So we're halfway through 2008; what are your top 10 albums of this year, so far?

its way overrated

01 - Air France - No Way Down EP
02 - Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista
03 - of Montreal - skeletal lamping
04 - Dungen - 4
05 - John Maus - Love Is Real
06 - Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep
07 - Lindstrom - Where You Go I Go Too
08 - Larkin Grim - Parplar
09 - Jóhann Jóhannsson - Fordlandia
10 - Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna

Eat Skull is DEF. in my top ten

FROM others, either

Hey ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), glad to know you like the blog and that I helped introduce air france to you... it took me awhile to take ahold of them because I usually ignore hyperbolic bands on the blogosphere. I usually wait for the hype to die down and I pick the ones that survive it. Air France is a case in point, they're really good... I'll end up dropping them from my year end list because it's an ep though and I don't have enough of those this year to make a decent list.

I usually ignore hyperbolic bands on the blogosphere. I usually wait for the hype to die down and I pick the ones that survive it.

^^^^^

Been listening to my records again and I've finally sketched my top 10 list:

1. Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista
2. Jacaszek - Treny
3. Scott Tuma - Not for nobody
4. Shed - Shedding the Past
5. Tape - Luminarium
6. Fleet Foxes - s/t
7. Bruno Pronsato - Why Cant We Be Like Us
8. Grouper - Dragging a dead deer up a hill
9. Lykke Li - Youth Novels
10. Zdzislaw Piernik & Piotr Zabrodzki - Namanga

I usually make a top 12 album list because I really like that number. This is were it gets tricky for me because I have 17 albums in consideration for those two positions but they're so good I can't decide for either one of them. :(

Clark - Turning Dragon
Vetiver - Thing of the Past
Death Vessel - Nothing is good enough for us
Dungen - 4
Middle East - The Recordings of the Middle East
Keiji Haino - The 21st Century Hard-y-Guide-y Man: Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto
Li Jianhong - San Sheng Shi
Vajra - Live
High Places - s/t
william parker - double sunrise over neptune
li jianhong - san sheng shi
sean mccann - flutter oasis
astro echo the echo from the purple dawn
datashock & shivers - vol IV
nasa - bummer daze
natural snow buildings - laurie bird

i like your list moka. i guess when you look at mine it's apparent why.

stephan mathieu - radioland (die schacatel)
bruno pronsato - why can't we be like us (hello? repeat)
idea fire company - the island of taste (swill radio)
tape - luminarium (hapna)
flying lotus - los angeles (warp)
move d & benjamin brunn - songs from the beehive (smallville)
natural snow buildings - the snowbringer cult (students of decay)
head of wantastiquet - mortange (ecstatic yod)
kurt vile - the constant hitmaker (gulcher)
mountains - mountains mountains mountains (catsup plate)

found populating a list of albums very difficult this year. there's a lot of stuff i've enjoyed the few times i've listened to it but never bothered going back to... the curse of ipod listening.

Still pondering my list - won't be till mid-December when I figure it out, I guess - but it's good to see so much love for Jacaszek! That's a wonderful album, esp. on headphones.

i can never do this. i usually have three solid favourites and fifty more i like a lot. this year it's just two: Kelley Polar and Lindstrom.

@resolved: Thanks. Have to admit I still haven't heard half of your list, will have to take a listen, are they ranked in order of favorites? Also are those the same Mountains that released 'Sewn' on Apestaartje two years ago? I love that one.

Props for choosing the Corb Lund album. Has this just came out in the UK or something? It was released in 2007 here in Canada.

― everything, Friday, 28 November 2008 00:06 (19 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It came out late November 07 in the UK, which sneaks it onto an 08 list by my reckoning. Is there anything else like this out there, rootsy zingy Canadian throwback country?

someone voted for the esoterrorist!!

― deej, Friday, November 28, 2008 12:44 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

update ur rolodex hes the esoterraSMACKYA now

1/ lambchop - 'ohio'
2/ the bug - 'london zoo'
3/ half man half biscuit - 'csi: ambleside'
4/ vampire weekend - s/t
5/ the fall - 'imperial wax solvent'

Most of my music purchases and listening is backcatalogue, so my current-year favorites are always poor indicator of what will endure.

Au Revoir Borealis - Dark Enough For Stars
(Dream pop that crosses shoegaze with a mournful high-western sound.)
Bug - London Zoo
(Brooding, angry post-dancehall. A go-to album for grimacing during the morning commute.)
Grace Jones - Hurricane
(Mezzanine meets a Laswell production. Song for song, the equal of her Compass Point classics.)
Haltya - Book of Nature
(Finnish freeform psy borrowing liberally from late 70s funk and disco. Super Fun.)
Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
(Playlists save us from the unsuccessful slower balladry/filler.)
Matmos - Supreme Balloon
(Putting away the samplers for a analogue tribute to Wendy Carlos and 80s videogames.)
Myra Davies - Cities & Girls
(Finally, another spoken word collaboration with Gudrun Gut)
Portishead - Third
(I think we're all giving this one extra credit due to our emotional attachment)
Señor Coconut - Around The World
(Same schtick, this time he covers Trio, Daft Funk, Prince, and Eurythmics)
Zeigeist - The Jade Motel
(An atmospheric distillation of 80's electro pop. The reappearance of web-only tracks has unfairly harmed its reception.)

Autistic Daughters
Portishead
Lau Nau
Grouper
Gang Gang Dance
School of Seven Bells
Evangelista

...but there's a whopping great bunch of stuff that I haven't heard yet...

LOL @ Lindstrom lovers calling kleerup 'boring'

(p.s. for those who want to listen, someone uploaded that album to imeem)

Moka: very very loose order of favourites. i just got the mountains last week so...
yeah it's the same Mountains. they just signed to Kranky. one of them released a solo lp on Type this year too, which has its moments.

Los Campesinos! - Hold on Now Youngster
Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: 4th World War
Young Jeezy - the Recession
the Bug - London Zoo
Portishead - Third
Hercules & Love Affair - s/t
Bun B - II Trill
Dave Aju - Open Wide
El Guincho - Alegranza
the Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

is anyone digging this Gaslight Anthem record? it sounds like springsteen and glasvegas take an emo bath. i can't decide if that's good or bad yet (through 3 songs)

(I think we're all giving this one extra credit due to our emotional attachment)

Why shouldn't one give an album extra credit due to emotional attachment?

best record of the year, two-way tie between

Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms

these have also got a lot of love and a lot of playing from me...

The Asteroid No.4 - These Flowers Of Ours
Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
Bishi - Nights at the Circus
Je Suis Animal - Self Taught Magic From A Book

but granted there's a lot of stuff I just haven't heard this year... also there's a lot of stuff I bought that I really liked and played a lot when I got it, but wore off quite quickly. And the two records at the top have just been so persistently hanging around in my CD player that they've wiped everything else from my memory.

Reading this whole thread makes me realise how far away I've got from the general ILM hivemind, though. Only 2 other people digging on SVIIB and not one other mention of Fantasy Black Channel - but guess that's coz Louis got himself suggest banned.

oh ya that Late of the Pier record is very good indeed - consider this the second mention. I have no idea who school of seven bells are.

louis? as in just got offed? banned?! nooooooooooo!

:| Yes, it's true, LJ hit the big 50.

School of Seven Bells = Benjamin Curtis from Secret Machines and Ally and Claudia Deheza from On! Air! Library! doing a whole album of beautiful wispy textured ethereo-electro-nugaze nuggets. There should be a lot more love for it on this forum.

I know that LOTP only get flack/ignoration on this forum because of the context - teenage MySpace electro as championed by the second most hated magazine in Britain, but everyone I've played them for without telling them who it was has been OMG WTF this is GRATE. So context and the hivemind mess everything up again...

xp well, that's just depressing. it's clearly part of a widespread anti-cardiacs conspiracy.

ya mike t on the late of the pier thread otm in that they are quite like klaxons/mgmt/foals but GOOD. will check out school of seven bells - sounds great.

also want to mention love for the Simon Bookish, Max Tundra and Herbert records - they were all just released recently but i am digging them.

School of Seven Bells - yes to what Kate said. Lemme save you a google Roz:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=c65lmkyLKxg

Also, uh... http://www.myspace.com/schoolofsevenbells

Especially recommend Chain and Connjur on that page...

That Simon Bookish album is totally a grower. It's very chewy, sticks in yr head. Found myself singing Alsatian Dog in the Tesco Disco Metro the other night.

Only 2 other people digging on SVIIB

I'll rep for the SVIIB album. One of the better things I've heard this year. I'll place it top ten for the year, probably.

FWIW, School of Seven Bells will probably be in my year-end list.

i listened to the opening track on the school of seven bells album and it sounds like engima crossed with cranberries. not really what i was expecting based on the comments upthread. is it all like that??

Hahaha, no not really, but I know what you're getting at there, that track has got a bit of a cloddish beat going on. The best tracks are much better than that. Dunno what page other people were on, but I was thinking about the vox on that album more in terms of folks like Linda Perhacs rather than old Dolores Dingleberry.

No, it's not all like that. Keep going with the album, it gets better.

MB, Alpinisms is my favourite vaguely "shoegazer" album since The Underground Lovers' Cold Feeling nine years ago.

i'm really loving the school of 7 bells stuff on their myspace! esp 'prince of peace'...

I think this Growing album is gonna have to be a late entry!

Also Kelley Polar, and Ne-Yo, Vampire Weekend but for this year I seemed to mainly catch up on last year....

xpost Yeah "Prince of Peace" is probably my favourite but the whole album is good.

Really digging the School of Seven Bells record! This is why I like these end of year threads.

OH NO NOW THE HIVEMIND LIKES THE SAME THINGS AS KATE WHAT?

YOU'VE BEEN CO-OPTED

fuck i think i like that album too :-/

Kate et al, thanks for the pointer to Alpinisms. It probably displaced something else from my year's list. The Deheza sisters (of SoSB) sometimes sound like they're emulating autotune, and I haven't decided whether or not that's a great thing...

SoSB is similar in conception to last year's A Sunny Day in Glasgow album (a definite sleeper): electro-inflected nu-gaze with identical twin sister vocalists singing in unison: there can't be many of these about. ASDiG is noisier and draws in more influences, while SoSB has more inviting production.

i got the grouper album based on this thread, again not quite what i was expecting but pretty nice in parts - very similar to movietone/empress kind of thing with flashes of damon & naomi..

Is there anything else like this out there, rootsy zingy Canadian throwback country?

― Peter "One Dart" Manley (The stickman from the hilarious 'xkcd' comics), Friday, 28 November 2008 19:19 (3 days ago) Permalink

Tough question since most of Corb's competition are either dusty'n'dull alt-country or roughed-up Eagles clones. Neither of which are zingy, which I think is the key thing here. That said, there are a few you could try - Carolyn Mark, Luther Wright (both of whom have recorded with various bands, as well as solo and together. More than them, I'd recommend Ray Condo and the Ricochets. He died a couple of years ago unfortunately but his albums are still around. There are a few great clips of Ray Condo on Youtube. Like this one:

I just asked my friend who's way more of an expert on rootsy, zingy Canadian country and she gave me the following:

- Ridley Bent (his 1st album Blam!, esp.)
- The Sadies
- Elliott Brood
- D. Rangers
- Old Reliable
- Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
- Cuff the Duke

On the classical/jazz side what has anyone out there been hearing? I've got about five cds on each side that I wanna be checking out.

count me in on the school of 7 bells love that has blossomed from this thread.