thread to dis hyped releases that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

i guess feminazgul are ok

I like Neckbeard Deathcamp but more because they make me laugh than because they are actually a good black metal band

I do treasure my ND shirt

starting in 2016 i really started going ham on new music, and every year since then i've found more of it i like. so much of it that i can't even make sense of it or contextualize it or rank it or even recommend it, really. all i can do is listen. it wasn't until a couple days ago that i finally settled on a Favorite Record from 2018. all i can say is "well this is good and this is good and this other thing is good".

this is almost exactly the case for me too. i have a list of about 15-20 that are all "top tier" and the order changes every day

If you're not constantly maintaining a RYM account you're...uh...probably functional in other aspects of your life ;_;

I've never even BEEN to RYM.

Am I otherwise functional?

no!

I can only spend energy on one obsessive music tracking thing and that's my big annual playlist

the only thing i use rym for is to maintain a list of my favorite albums of all time, pretty worthless otherwise

it helps me keep track of all the music, what can I say

this has been a really great year for me music-wise, a lot of favorites released new stuff and a lot of it is really good, though looking at these lists only underscores how little *new* stuff I actually listen to

much like last year, I feel like I'm now much more firmly entrenched in a 'tracks' mindset over albums thanks to Spotify and the ease with which it is to make playlists. My most played albums were 'Charlie's New Cool Songs Playlist' parts A and B.

It's largely affected the genres I favour too. Much more interested in afro pop and SA house than stuff that suits albums and I don't think I've even heard much stuff that really works well as a full album in the way that it has a unifying concept and the songs flow together in a consecutively satisfying way.

That said, there are exceptions. I loved the post punk vibes laid out by both Ought and Parquet Courts this year: one ascetic, and entrenched in a particular sound harking back to very specific forebears (namely the Cure and maybe Scott Walker); the other also proudly wearing its influences on its sleeve but jumping around all over the place like a manic infant.

Been also enjoying a lot of Outernational stuff, new and reissued, on Analog Africa, Nyege Nyege Tapes and Awesome Tapes. The Dur Dur Band's lost Somalian recordings. Nihiloxoca's intense live tribal techno. The sheer onslaught of the Sounds of Sisso comp (which I've just learnt came out last year, oh well)

But I kind of miss 2012/2013, the year where big conceptual art rock albums ruled my world - The Knife, Scott Walker, These New Puritans, Swans - I'm not sure what the equivalent of that was this year?

I guess Julia sodding Holter. But I'm increasingly suspicious of big conceptual art-rock albums, and who'd blame me eh

(Or, if you want to join the cool kids in the cool room, Machine Girl)

I only use RYM to look for interesting metal records that haven't been written up much

it's not exactly hyped but the new Charalambides 2LP is extremely disappointing to me, aimless and way way way too sparse for my tastes, just the polar opposite of the glory that was Exile.

i liked it the two times i put it on but haven't felt like going back, i think you are on to something. i haven't even played the accompanying cassette.

the tape is even worse, sadly, was hoping for something like the stupendous vinyl-bonus tracks from Exile but everything on this release is like an unadorned guitar and a voice in a room together, not my favorite mode of theirs.

jenny wilson is one possible contender

more electronic tho

If you're not constantly maintaining a RYM account you're...uh...probably functional in other aspects of your life ;_;

― imago

i'm closing out 2018 as a reasonably functional human being in spite of the amount of time i spend on rym. i don't understand it either.

i adore tove styrke but sway was super underwhelming as an album unfortunately, not bad but she's clearly capable of much more

― ufo

Totally agree with this. Her first album was great and Kiddo was very close to being a masterpiece. Sway was such a letdown and probably my biggest disappointment of the year. Compared to what she did on Kiddo, it was way too samey and dropping the Lorde cover on the end made the whole thing seem so unfinished/rushed.

oh I definitely thought it was disappointing in terms of potential too, I just mean that it isn't notably better or worse than the Robyn album which is doing a similar thing but comes with a ready-made narrative

XP Disappointed to hear that the Charalambides record is underwhelming. Been a fan for like 20 years and I got to see them live for the first time in October. I enjoyed it as a moment in time, this sparse, alien music against the backdrop of the Ohio River, but it occurred to me that I probably didn't need to own a another record of this particular mode of theirs, so I haven't checked the new one out.

ah shit i think i love the traumprinz records

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, November 13, 2018 5:21 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this bore out: i do love them, dj healer slightly more than prime minister of doom

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Thursday, December 6, 2018 9:28 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sry not to add more off-track positivity but lol i think i also love the dj healer record now. thanks brad :-/

oh for dog latin, a 2018 equivalent of those big art rock albums is absolutely Anna Von Hausswolff's Dead Magic

1.
How could Tove Styrke make a better record than Kiddo? Most people never do.
Her shows this year were super killer though. Apparently the Boston show we were at was her first sold-out concert ever (capacity: 200)... she mentioned it a few times!

2.

I guess Julia sodding Holter. But I'm increasingly suspicious of big conceptual art-rock albums, and who'd blame me eh

(Or, if you want to join the cool kids in the cool room, Machine Girl)

― imago, Friday, December 7, 2018 1:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Conceptual art-rock album not to be suspicious of = Polycrisis: yes! by Jessica Sligter. She's been real great for a few years, but, this is a real special one.

Listening now. If anything it's even worse than Holter. I make no apology

I mean there's no 'rock' about this. You literally cannot call ambient bollocks with pretentious anti-capitalist warbling over the top of it 'art-rock'. I'd even dispute the 'art' bit. Everyone should check out the second track though! It's singularly annoying

(btw this thread is a safe space for overly harsh criticism so don't take it personally!)

you hype, I dis

Ach, as a fan, I tried with the von Hausswolff. It made me a) want to go look at some Goya ii) want to go find old Gira, knock his cowboy hat askance and ask him if he knows what he's done? and 3) wish for my old boring office job back, so I could sit at my desk, wish for anything but this and feel all scourged and transgressive.

you could just say that it was boring bollocks, which it was

imago dislikes record that doesn't exude hyper-kineticism, news at 11.

hey

I loved last year's Lingua Ignota record and that was slow as anything

I like records with character, that's all ;)

Both the Julia Holter and Anna von Hausswolff LPs have character. Just not the right kind, apparently. Anyway, I don't think either is the masterpiece some RYMers believe them to be but they certainly stand head and shoulders above the adolescent moaning of Black Dresses, for instance, which negates their otherwise solid instrumentals. You're right to assume obnoxiousness tends to imply character but I'm not beholden enough to the latter to gush over the former.

While we're at it, Daphne & Celeste belongs in the rolling worst 2018 music thread. I can only cringe for so long.

The Beths, what are you all thinking?

given that the Jessica Sligter album is something of a paean to the EU I'd probably not describe it as anticapitalist. it's also not a rock record but her previous ones were folk-rock more or less so is perhaps being described/considered in that context for that reason

going to studiously avoid pomenitul's excellent baiting and second boxedjoy. or at least...the beths are fine, but the way some of you go on about them it's like they're more than an extremely basic indie outfit with wholly unremarkable songs

Then there’s the presence across the album of European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – excerpts from two of his speeches feature, on ‘The Dream Has Died’ and ‘The State Of The Union’. On ‘The State Of The Union’, Sligter recites his words over an unsettling synth stab, veering into singsong cadence as she asks “Do we want to let our union unravel before our eyes?” while a sample of Juncker’s original address plays underneath.

lol, just wot i need to get through these suicidal dark winter nights!

literally the most heinous shit I've heard all year

the amount of basic indie that I hear about on ILM these days makes me think the exodus of more pop-oriented posters has had a deleterious effect on our discourse. The Meshell Ndegeocello album an example of the sort of thing I come to ILM to learn about (none of my other channels of learning of new music has mentioned it), but that and the Mr Fingers album have been about it this year on here for me. and this thread is listed a bunch of the acts I tried this year after seeing ILM hype. RIP

there's something about the autechre NTS sessions i find hugely disappointing. do the compositions warrant the interrogation? does the interrogation yield anything? do the reverb settings equal gravitas? why so many "menacing" signifiers? just seems conservatively limited to autechre-sound-world to me.
that's right, i want a peppy lo-fi goofy prog-pop autechre. and i ain't getting one. dang. more fool me.
i shall code a generative listening engine, and the machine solipsism will be complete.

i heard 4 minutes of that Jessica Sligter thing and have donated a year's wages to Arron Banks

'Art-rock' is a stupid term in the first place that can include any old bollocks so there's no sense getting irate about its misuse because it's literally impossible to do so.

the beths are fine, but the way some of you go on about them it's like they're more than an extremely basic indie outfit with wholly unremarkable songs

Haven't you repped heavily for Big Thief and Speedy Ortiz over the last few years?

it's a matter of songwriting sometimes? like especially speedy ortiz are pretty inventive with structure and melody, dull recent album excepted

massaman gai has nailed my own misgivings about the autechre nts sessions as well. elseq was miles better

the mediated worsening of the world has made everyone dour

As long as we move away from reductive poptimism (the worst kind of objective wrongness, by far), all is well with the world.

I'd much rather read trying-too-hard praise for a top 40 act than for the kind of 90s indie that'd have occasioned a trip to the toilets during a 90s festival