to him. At one point this summer I had tickets to see Armand Hammer and The Alchemist but who wants to go to a rap show solo? So I invited him but he didn’t know who they were so I sent him Falling Out the Sky as exhibit A. He hates Odd Future for some reason and I didn’t know that and I got like thirty are-you-fucking-kidding-me reaction gifs in response: Medea rolling her eyes and MJ laughing at his laptop and so on. I dunno. I still think this is real good.

The Armed - AN ITERATION: I’ve tried The Armed a few times now and I don’t like this at all.

Arooj Aftab - Mohabbat, Saans Lo: In some of the circles I hang in, people talk about Arooj Aftab’s breakout year as a well earned and lengthy success story but I will freely admit that I’m late to the table. As I consider her work that much more powerful in its totality, my vote will likely go to Arooj’s album rather than any individual track but suffice it to say that both of these are alluringly beautiful.

ArrDee - Oliver Twist: Oh man the video is SO bad and ArrDee has a face for radio and a 4chan driving force but there’s no denying this is a fucking jam.

Arushi Jain - Zid: A super brief scan of the tracks on Jain’s Under the Lilac Sky album suggest this wonderful, spacey electronic gem isn’t a fluke. I’ll need to work my way through the LP but in the meantime, this is very pure.

Ashley Monroe - Siren: No shade on whoever nominated it, but Siren likely isn’t even my fourth favorite track off Monroe's admittedly uneven but still very good Rosegold album, an LP that smacks of the Rhinestone Disco alt-country moment that Kacey stamped into the Nashville fabric. My pick would likely be the sinewy potboiler Groove but I opted instead to nominate a little heard duet called Easy Going. I think Monroe is one of my favorite country singers and no one cares but I have mixed feelings about the direction she’s currently pointed in. In any case, Siren is a very good song that I would likely be kinder to if it came from an artist I felt less invested in.

Ashley Shadow with Bonnie Prince Billy - Don’t Slow Me Down: I went through a Palace phase in college and keep an eye on Oldham because of it. Everything he’s on that I’ve heard in the playlist thus far sounds underbaked and that goes for this morose little shitkicklet too.

audiobooks: The Doll, LaLaLa It’s the Good Life: audiobooks is one of those groups where the name of the band turned me off enough that I never made any effort to give them a try. I suppose I’m rethinking that now. LJ had a freakout upthread on LaLaLa which I found enjoyable but a bit too overtired and manic to really fall in love with. But The Doll, an electrogoth meditation on the heartbreak of breakups that has the dourest bit of Scissor Sisters and The Knife in its DNA, that one fucking got me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRQGZPXuIrM

Avalanches with MGMT and Johnny Marr - The Divine Chord: The Avalanches are hit and miss for me and this one’s a miss.

Avalon Emerson - Champu Princess: I’m a fan of Avalon Emerson’s production and very much dug her DJ Kicks from last year. Champu Princess is solid running music, diverting musically up and down the path enough that it never loses my attention.

Avataar - Worldview: Entirely enjoyable, if somewhat unchallenging, coffeehouse jazz that I might fall harder for in person.


Axel Rulay with Farruko and El Alfa - Si es Trucho es Trucho: It felt like this song was everywhere in NYC this summer but maybe my ears were just sensitive to it because it’s so goddamn catchy? The upper register of Axel Rulay’s voice sits soft on my ear. I prefer this remix, which parties a bit harder.

Ayanne - Le bara: Ivory Coast pop R&B that bops. I appreciate the bass bump and the synth flourishes and faux marimba and pan flute and Ayanne’s voice which is likely the best effect on a track filled with them.

DARKSIDE - The Limit. This came on the speaker yesterday when we were lying on the couch. It rocked and filled the room. The beat / sound-design are so cool to follow if you let the vocals naturally drift in the background. Awesome manipulations on the bass / drums that end each part of the song and remind me one time of Autechre, one time of free jazz, one time of field recordings. I don't know what that flute-like sound is, maybe a synth or guitar distortion, but it's awesome. I wish this was an entire genre, and it's just Nicolas Jaar. I was voting for the album anyway, but I am putting this on my ballot immediately and highly.

some highlights from my nominations:

SSIEGE - Il Re Delle Mandorle, best track on their beautiful mini album (or EP idk) Meteora. i can imagine this being too humble to stand out while listening to hundreds of tracks for the poll, but this release grew on me in a huge way after it initially seemed a bit slight. it has a simple, gorgeous, good-natured quality that i gravitated to last year.

Ike Zwanikken - Bianca, my favorite track on Knekelhuis's lowkey comp "and felt like..." which really hangs together excellently as a cohesive album.

Froid Dub - Shotgun Dub, An Iceberg Cruising the Jamaican Coastline maintains a cold, sinister feel across the whole release that is addictive. There's a lot of variety across the EP despite the focused atmosphere. It felt to me like the evil cousin of the amazing Good Block EP last year.

The Zenmenn - Flags Of The World, An Homage to Friendship is probably the song with the broadest appeal from Enter the Zenmenn, but I think this goofy track is more representative of the relaxed balearic humor of the album that is perfect for hanging around the house with the windows open on a nice day.

Michal Turtle / Suso Saiz - Caravan To Inek, my favorite track on a perfect album. This was the hypnotic, contemplative soundtrack to my morning coffee and my evening painting sessions this year.

glad to see the anz love, i've listened to that track so many times and it just gets better

Same!

Yep it's grand. Reminds me of some of my favourite dubstep tunes from back in the day and also cut from a similar cloth to Barbarossa by K-Lone from a few years back now

I've listened to around 250 tunes from the Tracks playlist so far. I pretty much focused on new 'bobbins' / breakbeat / techno / garage last year so a lot of what I've heard so far has been new to me (apart from the neo-soul / house / jazzy bits my wife has been playing).

Standouts so far:
Julian Lage - Saint Rose (I adore the rhythm section on this, it would be great even without the guitar imo)
Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul - HAHA (guess you had to be there tbf)
Pa Salieu - Style & Fashion
Paul Frick & Daniel Brandt - Neo Beidermeir
Zakes Bantwini - Osama
Megan Thee Stallion - Thot Shit (crikey)

I'm still weirded out by the trend of huge artists just straight up not having drums on their tunes. For example tracks like Drake - Champagne Poetry or Billie Eilish. I'm so used to drums being the focal point of the genres I listen to (and spend so much time fiddling with drums in Ableton) that it is jarring to come across finished huge pop songs that don't even have a hihat let alone a snare drum.

― Agnes, Agatha, Germaine and Jack (Willl), Wednesday, January 12, 2022 6:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

"HAHA" jumped out to me, too. Didn't make my list but cool track. Many thanks, whoever nominated it.

Basically everything Adigery released this year was amazing.

Glad the Lage and the Megan are hitting!

nice to see some love for Ari Lennox!

Ashley Shadow with Bonnie Prince Billy - Don’t Slow Me Down: I went through a Palace phase in college and keep an eye on Oldham because of it. Everything he’s on that I’ve heard in the playlist thus far sounds underbaked and that goes for this morose little shitkicklet too.

gfy

Tell me what I am missing

The harmony, the timbre of her vocal (reminds me of Paula Frazer from Tarnation), just the choices made re: the melody and structure. It's mournful in a profound way to me and not just some americana cosplay.

Avataar - Worldview: Entirely enjoyable, if somewhat unchallenging, coffeehouse jazz that I might fall harder for in person.

Cool, glad you enjoyed it. It's gentle but fairly complex melodically and there's a lot going on in the solos and interplay.

Does anyone have any non-Spotify tracks they wish to peddle?

album not track, but

https://anarchiveslabel.bandcamp.com/album/eihwaz

JF: Okay, I listened to it twice more and I'm still not hearing it. It's less that I'm accusing it of faking americana roots and more that it seems canned and a bit boring. I spent a fair amount of time in honkytonks as a kid and this doesn't pass the smell test for me.

sund4r: yeah, "unchallenging" for the listener; the composition seems pretty rigorous.

If there's a world in which I get through all these, I'll likely move on to the not-on-spotify tracks next.

I missed the nominations but there is quite a lot of Bandcamp bobbins I enjoyed this year that didn’t make it to Spotify, I might write in one or 2 of them. A few examples:

Obnoxious wobs bobbins: https://pondlifeparty.bandcamp.com/track/daseplate-the-clangers-vip-kontent-remix

Rolling breakbeat garage bobbins: https://dansudiscsuk.bandcamp.com/track/we-run

Jacking French house revival bobbins: Pilot - My Eyes: https://pilot.bandcamp.com/track/my-eyes

The Skeptical remix of Alix Perez - Trinity was probably my favourite D&B of the year: https://1985-music.bandcamp.com/album/5-year-remixes-onef037

Yeah, there's a lot of my noms (and I think a few on my ballot) that are Bandcamp-only. Will check those out.

listening to DJP's internet radio show of his & Fluffy Bear's favorite 2021 tracks and again I am just staggered by how MUCH music is out there these days now that almost literally anyone can make tracks. I haven't known a single thing they've played in the last hour-plus.

(for the record I believe this overload/excess/plethora is a good thing overall)

Forks, thanks for the in-depth ILM Consumer Guide. Totally enjoying it.

glad to hear! gonna try to keep it rolling.

Oh damn there’s a new Ashley Shadow album?? Not a Bonnie Prince Billy fan but otherwise looking forward to this! Thanks for trashing it Forks; I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

Desperately trying to not let my tracks list be too repetitive this year, but those three Real Lies singles are making it hard. I don't see how I can leave any of them off. It's only just dawning on me how special their second album is going to be.

Favourite discoveries from the playlist so far include:

Honey. - Somebody To (So obsessed with this. Reminds me of Louise Burns)
Pi Ja Ma - Should I Call U Baby
Cabiria - DISCO-CAFE
Clara Luciani - Le reste
Telenova - Bones
India Shawn - Don't Play With My Heart
Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés - El Gran Silencio

Really feels like I'm playing catch-up this year. So much great stuff on the playlist that just wasn't on my radar at all.

Here's a Bandcamp-only song I'd like to rep for: https://patriciataxxon.bandcamp.com/track/mystic-folk

Dunno how to describe it really. Wild cutesy prog-EDM banger with a hint of Autechre and two guest vocalists trading fx-slathered verses that builds to the most almighty climax?

everybody please vote for the maria arnal i marcel bagés album

Ok cancel the whole thing and give it to Backyardigans - Castaway. Banger!

Lol I completely agree

someone should just make a whole "year of impact" ballot

xxxp That's one I heard on shuffle that I gotta hear in full.

the poppiest track off parris's album

album is great too! "restrained, bass-heavy electronic music orbiting the fringes of dubstep, grime, and techno." ... yep

someone should just make a whole "year of impact" ballot
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Friday, January 14, 2022 8:04 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Charles Webster, Kali Uchis, Wizkid and Tems, SZA, Dunnie, Tyla, Elaine, Focalistic is not a bad start

MFR Souls and Bassie

First 100 done! 1000 or so to go!

Faves in bold

AYOCHILMANNN with Valee - HIMMYimmy: Rambling weird nerd hop needs the most love so I will pass some along here.

Ayra Starr - Bloody Samaritan: Perfectly lush coastal Afropop with the trustworthy London providing Starr with everything she needs - sax solo inclusive - to bring it home. X no fit kill my vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcR0PWGfUhs

Azealia Banks - Fuck Him All Night: The thing about Azealia Banks is that her toxic, mega-combative social media persona is generally worth putting up with because she mostly makes good music. Mostly. This is kinda garbage.

Baby Queen - Raw Thoughts: Mannered and precise in a way that means to make clear that it is absolutely not mannered and precise, ew, who would want to be mannered and precise when you can be weird and stuff.

Bachelor (Jay Som and Palehound) - Stay in the Car, Anything at All: I like the voices but man I cannot get with these songs at all.

BackRoad Gee with BG and TizzTrap - A Yo: Love it when my Clockwork Orange peoples rap so fast and so deeply accented that it reduces syllables to rainstick seeds rattling through the speakers. Relentless, minimal, lyrically impenetrable, good times.

Backxwash with Ada Rook - I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES: On paper, this has all the qualities of Death Grips and clipping that I’m looking for from folks that find machines and then rage at them and then become them and then break down. In practice, Backxwash’s sludginess and low BPM didn’t click every time I tried prior and this all caps offering isn’t bringing me around.

The Backyardigans - Castaways: Oh now this is a fucking brilliant nomination from dyl, buried innocuously amidst a raft of R&B and hip hop. As a childless fellow of a certain age, I had never even heard of the Backyardigans before this but boy do I EVER get how this lovely little samba about putting a good face on isolation could become a pandemic era tiktok meme magnet. It’s absolutely my fave 2005 track on the playlist so far, can I fucking stop singing it loudly in public is the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9b9xr1bVcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xToG2dRegMo

Bad Boy Chiller Crew - Don’t You Worry About Me: FUN! FUCKING FUN! WHEE! WE ARE HAVING FUN! SOMEONE PLEASE CALL FOR HELP! THEY WON’T LET ME LEAVE! PLEASE JESUS! FUN! SO MUCH FUN! I WANT TO DIE! FUN!

Bad Bunny - Yonaguni: Something about Bad Bunny's “i’ve been hurt” tone never fails to turn me off but this is about as non-abrasive as guy gets so that’s something. Still not anything I would seek out on my own.

Baltra - Baby, Dreaming of a Disco, I Want You I Need You (Darius Syrossian Remix) - All three are lovely house hits, mostly pulling from a late 90’s bag of tricks that times nicely with the short period I went clubbing at terrible discos with queer rednecks. The music was often good! “Baby” likely my favorite of this batch. As the narrator points out it's a VIBE to be CAUGHT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0Gu48-Y4w

BAMBII - TWITCH: Dark nightmare dancehall doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would work but this holds up nicely to repeat play and would likely demolish a late night dancefloor.

Band Gang Lonnie Bands with Young Nudy - Glocks & Choppas: I appreciate the Juvenile sample but the decision to rap way off the beat isn’t winning me over.

Banknulli and Not3s - Foreign: Solid Naija dancepop buoyed up nicely by Bank’s heavily accented, attuned flow.

Barbora Xu - Lintuseni: Oh no, I hear you saying, not another Czech singer/songwriter playing zither with Finnish folk tunes. I know it’s a heavily trammeled path but Xu is doing some very pretty things here even so; please forgive her obviousness. This album is likely worth a closer look for me, very much forksbait.

Bartholomew Kind - Memento: Haunting, throbbing, oceanic, deeply danceable. I love the repeated vocal, “And I deserve it, I think I deserve it.” Same here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pozBbxgXFo

Basside - NYC2MIA (Sophie Remix): Okay, so I listened to this three times so that you don’t have to and it’s the same thing over and over again for three minutes. It is not good. It is a bad song, really more of a bad sample beaten into mush then baby birded in your mouth for three minutes. Six if you listen to it twice. Nine if you listen to it three times. Which I did. It’s bad.

BATTEN GIRLS - Watashi Koi Hajimetatteyo!: I love how the singers and the production seem to be somewhat coincidentally on the same song at the same time. Love blooms nonetheless among the plastic people in space, pink blossoms falling from the underbelly of the spaceship as we gently zip off in jets of flavored seltzer.

Bawo - Starts with a Text: A bit too Drake-ish in its monotone accessibility and slightly sneering sensuality for me but there’s nothing inherently wrong going on here.

beabadoobee - Last Day on Earth, Cologne: How in the hell is this first song not “beabadoobee - shoodoodooshoodoobedoobedoo”? It’s the title America needed! It would be easier to hate beabadoobee, she of 2020’s ubiquitous coffee track, if only her music wasn’t so dang enjoyable. Cologne was a longer burn for me to come around but I finally warmed to the Veruca Salt of it and now I am in too deep.

Beach Bunny - Good Girls Don’t Get Used: I diggit lyrically and even musically but something in this Paramore-alike never gelled no matter how hard I tried.

forks OTM about that Sophie Remix. i was just listening to it while sorting out my DJ library and thought I'd run it in a ballroom/club set but not for more than a minute.

anyway, i'm here to rep "Notice," by Tammy Lakkis. i'm still processing a lot of music but this might the house jam of the year for me, and i hope it places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnRkwcTJi9I

Haha completely missed the backyardigand nom, we obsessed about it for a weekend in early 2021, a friend wouldn’t stop looping it and we ended up loving it.

'Baby' was one of my noms - Baltra's been on a hot streak for the past 2 or 3 years, and I could easily have nommed at least another couple of his productions (Sunset Jam!). Anyhow, keep going forks!

Yeah I definitely voted way too soon… there’s at least 6 of my votes which I’d change

As Fred said somewhere upthread the whole Backroad Gee tape is really good

#lastminutegang

Faves in bold

Beach House - Superstar, Over and Over: The thing about Beach House’s plush bathyspheres is that one sounds more or less as good as the next to me. They’re fine but they don’t really move me to do much more than shop for affordable pants.

Beak > - Oh Know: This feels a bit like CAN’s Vitamin C which is a definite selling point. Pleasantly shambolic and stomping, great music to play in a hiding cave during a pandemic.

Beautify Junkyards - Reverie: Gossamer thin and weirdly indeterminate in its influences and concepts but no one said you needed to show your work. It’s a short dive in an aquarium tank to open the treasure chest bubbler for a face full of boba-size fizz.

BEC - Pleasure Seeker: In the right head state, this twisted firestarter is a rock rolling down a mountain would provide a path to follow. Under anxiety, it makes me feel like I’m the target. Approach with caution but, by all means, do approach.

Bendik Giske - Cruising (Laurel Halo Remix): This is another cut that spikes my anxiety but where Pleasure Seeker does it by short sharp shocks, this is more serpentine and oblique. It’s going somewhere and the process of getting there is very purple and dazed. That’s not to be discounted or ignored but embraced when possible. See where it takes you!

Benedek - Street Level: I like how this struts up in leg warmers and shakes its hips relentlessly for six minutes. Perhaps more GTA radio or house party than round-the-office listening when everything’s said and done but no one in my office has complained yet.

Ben Watts - That’s the Way Love Is: I like Everything but the Girl as much as anyone, but this is a valentine centerpiece made with used tissues and i don’t know precisely what those kleenex were used for. Painful.

Bethan Lloyd - Boss of Big Dreams: Balkan choir harmonies, weird skipping disco loops, ominous synths approaching and a galloping drum track? Did someone make this just for me? Lloyd is a new find for me and I’ll likely give her 2019 EP a closer listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC9c0jWRjQc

The Bevis Frond - Dreams of Flying: I stopped three times to check to see how long this was gonna keep playing for, but it wasn’t until now that I looked to see the name of the artist. Hard pass.

Bfb da Packman - Weekend at Solomon’s: Some of the lyrics here are fun and I’d really like to like this more, but the production is meh and the slightly-off-the-beat rapping is a pet peeve of mine. Can the nominator recommend another track from this guy for me to try him again?

BIA with Nicki Minaj - WHOLE LOTTA MONEY: Nicki sounds bad here and BIA sounds hoarse while she's aiming for Cardi flow.

BIBI - BAD SAD AND MAD: Is this about rough sex or domestic abuse? Or is the point of the song the difficulty for the listener to easily make that distinction? Either way, this is a remarkably jaunty ballad for a song this violent. The juxtaposition works well and BIBI does some interesting vocal stuff over quirky production. The Timbaland Pony squiggle was a surprise but really, the whole track is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36iGiqoCXM

Bicep - Apricots: I think this was my nomination, my fave track off one of my fave albums of the year. I get the impression that Bicep’s relative mainstream popularity makes them an unhip pick in the house world but I don’t know that I’ve heard a bad song from them yet. Apricots is extra generous, comfortably uplifting, good to run with and deeply open. It draws strength from Hugh Tracey’s field recordings and the Bulgarian Radio Choir and it has held me aloft through some unhappy moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Govg_XmORLE

Biga Yut and Lithim - Cash Boss: What an amazing find! Primal, forceful, both of its moment and weirdly afrofuturistic. This slaps harder than any number of US/UK postpunk tracks in the playlist and never stops being resolutely weird. The joyous video, packed with A+ style is icing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2Ba1KS8-s

Big Red Machine with Fleet Foxes - Phoenix: Does Phoenix guest on a song called Fleet Foxes? Do I win hipster bingo if they do? I’m pretty sure I lost because I didn't want to play.

Big Thief - Spud Infinity, Little Things, Time Escaping: I am almost certainly missing something about Big Thief, right? It seems like every critic loves them and it’s not a total mystery why. I hear some of the elements! Something about the whole package turns me away. Like for Spud Infinity, the jaw harp and lap steel and the Gillian Welch vocals should have me caught, but it doesn’t. Somewhere twixt lips and hips this just dies on the vine for me. The other two tracks provide even less traction. Just not my party.

Big Wreck - Bombs Away: On the other hand, I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that a minor single from a proggy Canadian alt rock guitar band would land so incredibly squarely in my comfort zone. There’s something of Helmet going on here, maybe a little Stone Temple Pilots? In any case, this slouches into Guitar Hero territory in the best possible way and I would totally lift my lighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZImrFEkGjGs

Bilal Nasser - Exiles and Orange Groves: Okay, fess up, is this an ilxor or someone’s significant other? Nasser hasn’t got much of a digital footprint but what he does have here is a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daAI2tU3UE0

Billie Eilish: Getting Older, GOLDWING, Happier Than Ever, I Didn’t Change My Number, Lost Cause, Oxytocin, Your Power: Instead of listening to this pile of tracks, I just listened to the LP a few times. There’s a few missed shots but taken as a whole, I think it’s stronger than her debut and it’s a fully defensible pick for one of the best albums of the year. My pick would’ve been one of the not-selected tracks, Not My Responsibility, a conversational confrontation which seemed like such an unlikely choice for any artist to slip into a mega-release that I wanted to give it the nod as a contrarian and as a show of appreciation for Eilish’s continuing willingness to do any damn thing she wants. Of the songs, I’d be hard pressed to choose! They’re all quite good for totally different reasons. Eilish's diversity of approach and how well she pulls it off is maybe the largest part of what makes her so impressive. Let’s go with I Didn’t Change My Number; the growling dog and the wurlitzer keep me entranced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oLfyzoCFpw

if off the best rapping is gonna get your goat every time, it’s possible that michigan rap isn’t for you, but if you want a more traditional packman track, try “northside ghetto soulja” or “frenchmen”

*off the beat, duh

Bilal Nasser - Exiles and Orange Groves: Okay, fess up, is this an ilxor or someone’s significant other? Nasser hasn’t got much of a digital footprint but what he does have here is a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.

An acquaintance and colleague of sorts, but not close. It was one of my favourite pieces of the year, though.

I was also surprised by how much I liked the Big Wreck single.

a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.

Amazing description btw

Not saying he has Eve 6's digital footprint but he's got Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Instagram , a published score from d'Oz, etc, btw.

"Frenchmen" is strong and I forgot about him being the Free Joe Exotic guy. Not crazy about dude's production in general tbh.

Hooray "Foreign" by Bankullli and Not3s was my nom and very high on my ballot. Glad you liked it Forks

Holy shit @ that Bethan Lloyd track. I don't have much space for anything new on my ballot but I am making space!

That's sick, thanks for highlighting it

Also as a purely non-eligible public service announcement, saxophonist Kenny Garrett released an album late last year with Thundercat's brother on drums, and it's fantastic. Definitely would have nominated had I heard it in time.

Some kind of Special Citation, Laurie Anderson Award, whatever you want to call it, should go to Moses Sumney, director and star ov film x album Live From Blackalachia, which takes place during a day and evening in the mountains of North Carolina---no audience, so no "How ya doin Blackalachia" etc., but you are there. A seven-piece band total, I think (three horn players eventually appear in the gloaming, all in good time), opening with what I think of as psych metal then losing me a little in second quarter diffusion of prog-associated balladry, but coming back strong and then some with the rest, incl. slow motion acrobatics of falsetto, my least favorite (and then some) form of singing--even got a little tired of it on prev. Sumney albums---but this is incredible, incl even some use of microtones? reminding me of Arthur Russell's cello bow at times---and visuals are totally appropriate at all times---meant to compare w audio-only, as usual, but this time I couldn't look away.
(Only thing comparable in recent years: The Chicks' Gaslighter, with commissioned videos by female directors for each track, but those are discrete, while this is seamless---despite cut-ins of "low-fi video," like it says in the credits, also times of day and evening can switch, never twitch.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o406mzKAcvI

Will be voting for the Anz EP and probably You Could Be as well but annoyed I didn't nominate Last Before Lights - absolute banger

That Live From Blackalachia film blew my mind with its ambition. Loved it. Album's on my list.

Really need to check out the Moses Sumney, for some reason it just registered as an a/v project and I never did

Faves in bold

Billy Nomates - Heels: So much attitude and anger and straight up swagger, all entirely earned by the time we hit the song’s braying climax. The tone is totally different but I’m reminded of Annie Lennox at her most sneering. It took a listen or two to come into full view, but I was eventually fully won over. Great ass-kicking stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPQW8GIVgB4

Birds of Maya - Busted Room: Overlong and overloud. The washing machine churn was kind of interesting but it never found another gear.

Black Coffee with Celeste - Ready for You: This is the sort of music my partner likes to listen to in the morning when she makes us pancakes: affirmative, hopeful, uplifting, disco spinning in one place. The sun-kissed, sax heavy and slightly amapiano-ish production is what wins me over.

Black Dresses - Concrete Bubble: Screamo angry clanking alternating with coffeehouse poetry slam. As a thermal vent its effective but it’s not doing much more to me than scalding.

Black Merlin - Scape One (Gordon Pohl Remix): An extremely long walk down a Tangerine Dream hallway while the trains rattle by overhead. Luscious loading music for eventual ascension.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_MZO4ybBqM

black midi - Marlene Dietrich, Slow: I’m a little embarrassed to say that i can’t entirely get with black midi? All my weirdo jazzbros go ape over this shit and I can’t quite get it in the groove. Feels squarely in the Mr Bungle / Ariel Pink camp of squeakadelica, a headspace I can generally play well in and yet… Nevertheless: Marlene has a very Destroyer-doing-Burt-Bacharach vibe and Slow is sorta mopey Zappa with a number of interesting motifs. These two are definitely my fave songs I’ve heard from them so far.

Blanck Mass - Phase I: I was gonna nominate In Ferneaux for best album before I noticed someone put the first track off the EP in the singles selections. Phase II is definitely worth your time but I will agree that the front half is the superior side. So many twists and turns and cracks against the curb, it’s a real atmospheric journey, deliberate and thoughtful throughout though mostly without part two’s friction and grime. I committed to this haunted house ride for a week early last year and I never had cause to regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhnkc2wIzQ

Blaqnick - The Whistling Man: I promise I don’t ALWAYS mind when the song is unfinished. Case in point is this combo platter of vicious beat, super simple synth bounce, squelching electronic steel drum and a squad of basketball-playing baby birds squeaking new shoes across a newly waxed parquet court. It’s a bunch of odd elements that adds up to less than a complete track but who cares because it fucking slaps. CHIRP CHEECHIRPA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi9t5Zm65m8

Blasterjaxx - Zurna (Dimatik Remix): Arena EDM digitalis that really wants to know are you seeing THESE LIGHTS OH MY GOD THE LIGHTS WOOO I LOVE THIS PLACE what time is mom picking us up HEY DUDE HEY DUDE DO YOU KNOW MOLLY WOOOO

Blawan - Under Belly: Fuck, this is such a spaced-out bubbly banger of a hit, a calliope on fire with the biggest ass you’ve ever seen. Look at the size of them pink Baby Elephants!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayzv3kIwyuc

Bleachers - Stop Making This Hurt: I’m going to say this once: Jack Antonoff is unhealthy for the culture and I look forward to the moment when our collective white blood cells clear him out of pop's arteries.

Blood Cultures - Set It on Fire: Totally new to me and absolutely tremendous, super busy and hummable but difficult to pin down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQUFBkYmc6U

Blxst - Don’t Forget with Drakeo, Overrated: Not entirely sure what this guy is providing that twenty other guys in exactly the same lane are doing much better already. Maybe I need to find the song that showcases him at his best? Neither of these were that for me.

Body/Dilloway/Head - Body/Erase: Nearly eighteen minutes of approaching storm, soft at first and then noisy as 2021. Hardly easy listening, but I could handle this nicely as the entirety of a live set. Unfortunately, as part of a listening project, it’s a bit of an obstinate minotaur.

Boldy James with Roc Marciano, Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist - Photographic Memories: A good showing by everyone involved but the understated production and slightly gloomy mood dampens my enthusiasm.

Bomba Estereo - Deja: I always forget that I like Bomba Estereo a lot. This has the qualities of their best stuff: sunny, rhythmic, blissed out and entirely pleasurable.

Borai with Denham Audio - Make Me: Ginsu-sharp ravebait with an undeniable vocal hook and enough energy to power the marquee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czfcRpxLVYY

Born at Midnite - Pop Charts: Twee self-referential navel gazing that suggests hyper pop has had enough of the 80's and is now coming for your 70’s AM radio hits.

THE BOYZ - THRILL RIDE: Answering the question of what Rockin’ Robin would sound like in a Kpop key. Badass boy band banger brings brazen beats, bare booty boppin’, bumpin' bass, bitchin' breaks. Good video too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMs2CIiqRDI

Branco - HUNDO: Fleet-footed Danish rap with a trap beat and a solid guitar spine. Even though I’ll avoid giving a look at the lyrics, I bet I could likely win a handful of kroner betting on the subject matter. It's about Mette Frederiksen isn't it? And drug sales.

It's far too late to have any influence over the results, but I may as well mention a few of my favourite album nominations for no reason other than posterity:

Monogem - Gardenia sounds luxurious - like travertine, areca palms and humidity - and marks a turning point in the Mexican-American artist's career, in that it's her first release featuring lyrics mostly in Spanish, and her first one as a mother. One of the best lying-in-a-hammock albums since We Are KING probably.

Ngaiire - 3 is another album by a new mother, the latest from one of my favourite vocalists ever. When I shilled heavily for Blastoma about five years ago now, it finished just outside the 77, and I'm not sure 3 contains as "high highs", but it's very well made, consistent and beautiful. I'm mostly impressed that someone other than me nominated it!

While we wait for Javiera Mena's new album and for her to potentially conquer Eurovision (!) (oh, and vote for "Culpa" in the tracks poll, please), Princesa Alba - besitos, cuídate is fulfilling the coveted Chilean disco-pop spot on my ballot. She's been making excellent music for a while now - last year's Dua Lipa xerox "Ya No Quieres Quererme" one of many notable examples - and the full length delivers, despite not featuring that song. The title track sounds like self-titled era Britney.

I was very charmed by Joy Crookes - Skin - personal, political, and inventive, and if the UK is still anointing heiresses apparent to Amy Winehouse (RIP), then with this Crookes stakes out the strongest claim yet.

Agnes - Magic Still Exists came out shortly before the ABBA album and it was hard not to compare the two, especially as monster single "Here Comes The Night" seemed to riff gently on "Gimme Gimme Gimme". A storming mission statement, this album is utterly relentless (it's only at the final track, a ballad, that the pace slows) and gave 30-something gay men everywhere (myself included) an extreme case of heart palpitations. Another joy this year was finding her performance for Swedish television of 2009 worldwide hit "Release Me" in late 2020, in which a disco uplift was applied to fantastic effect.

An entirely different kettle of fish was Maple Glider - To Enjoy Is The Only Thing, a quiet, wintry meditation on loneliness from a Melbourne artist. Good to play while looking out the window at the rain during lockdown - I speak from experience!

I also presume every ballot will contain Rochelle Jordan - Play With The Changes, an alloy of Kelela, Aaliyah, Erika de Casier (vote for her too!) and Tinashe that floored me on first listen. If not, then reconsider!

Branco - HUNDO: Fleet-footed Danish rap with a trap beat and a solid guitar spine. Even though I’ll avoid giving a look at the lyrics, I bet I could likely win a handful of kroner betting on the subject matter. It's about Mette Frederiksen isn't it? And drug sales.

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), 20. januar 2022 06:47 (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So glad you liked this :) Danish trap is awesome. I can already say this one from the biggest rap star in Denmark will be placed very highly on my 2022 ballot.

Did you hear Ieva Jokubaviciute's Northscapes, Fred? Some nice Sorensen on it.

No, I haven't heard it, but I will definitely check it out :) All of the Nocturnes were recorded this year by Katrine Gislinge btw: https://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recordings/sorensen-12-nocturnes

Oh cool, thanks for the tip.

You're welcome. And btw, if you want more modern Danish piano music, you NEED to listen to the new Gustav Piekut recording of Langgaard. His 'Afgrundsmusik' is the first time it has all made sense to me.

cosign for the quality of Northscapes, great record.

I voted a while ago, but that Ola Kvenberg album Drugs A. Money nominated that people were talking about earlier is really cool

Happened upon this while looking for another post, but this Gooooose piano + breakcore track rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2N6KIijTW0

First time hearing it because it was on a comp and not on Svbkvlt's Bandcamp, lol

(s/o to silverfish)

xxp to rob Isn't it? Even if the astrohippodromical opening track stands out, for me at least.

Really enjoying the entire Audiobooks album, which unfortunately wasn't nominated

I think the final Ola track is my fave, but I haven't gotten to know it that well yet

The Gislinge recording of the Sorensen nocturnes is very nice. I didn't hear a string quartet on the bonus track, though?

Low's "More" sounds like the direction I wanted Sleigh Bells to take and that's a compliment

glad that black merlin/gordon pohl track stood out to you forks. a few years ago i decided to burrow further into the rabbit hole of my own particular taste with more time set aside for concentrated listening and far less time keeping up with what other people are talking about, so it's always nice to get some reassurance that others can still hear what i'm hearing

"Luscious loading music for eventual ascension"

and this in particular is a perfect descriptor imo

anz track on local action is good, sultry, restrained with a hypersoul belter ready to escape the cage at any point. It's certainly no 1-2 step, the electro influence is less apparent, but it'll do as an end of night tune.

Finn and India Jordan one is moronic beyond the pale, giving off the perilous odour of John McTernan's unwashed socks. I can feel the puke starting to rise, the last thing we need is RA/Crack mag approved influencers pickybacking on donk/bassline 10 years after the sound has already exhausted its subcultural relevancy (why don't these people make bassy tech house seen as that's what the core bassline audience listens to today?) At least revival jungle and revival deep house is catering to crowds for which these sounds never went away. This stuff seems to consciously divorce itself from engaging with its core audiences, despite being in the geographical vacinity. A curiously one-sided dialogue, I want to be a lover but only ever for myself. If one wanted to be cynical they could go on a rant about informal segregation, and fuelled with even more beer it'd never stop...

Illuvia - Iridescence of Clouds
Gorgeous swoony ambient drum & bass, which is better than that sounds since both the breaks and the synths are brilliantly done.
change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 4 January 2022 22:44 (two weeks ago)

Again, this is my problem with this stuff. Whilst the music is perfectly pleasant it's in this narcissistic indie mode of not wanting to engage in dialogue with the culture it's referencing. I can link hundreds of records that sound exactly like this from junglists who have continued to do their thing through the 00s. Now as devils advocate you can say, yes, but it is all that comes out of the speakers that matters. And whilst that is true enough, it's also the problem with the people who became graduates of Reynolds and Finney's writings, in that they don't have the contexts that both of these authors have. So whilst Si knows about Bassbin and Inperspective, yer average twitter personality who pontificates about hardcore continuum nick land jungle doesn't, because they haven't hooked onto the narritive arc of a genre but its snapshot in a particular spatiotemporal configuration. And therein lies the implicit limitations of the rockist/poptimist culture wars so beloved of the majority of indie refuseniks on this forum, that both approaches are essentially predicated on an overwhelmingly American epistemic foundation, where the brand becomes the thing. Sounds can be abstracted from their contexts rather than sound being the sonification of environments (not the images conjured.)

Anyway, without wanting to sound all totally negative, give these mixes a try:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYVY3unXtRo30q3yWxPT-fPgzWgwLbI2/view?usp=sharing
https://soundcloud.com/atmoteka/code-atmoteka-70

Code is really the don of this ambient but extremely funky style of dnb.

Here's a Bandcamp-only song I'd like to rep for: https://patriciataxxon.bandcamp.com/track/mystic-folk
Dunno how to describe it really. Wild cutesy prog-EDM banger with a hint of Autechre and two guest vocalists trading fx-slathered verses that builds to the most almighty climax?
― imago, Friday, 14 January 2022 13:13 (one week ago)

Liked it until the vocals came in, was hoping for more of a todd edwards style ultra-cut up.

I nominate this track from William Parker. Guitar might be redolent of Mahavishnu Orchestra but the rhythm section is some seriously heavy jazz funk. top top stuff. No fat on the bones here.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7pe9Q8Mi9ESLDmQzrCNMCk?autoplay=true

Looking forward to the C-Z commentary today before deadline

Next year I'm just nominating artists that start with the letter A

Huge thanks to whoever nominated that Hardfloor track as it's ace and I'd not heard it before but it appears to have come out 5 years ago?

Loving the Bethan Lloyd track. According to a friend she does these wild singing workshops out in the Welsh mountains. Sounds terrifying

I’ve got about 200 left to go on the playlist, heard so much great music, yet my every waking hour is still haunted by the Backardigans.

Is there a YouTube playlist?

Huge thanks to whoever nominated that Hardfloor track as it's ace and I'd not heard it before but it appears to have come out 5 years ago?

― groovypanda, Friday, 21 January 2022 10:32 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

That was me, and you're right. In my defence, I mostly buy off Juno and this shows it as being released this year - https://www.junodownload.com/products/hardfloor-25-gyeahrs/5155335-02/.

Isn't it good, though?

xp, there is!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg5Jd-S3s1GE4z_e7plH3u1sAPEsew2DS

Again, this is my problem with this stuff. Whilst the music is perfectly pleasant it's in this narcissistic indie mode of not wanting to engage in dialogue with the culture it's referencing. I can link hundreds of records that sound exactly like this from junglists who have continued to do their thing through the 00s. Now as devils advocate you can say, yes, but it is all that comes out of the speakers that matters. And whilst that is true enough, it's also the problem with the people who became graduates of Reynolds and Finney's writings, in that they don't have the contexts that both of these authors have. So whilst Si knows about Bassbin and Inperspective, yer average twitter personality who pontificates about hardcore continuum nick land jungle doesn't, because they haven't hooked onto the narritive arc of a genre but its snapshot in a particular spatiotemporal configuration. And therein lies the implicit limitations of the rockist/poptimist culture wars so beloved of the majority of indie refuseniks on this forum, that both approaches are essentially predicated on an overwhelmingly American epistemic foundation, where the brand becomes the thing. Sounds can be abstracted from their contexts rather than sound being the sonification of environments (not the images conjured.)

tl;dr: I am miserable and don't enjoy anything.

didn't we ban that guy fairly recently

Eh, I don't agree but I don't mind the perspective.

i think the POV is kinda similar to but less aggro than the guy that was banned

Nah it’s the same dude

I think this might be the third form he's taken on the ilx

sir, this is a Jack in the Box

forks keep em coming. I think I'm loving your own, bold selections of highlights more than what I'll enjoy the actual results.

You're the MVP

Almost certainly too late to convince anyone to add it to their list but this is my favourite by a wide distance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ehw-bUuj_M
It's just fun, which is what I needed in such a shitty year.

Ah yeah that's a good one too!

I think I'm finding my actual 2021 favorite songs of the year in this thread.

aw thanks Moka. I'm enjoying the deep dive and the incentive to think more on these.

Faves in bold. This is a particularly good batch.

Bree Runway - HOT HOT: Pop dancehall that leans harder toward the former than the latter in a way that smacks of Rihanna’s early day, though “ride a boy’s face like a Yamaha” is more later era Ri-Ri i suppose. Didn’t care for this at first, then the cadence earwormed me.

Breeze Brewin - King Oxymoron: Killer New York 90’s-style indie hip hop with (jugga)knotty flow, bars for days with clever emphasis (“if you declare me moron/better be there with sword drawn”) and similarly vintage Marco Polo production. This is entirely in my lane and I will for sure be listening to the whole album.

Brent Faiyaz - MERCEDES, Show U Off, Wasting Time (with Drake): I like Faiyaz’ voice a lot; there’s some Maxwell there, filtered through a loose-throated Baltimore (?!) accent. Both Mercedes and Show U off are honeyed treats that give him center stage, though Wasting Time treats him as a feature and Drake sucks, so…

BRÍDÍN - Floating: Another “only on ILX” find from an Irish artist who I’ve never heard of. This is a lovely ballad of looped and altered vocals, percussion, electronics and harp, floating and swooping like a bird in a parlor searching for a window, all feathery ballet and sweet sound with no aim other than to please itself. Kudos for the recommendation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HRH_qVODSg

Brijean - Hey Boy: An exceptional chill-out mix of samba and blunted seventies funk disco sensibility that would make for manna from heaven at that transitional moment when people are filtering back onto or off the floor for or from the next drink. Is it a vibe? I think it’s a vibe.


Brothertiger - Heaven: My first comparison was Mike and The Mechanics but my partner said Mister Mister and I think that Soul Sister is onto something. Even without the patina of lived or false nostalgia, this is talented enough stuff that it’s still quite enjoyable. I might like it better if it had a bit less fidelity to its 80’s source material so maybe I should try something else by the same artist?

Bruise - Joy: Ecstatically thudding house gospel that’s happy to lather on dancefloor schmaltz until it fairly bubbles. Joy indeed!

Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak are Silk Sonic - Leave the Door Open, Skate: I would go so far as to call myself a fan of A.Paak but would also go so far as to say I frankly loathe the music of Bruno Mars. Everything I’ve heard from the Silk Sonic project reminds me of the old adage that an ounce of horseshit mixed with two gallons of ice cream results in two gallons and an ounce of horseshit. These tracks are immeasurably corny and funk-faking to me, pastiche of the worst variety.

The Bug with Flowdan - Pressure: Predictably dark, filthy nightmare dub from the guy who does it as well as anyone. I don’t think I’ve heard Flowdan anywhere except with The Bug but together they’ve been consistently grinding out obsidian scaffolding with deft footwork and wordplay for like 15 years or so. I’ve been sold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN9k6Dz1SX0

Burial - Dark Gethsemane: Overpacked cinematic trip that shifts gears more than once on the way to a sudden but not unpleasant dead end. The journey is the goal here I suppose and, cliche or not, there’s enough thought and care that goes into this lengthy series of ideas that the pieces are fully enjoyable even embedded in this very mannered presentation. I didn’t try the EP when it came out and I’m curious enough to hear what this sounds like in situ that I’m dog-earing the cover for future exploration.

Burna Boy - Kilometre, Question: Each a big chune in its own way. Kilometre is a stuttering, gyrating party starter; Question is a soft exhale of smoke and echoing bass at the park barbecue. If you can only listen to one, I suppose I’d pick the last on the strength of its exceptionally charming video. I cherished both dearly this year and either would fit perfectly on any best of the year ballot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rOer3k2DWg

Busta 929 - Ngixolele, Mmapula: A New Amapiano Challenger Appears! I was mostly AWOL on the always-worthwhile amapiano thread this year with other distractions and just look at what I missed. Both tracks are A+ material from a producer who finds new and original means of expression while coloring within the lines. I clearly need to put Busta 929 permanently on my radar. Did you know about him? You should know about him! I should probably also get up to speed with the vocalist Boohle; she sounds amazing on Ngixolele.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xsdC6iYgM

Busy Signal - Bring Rum: ILM's favorite balloon artist has been grinding out good music all year but Rum all by itself is one of the five best pop songs I heard this year. I listen to it at least once a week. It’s still fucking amazing in that way that Busy’s best work is, infinitely replayable. I hold out some hope maybe this will place in the 77. Grab a woman every man every woman grab a man and just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll5aPrf2zE0

Cabiria - DISCO-CAFÉ: Indie-psych-dance with a distinct Broadway streak and Spanish weirdo flair. By the time the sax comes in, I bet you’ll probably be in too deep to only like it ironically.

Cake Pop - Black Rum: This was my nomination, this year’s Gecs that I will ride or die for. Sped-up absurdist nihilism that slaps is most of what I’m looking for out of hyperpop and this morsel of adult swim feels like a signpost demanding better from music, from life, from our diversions and our dreams. It’s also a track that I genuinely enjoy listening to but that I could simultaneously see alienating any gen x parent that doesn’t understand why junior thinks playing Ride the Lightning in the F150 is hella lame. Keep pushing those little daisies, kiddos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edp0LIUcq28

Camp Cope - Blue: Lo-fi Aussie indie with a country twang and emopunk backbone, surprisingly good.

Cardi B - Up: My nomination and another one I’d argue as a top ten pick. Cardi is probably the biggest name in hip hop, even in a year when she only released one solo track, way back in February. Fuck though, what a great song: minimal and perfect production that puts Cardi at the center so she can absolutely rap her ass off. Somehow I don’t think I ever saw the video! Let’s watch it together?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCiBgLOcuKU

Carly Pearce - Next Girl: I fell hard for Pearce’s debut album and, even though I haven’t given enough time to her 2021 LP, I expect nothing but high quality pop country anytime her name is on the product. Next Girl fits the bill, well constructed both lyrically and musically. If you’d like to hear what radio country sounds like when it’s good, you could do worse than starting here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5KKh5gFock

Caroline Loveglow - Patience Etc…: Bedroom pop via The Cure, lots of glam and languor and velour. Holds up pretty well to the fifth play.

Caroline Polachek - Bunny Is a Rider: The hype on this track was so inflated that I gave it a quick spin, rated it mediocre then forgot about it. But what do you know, on repeat it really proves quite good. Yeah, the lyrics are nonsense (“dirty like its earth day”?), but who cares? A deft synthesis of a lot of gimmicks (the whistle, the marimba, the chimes, the autotune, the baby chirrups, the scratching) held together with a solid bass line and entirely effective vocals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_V2ccs_Urk

I'm listening to lots other than this nomination list just now and I imagine the poll rollout is going to dominate my non-work/non-physical therapy attention for awhile but I could see coming back and doing more of these later in February as long as anyone's getting anything out of them. Me included!

do it!

voted on tracks this year for the first time. But was still too focused on albums to really do it justice.

Would've voted for Mungo's Hi-Fi too!

the Busta 929 (f. Boohle) song I really liked was Ekseni

The Bevis Frond - Dreams of Flying: I stopped three times to check to see how long this was gonna keep playing for, but it wasn’t until now that I looked to see the name of the artist. Hard pass.

This is really on me cuz I think I nominated the wrong track but if I had the chance to do it again I'd nominate the entire album bcz its legitimately incredible and wdve easily made top 15 if not top 10

yeah I somehow missed that in the options so didn't vote for it, but it's good

everybody please vote for the maria arnal i marcel bagés album
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Friday, January 14, 2022 4:34 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I highly recommend their previous album as well. Fantastic incorporation of Spanish music into art pop / ambient singer-songwriter, and what a full-bodied voice she has. Should appeal to fans of Mabe Fratti for example.

(Not nominated in 2017 on ILM, so I guess we are all catching up)

Glad to see Gardna getting some EOY love, he’s been doing some consistently chipper music (and club nights here in Bristol) for a while now. Bit biased as he’s a pal of a pal but seems like a good egg.

I didn't vote, guys, sorry, I just didn't vibe with the nominees I listened to enough to get excited about voting but I am still really looking forward to the rollout where I always find some exciting tracks!

I'm really excited for the rollout, tbh— I always discover some faves from that thread.

still need to check out Gardna but he seems like a great lad

Good job with this year's final winning lineup btw. There's lots missing that I both voted or and/or should have voted for but after some rigorous listening, there's definitely not more than 10 songs out of 77 that I just don't like.

Oh sick, ten of my votes made it ;)

MC Boing made it to the top 77 then

wait... am i missing something? we haven't rolled out yet have we?

lol

wait... am i missing something? we haven't rolled out yet have we?
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Thursday, January 27, 2022 1:20 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

No, it's just forks and moka discussing the results over coffee and telling us how interesting it all is :D

Do 77-60 tomorrow and then 15 a day next week imo

No no it's fine, we can all wait, namaste

wait... am i missing something? we haven't rolled out yet have we?

That Wet Leg one two surprised me

We're starting on Monday.

VOTE BITCOIN

can we put the results on the blockchain?

Will the graphics be sold as nfts?

The graphic for our #8 placement which is a song called “player of games” by Grimes will be sold as an NFT, yes.

That Wet Leg one two surprised me

I went to POLL and I got the big D

if the blockchain is how we get rid of fakeouts, then I'm a cryptobro now

ahoy
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2021

So I am deep listening to the "F" artists now, about 350 tracks out of 1110. Maybe will go back to posting reactions here?

Go for it, I enjoy your write ups