ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

i feel exactly the same way about Swans and Scott this year. They individually delivered my favourite albums of 2012, opened up so many horizons for me and acted like a bit of a benchmark in that respect which could never be surpassed, even by them.

I've basically been listening to Richard Dawson on repeat since it placed in the tracks poll. Great record. I love that high English tenor. I love his melodic turns and phrasings. Sometimes it is so funny the way he gives such big melodies to small lyrics such as, "chaaassssing a ball throuuuggh theeee mud"

On the other hand, Richard Dawson has filled my 'weird dark art-music dude' void, but only in the last couple of weeks. Nothing Important blew my mind. I didn't vote for him in the tracks poll because I think Nothing Important needs to be taken as a whole, and I'm pleased he deservedly beat out Swans and Scott O))) in those stakes.

This 'A Winged Victory For The Heart Of The Sun' thing is gorgeous! Absolutely just.. just gorgeous. Thanks ILM

imo their self-titled album from a few years ago is even more gorgeous

Is xelab a faux-British matt p sock? Only other person who's come out of nowhere to hate me so much.

Lol! Matt P even takes the piss out of me. You are a boring reactionary poster who has a habit of jumping in with an ill conceived "huh! pc gone mad" type demeanour on multiple threads in recent times. Some of them were threads where people were using disablist slurs, that leaves me thinking you deserve nothing but contempt, so until you you actually admit you are an arsehole, fuck off and die.

yea i shouldve posted abt it when i was doing my ballot cuz i was gonna put nicki on it, tho near the bottom tbh maybe giving it eight pts or something inconsequential

xelab...

now i want a faux british sock

http://i.imgur.com/UoH9NpW.png

Anywheeeee, Shabazz Palaces... No, this is twiggy cobweb music to me. Then again, I have an increasing aversion to excessive reverb and over-reliance on plugin-style effects these days. It's too often a get-out-of-jail-card for artists who either seem to be embarrassed about their abilities or want a cheap way to make themselves sound out-of-the-ordinary. It's my chief problem with bands like War On Drugs - it attempts grand gestures but modesty-screens them in washy films of echo and haze until I'm left stranded without anything to really catch hold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcEXydy8zGM

inividuals' routine rote dismissal of entire genres is my least favourite thing about ILM

OTM x 100000. the tracks poll was so over the top, it was ridiculous. people like different things, get over it. almost made it so i didn't even want to post anymore.

5/57

people like different things, like hating entire genres, get over it

I don't know anything about plug-ins, but I've never heard the kinds of effects Shabazz Palaces come up with. Black Up was loaded with crazy sounds that I couldn't identify, but on this album that feature seems multiplied ten-fold.

http://youtu.be/81fwc8i704s?t=32s

Anywheeeee, Shabazz Palaces... No, this is twiggy cobweb music to me. Then again, I have an increasing aversion to excessive reverb and over-reliance on plugin-style effects these days. It's too often a get-out-of-jail-card for artists who either seem to be embarrassed about their abilities or want a cheap way to make themselves sound out-of-the-ordinary. It's my chief problem with bands like War On Drugs - it attempts grand gestures but modesty-screens them in washy films of echo and haze until I'm left stranded without anything to really catch hold.

― UK Horseshit Cru (dog latin), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 8:03 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sounds like you aren't much of a shoegaze fan

plugin-style effects

in my day we called em eventides

Seems like only 1 album from the metal poll top 10 is going to place. Even the winner isn't going to place. You would think a few things would crossover to ilm in general.
― Get Ducked (Cosmic Slop)

Yeah, it might be the first year there isn't really any psych or metal placing, unless you count Babymetal. I thought it was a good year for it too. YOB maybe has a shot.

Previous years:

2010
47. ELECTRIC WIZARD — Black Masses (334 points, 10 votes)
61. ENSLAVED — Axioma Ethica Odini (272 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
69. SUN ARAW — On Patrol (252 points, 8 votes)
77. HARVEY MILK — A Small Turn of Human Kindness (240 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)

2011
9. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats — Blood Lust (696 points, 19 votes, two first place votes)
49. Moon Duo — Mazes (350 points, 12 votes)
55. Mastodon — The Hunter (328 points, 10 votes)
65. The Psychic Paramount - II (290 points, 9 votes)
75. Liturgy — Aesthethica (264 points, nine votes)

2012
10. GOAT World Music (736 Points, 21 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
30. TAME IMPALA Lonerism (426 Points, 15 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
51. SUN ARAW & M. GEDDES GENGRAS MEET THE CONGOS Icon Give Thank (298 Points, 12 Votes)
52. CONVERGE All We Love We Leave Behind (296 Points, 10 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)

2013
31 DEAFHEAVEN Sunbather (512 points, 18 votes, 1 first place vote)
48 YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN UZU (360 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote)
53 CARCASS Surgical Steel (344 points, 9 votes, 3 first place votes)
71 FÖLLAKZOID II (284 points, 9 votes)
72 THEE OH SEES Floating Coffin (282 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)

Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence – Bores in on its own peculiar sound-world with admirable dedication: Felt Mountain + The Trinity Sessions + Lynch's "woman in trouble" via Angelo Badalamenti, simultaneously soothing and unsettling, framed as nostalgia but existing wholly in the present moment. Catchy songs, too, but the whole thing leaves me cold.

Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness – An oddly appropriate follow-up to LDR, as Olson trades in a similarly minimal and atmospheric Americana. The reference field here is wider and the narrative persona much less archly stylized, but I hear more commonalities than differences. Good not great. Recommend the gorgeous "White Fire" as an introductory track to the curious.

Mark Barrott – Sketches from an Island – Nice vibes, but nothing here held my interest.

Spoon – They Want My Soul – A featureless surface, the Ikea of rock.

Azealia Banks – Broke With Expensive Taste – No idea what I was expecting, but not a face full of oddball funk. Fascinating listen, right up my alley though I can easily see why her label hedged so long. Can't offer any kind of summary on the first pass, just a fascinating unpop album I look forward to knowing better. And I now know wherefore that bundt got eaten.

Toni Braxton & Babyface – Love, Marriage & Divorce – Recused. No comment.

The Soft Pink Truth – Why Do the Heathen Rage – Didn't like this when it first came out, and repeat exposure hasn't changed a thing. The concept is far more interesting than the music, imo.

Ariel Pink – Pom Pom – Ariel Pink is an irritating fuckwad.

Jessie Ware – Tough Love – Though I'd never so much as heard of Jessie Ware, I LOVED the two songs that showed up in tracks countdown. Album delivers on that promise and then some. With Azealia Banks, my favorite "new discovery" of today's rollout.

Future Islands – Singles – Anthemic synthpop driven skyward by Bizarro Planet soul diva vocals. I wasn't a fan going in, but Herring's endearingly heroic overcommitment eventually wore down my defenses. Even so, a little goes a long way.

Popcaan – Where We Come From – With those who could have used a few more uptempo bangers along the lines of "Number One Freak", but I dig the album for what it is. Hooks for days, appealingly minimal production, no throwaway tracks.

DJ Quik – The Midnight Life – I'm not damning this when I call it the worst Quik album in half a decade, but there you go. Still 95% better than 95% of what's out there. Though I'm a fan, I can't so easily dismiss LJ's concerns about the lyrics. Pussy popping line is breaktakingly vile, yeah, but I laugh when he nuts ice cream a few seconds later. Conflicted isn't always such a bad place to be?

Gazelle Twin – Unflesh – Another artist of whom I'd never heard. Nothing gained for lost innocence.

Swans – To Be Kind – Not sure I can call a favorite among the three most recent Swans albums, and I probably lean toward The Seer, but this isn't far behind (if at all). I'm not always up for it, but some days, there's no better noise in the world. Loud needed.

Scott O))) – Soused – Sex repellent.

K. Michelle – Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart? – Taking another raincheck. I like her voice, but the settings aren't really grabbing me.

Richard Dawson – Nothing Important – Feel about the album exactly as I did when "The Vile Stuff" showed up in tracks: dig the crooked guitar scrabble, not so much the vocals. Happy to leave it there.

Shabazz Palaces – Lese Majesty – Spent some time with this on release, but just as quickly let it drop from view. Less immediate than Black Up and probably too abstract for its own good, but it does make for a pleasant afternoon's drift. Rap for airports.

Neneh Cherry – Blank Project – One of my very favorite albums of the year, would easily have gone top five had I voted. A gorgeous voice supported by strong songs, a swinging rhythm section and a sympathetic production. What more you need?

A featureless surface, the Ikea of rock.

That's as succinct and perfect a description of 21st century Spoon as I've ever read.

Yeah, it might be the first year there isn't really any psych or metal placing, unless you count Babymetal.

noura mint seymali & khun narin both very psych

just want to chime in and say i saw swans live last year as well and they were incredible, i felt like i was levitating the whole show and lost track of time. thank god for creepy old assholes imo.

xp very excited to check out that noura mint seymali album

got no time for young assholes like ariel pink otoh

one of the best parts about swans live is gira literally doing the jigglepanda dance

lol otm

yeah i love his jigglepanda. this last show i saw truly sucked though. for hardcore fans & masochists only

I found the Swans album to be largely ponderous and somewhat one-note after The Seer.

Meanwhile I'm too days late and listening to the Khun Narin record and right now it's pretty much the best music I've ever heard.

Also for real it's coming to something when ILM can't have an ad-hominem pop at poor underappreciated lambs like Spoon and the War on Drugs, like they don't have blanket critical appreciation everywhere else as it is. And I like the War on Drugs.

And yeah, Khun Narin totally psych-rock. The Gazelle Twin is heavier than any metal as well.

"I have an increasing aversion to excessive reverb and over-reliance on plugin-style effects these days. It's too often a get-out-of-jail-card for artists who either seem to be embarrassed about their abilities or want a cheap way to make themselves sound out-of-the-ordinary"

Love the idea that a former member of Digable Planets and the son of a legendary Zimbabwean musician would be so embarrassed about their musical abilities that they have to resort to a plugin.

I have the same problem with Khun Narin that I had with Konono No.1. Initially fantastic, then about three tracks in, you realise you're not going to get any significant variations, and it all starts to sound oppressive in its relentlessness. So Staff Benda Bilili remain the street virtuosos I can get with.

The Botanist counts as metal, surely??

if you need it to count as something then it counts as whatever you want to count it as and no one can tell you any different

xx post to Matt, well yeah, I didn't know that about Shabazz but if so then why so obfuscated? I appreciate some shoegaze and I like effects whe they're used, I dunno, artfully? tastefully? sparingly? I hear so much music in the last few years spanning a range of genres that just doesn't jibe with me because it sounds like someone came in and pressed the 'make it sound all washed out and gauzy' button in the studio.

agree with mike tbh

this soft pink truth album is fantastic :)

that and flora have been my fav finds this year

really want to know what responses Drew has gotten from within the BM 'community' - support, vilification, indifference etc

What was the soft pink truth concept? Only SPT track I know is that really old "jesus was a cock sucking jew from galilee" one which was a banger but I haven't thought about it in years

This is a good interview with Daniel lex: http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2014/06/interview-mix-drew-daniel-the-soft-pink-truth/

Key explanatory para:

The ... quote you provide certainly captures the spirit of what I’m doing: hopefully the record is taken as both humorous and serious, both loving and hateful, and it tackles kvlt authenticity with a stance that mingles worshipful attention to formal details with an oppositional spirit of “Bestial Mockery” […] If the “classic” era of black metal has become a set of canonized treasures, then that makes them ripe for a satanic profanation, an inversion of their professed values.

and it's worth stating that, theory aside, it's a really fun ravey house music record!

Covering/reappropriating classic BM songs into hard queer techno as a challenge to homophobia in BM and also because it's fun as fuck

Works incredibly well. You might even like it in a brutal sort of way. It's very metal in its outlook but also incredibly celebratory and uplifting imo

Great piece on The Formant about it - an interview with a BM vocalist explaining why he likes it & where it fits into the metal narrative

lol so yeah Neil otm

The Soft Pink album isn't brutal, sonically, in the slightest. It is very funny though.

No, it's in no way a metal album, other than these are reimaginings of black metal songs as house tracks. The lyrics are the same, maybe some melody lines have been re-used etc.. One of the best concept albums to come out of 2014.

It is quite jarring, in a really good and funny way! You know how Lex is with sudden loud noises ;)

I don't mean that it is a metal album, I mean that it is metal as hell \m/

Sometimes it comes across a bit like 90s industrial techno - I'm especially reminded of campy hard-techno concept albums like Ultraviolence's 'Psycho Drama'... Not sure if that was the intention though.

I agree with DL; I tried to listen to these tracks, but they brought back too many bad memories of 90s metal/industrial techno and hardcore... I'd much rather listen to proper house music by this act.

actually, I'm just listening to the Gazelle Twin album for the first time, and would say that it is comparable to the SPT album in production style, sound palette etc.

they both share a certain brittleness it's true

I made a compilation this year called Body/Sound with stuff including the Holly Herndon's 'Body Sound', Gazelle Twin and Pharmakon among others. Strange that this anatomical/body horror/organic noisetronica thing seems to be a thing this year.