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

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.

am i the only person that played the morgan geist album every day since it cam out? it beats the whiny kelley polar album into a cocked hat

Is Growing good? They're playing down the street from where I live this weekend.

I didn't enjoy their live set at ATP New York, and I like their albums mostly.

A GIANT YAY TO THE SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS LOVE!!!

Yes, I completely get the ASDIG comparisons - discovered them about the same time, too.

Maybe they need their own thread, as I couldn't get no conversations started on the Secret Machines threads.

electro-inflected nu-gaze with identical twin sister vocalists singing in unison: there can't be many of these about.

Take out the identical, but this was actually my very first band, back in the dawn of time...

k8 is so far removed from the ilm hivemind that she CREATES A NEW ONE!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/rockindie/release/images/rap_headless_silence_140.jpg
Don't know if anyone else is into 'em, but I'm lovin the hell out of the Headless Heroes album, The Silence of Love. Alela Diane is the best new-to-me voice of the year, alongside Rachel Unthank. It's a covers album, doing mostly 'lost' indie tracks. Including early '70s folk song, The North Wind Blew South:

A droney/shoegazey cover of I Am Kloot's To You:

And a stripped-down, countryfied version of JAMC's Just Like Honey:

On the classical/jazz side what has anyone out there been hearing?

friend who hosts a jazz radio show offers the following (i have heard none of these, fwiw):

BILL FRISELL- HISTORY/ MYSTERY
MIRIAM ALTER- WHERE IS THERE
FRANK KIMBROUGH- AIR
JOE LOVANO- SYMPHONIA
DONALD BROWN- FROM PAST TO FUTURE
MICHALE MOORE/FRED HERSCH- THIS WE KNOW
VASSILIS TSABROPOULOUS/ANJA LECHNER/ U.T. GANDHI- MELOS
HERBIE HANCOCK: THE JONI LETTERS (2007)
PAUL BLEY- SOLO IN MONDSEE
The New Carla Bley- name escapes me
TED NASH- MANCINI PROJECT
WYCLIFFE GORDON AND ERIC REED- WE 2
ANAT COHEN- POETICA
ENRICO RAVA/ STEFANO BOLLANI: THE THIRD MAN

I haven't heard a lot of new stuff this year but I think this might be it:

j.s. bach / sofia gubaidulina - violin concertos / in tempus praesens (anne-sophie mutter, et al.)
matthias pintscher - en sourdine / tenebrae / reflections on narcissus
tangele - the pulse of yiddish tango
helena tulve - lijnen
portishead - third
per nørgård - string quartets nos. 7-10 (kroger quartet)
fennesz - black sea
ricardo villalobos - vasco ep
arve henriksen - cartography
helmut lachenmann - grido / reigen seliger geister / gran torso (arditti quartet)

or something.

Vassilis Tsabropoulos/Anja Lechner/U.T. Ghandi

Thanks for the heads up on this, tipsy mothra. “Chants, Hymns and Dances” was awesome.

Is Growing good? They're playing down the street from where I live this weekend.
— billstevejim, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 21:41 (Yesterday) Permalink

I didn't enjoy their live set at ATP New York, and I like their albums mostly.
— ilxor, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 04:46 (13 hours ago) Permalink

seconding this, their recent albums are good guitar drone/electronic zone-out music but their live show bored the piss outta me

I'm digging that new pretenders, chrissie hynde doing stripped down rockabilly + c&w is always alright

tru, it's not in my top 10 but it is good.

i think the only new jazz album i've heard this year is Brian Blade but it's great.

That Michael Moore & Fred Hersch thing sounds intriguing.

ANAT COHEN- POETICA

This is wrong. Poetica came out with Noir (the better album, btw) last year. Her 2008 album was Notes From the Village. Which was pretty good, actually.

The Myriam Alter was good, too.

Hi there ywbs! Yeah I really like Helena Tulve, she has a fairly singular sound...

What I'd like to check on the classical side but have yet to:

- Chris Newman - Piano Sonatas (remember being really intrigued by a piece of his I heard in a concert a couple of years ago - its like a collage of cut ups that managed to sound frighteningly cohesive, so its almost as if he was thinking in a cut up language in the first place)
- Klaus Lang - Flow.state on ed.rz - his string quartet ('Sei Jaku') is probably a mid-way between Lachenmann concrete instrumental with a shiny Cage-ian surface.
- Ferneyhough music for voices on METIER.
- Mark Cauvin double CD of works for solo double bass - esp looking to hear the perfs of works by Fernando Grillo (primarily an instrumentalist writing for his own instrument played by someone else is something you don't hear everyday), but you get Scelsi/Berio/Xenakis, plus a couple of others I don't know...I'm not too sure what can go wrong.

Thanks for that list tipsy I will try and have a look. On the jazz side only been reading about releases for the last couple of months or so, but some of what I'd be keen on:

- Joe Maneri 'Peace Concert' - A first time issue from '64
- Ornette Coleman - Croydon concert - a first time issue from '65, its the trio with Izenson/Moffett as heard on the 'Golden Circle' discs
- Patricia Barber released a new album this year right?
- Braxton - Moscow '08, in a quartet/quintet can't remember, post Arista his 'development' is probably best looked at in these small ensembles

hey julio. re: helena tulve, I fell in love with her music upon hearing "sula," which is a collection of chamber works featuring the eponymous piece, an awe-inspiring rendition of a melting iceberg for large orchestra and didgeridoo (!). so my expectations were unreasonably high when "lijnen" came out and I couldn't help but be a little disappointed at first. but yeah, it's tremendously solid and deepens with every spin, if only because her architectural know-how is flawless and her emphasis on winds is quite unique. also, check out that pintscher disc if you're interested. on the surface, he doesn't seem to be adding much to the tone & timbre fuckery of the european post-serial tradition, but there's a real sense of uncompromising mystery and, dare I say, poetry to his vision that draws me back. and I think this year's kairos release makes the strongest case for him as a significant contemporary composer.

there's also a kurtag 80th birthday celebration 2-disc set on some hungarian label that I haven't had the chance to hear. it features some of his latest material, reportedly less miniaturistic and purely gestural than usual. I'm a big fan, so I ought to get around to it asap...

I haven't checked out either the newman, lang, ferneyhough or cauvin, but thanks for the suggestions. I'll be on the lookout.

also, this is belated, but thanks for drawing my attention to richard barrett. something finally clicked a while ago and I've been counting him among my faves ever since.

oh and there are two other recordings I regret not having heard:

jonathan harvey's "body mandala / timepieces / tranquil abiding / white as jasmine / toward a pure land" and a recording of george benjamin's first mini-opera, "into the little hill."