ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

http://i.imgur.com/qYXjwRf.jpg

26 SWANS To Be Kind [481 points, 16 votes]

I liked bits of the Gazelle Twin record but it's industrial-lite pop didn't really stick with me beyond a couple of songs. It slips into trip-hoppiness on occasion in a way that just didn't really grab me. Would like to how they work live, I can imagine that might get rid of my reservations about the limpness.

Listening to this and Pharmakon a lot around the same time probably entrenched those feelings tbh, the latter being way more satisfying (not that they're necessarily trying to do the same thing).

Overall vibe of Unflesh to me is like a version of Fever Ray more indebted to 80s industrial dance music

liked this album. didn't vote for it.

huh was expecting this to be higher based on the last couple ones placing top 10 or w/e. still haven't heard it though

it's not as good imo

Quik was my third vote to place (and likely the last) after Azaelia and Lana

Swans I bought but was bored by

adam summed it up well, I think:

swans tonight an endless dull churn, felt kinda bad for gira et al as they seemed to be working really hard to achieve very little. tho honestly that's basically how i feel about post-reformation swans on record too.

― adam, Friday, December 12, 2014 8:49 PM

a bit more purposeful than the nearly-as-good Young MArco album IMO

― Ratt in Mi Kitchen (Neil S), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 9:52 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree that it does a lot of what the young marco album did but with more purpose

― lex pretend, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 9:57 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually disagree with this, i don't think the mark barrott and young marco albums are all that comparable. mark barrott is very balearic in that it is quilted from several balearic touchstones, but only in a few of it's best moments becomes more than pastiche. i love it and voted for it, but besides "deep water" i don't think it becomes all that much more than the sum of it's really awesome parts. the young marco is less immediate, but despite being a humble little album, it is really not quite like much else i've heard. marco carved out his own sound using a relatively simple palette of synth and drum machines and gets tagged balearic because of the feeling he inhabits rather than the usual earmarks that code as balearic. young marco is more larry heard's 'sceneries not songs' whereas mark barrott is more wally badarou's 'echoes.' i also find the construction of marco's tracks, with elements shifting and gradually piling on, is itself more 'purposeful' than the lazily (pleasurably) drifting mark barrott, but i'm not sure if that's what lex and neil s. meant by purposeful.

i think one new swans was fine, three is turning out to be way too many

"to be kind" was kind of my 2014 object lesson for "try before you buy"

[zappa-talent]+[ween-cargo shorts]+[tenacious D X cassette tapes]=ariel pink

Overall vibe of Unflesh to me is like a version of Fever Ray more indebted to 80s industrial dance music

she's a big fan of stuff like john foxx too, i wouldn't say that 'industrial pop' is too far wide of the mark

So, given Gira was praising The Necks in many interviews leading up to To Be Kind, what the most The Necks like entry here?

(mind, I haven't followed Swans much this century - the 82-96 era churned my emotions up enough, I think)

i liked this swans album, it was actually more entertaining than the previous two imo - both funnier and more unnerving

I voted for Swans just so I could say something I voted for has placed.

I liked the slight change in direction on this Swans album, but it does go on too long. I still voted for it though.

strychnine you're a fucking moron, many xps

J0rdan too

imago I'm fairly certain at least 23 other posters have held that dn of yours before you did

still getting my head round gazelle twin, but it's good stuff.

swans album is fantastic, surprisingly funky for them, but it was never going to be able to beat The Seer for me. not that i'm complaining.

Lol metal
No more please

where's the metal

fine

xxxxps
Sanpaku, I would recommend The WHO Trio - The Who Zoo for someone who likes Necks type action. Although admittedly it is slightly more difficult listening, it has made up for the lack of a new Necks release for me. They are an awesome trio.

Couldn't get into The Seer, but loved To Be Kind - have spent several Sunday afternoons getting properly stuck into it. That said, the last two tracks on CD2 are two tracks too many.

imago http://i.imgur.com/cPsCwxX.png

I liked the shambling one about a little bit of God on one's hands very much, not braved the entirety

Oh, and add me to the "didn't rate Born To Die, pleasantly surprised by Ultraviolence" list.

xpost to mike t-diva, yea the album basically climaxes with "oxygen" and then sorta peters out, closing title track is particularly meandering and doesn't add much

i still want someone to photoshop frank sobotka on this swans cover:

http://i.imgur.com/Ildk6Gg.png

Gazelle Twin is way too low

All 19 of us who heard it voted.

If only all 19 of you went on to start ILM threads too

http://i.imgur.com/1cqzge3.jpg

25 SCOTT WALKER & SUNN 0))) Soused [482 points, 18 votes, 1 first place vote]

ha, guess we're in the spooky old man music stretch here

someone asked me today what i'd think about a scott walker POTUS run and i was briefly very confused

:) liked what I have heard of this

Probably my biggest disappointment of the year. I was hyped for it, but it just didn't click. I think the mix was off.

nice juxtaposition!

I have hated everything I've ever heard by Scott Walker, except for this album, which I like quite a lot

I preferred all the minor side projects from various Sunn members than this.

This initially disappointed me. I've come to enjoy it quite a bit. Sure, it's a step down from Bish Bosch, but that is one of the best albums ever made.

I dig it.

Kinda wish it and the Swans record coulda swapped lengths

ha, guess we're in the spooky old man music stretch here

― gr8080, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 3:25 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems to happen around this time every year

haha totally OTM xp

leonard cohen must be coming up

My #23 and my first to poll. Pretty good, but expectations were pretty ridic. Surprised it's this high but I guess it was always gonna get widely checked out and there wasn't much wrong with it. Those opening riffs also start things w/ a good lol.

lots of xps: the reason Nicki Minaj or Azealia Banks using "cunt" was such a big deal is because the word is so generally verboten in the US. It's just not something you hear often so it's kind of shocking when it is used. It's very different than Brits being all I met my old cunt down at the pub or whatever.