what one 2010 album do you wish had a wider audience?

just filling the void now...

newaaaaaay: my one underloved twenty ten album is jana winderen's "energy field" a mix of field recording, ecological survey and ambient/drone soundscape. its incredibly beautiful and ~rich~ in both concept and execution. really wish more ppl would hear this

sean carey - all we grow
mountain man - made the harbor

Abe Vigoda's Crush
Blake Mills' Break Mirrors, even though the album as a whole is sort of disappointing.
Women's Public Strain
Sharon Van Etten's epic, even though her debut blows it out of the water.
Mountain Man's Made the Harbor
Mount Eerie's Song Islands Vol. 2 compilation.
Harlem's Hippies
Each of El Guincho's LP and EP releases this year, even though some of the material gets tedious.

Also--and this is going to sound stupid--but Joanna Newsom's Have One On Me. I know a lot of people, including myself, think it's the best record to come out this year, but a seemingly equal number of people seem to think it's unlistenable. If they only gave her another chance, I'd imagine her fanbase would be huge(r than it already is).

Warpaint

I'm an idiot. My ONE answer is Have One On Me.

Tonetta 777

Murmuure. Released on a boutique black metal label in tiny quantities on cd-r, anybody who likes Alcest or Zombi (for starters) would love this.

William Brittelle, Television Landscape

two in particular, esp on ilx:

k. michelle - what's the 901? (free mixtape, get it girl)
we love - we love

respectively: my favourite r&b discovery of the year - you can KEEP your janelle monáe try-hards! - big on rough edges and real talk. "what i ain't gon do is call my pops / what i ain't gon do is call no cops / i'm no jazmine sullivan, bustin all your windows out / i'm from memphis, tennekee: imma bust you in your mouth"

and absolutely stellar, inventive electropop on bpitch control: I am becoming slowly obsessed with the We Love album on Bpitch Control

ilx could also do with more enthusiasm for the ikonika, dj nate, laura marling, guido and fantasia albums...

Also--and this is going to sound stupid--but Joanna Newsom's Have One On Me.

listing one of the most hyped records of the year in this thread IS a little odd, yes

Lower Dens Twin-Hand Movement. Sort of like the xx with it's minimalist interplay and beats, but with Jana Hunter's weirdly weary voice making the whole thing sound older and spookier.

K-X-P s/t album <3

we love - we love

this is p dope but i feel like it has its fair share of admirers? i mean i can see it breaking outside of like trendhead/gallery types/'europeans' but i feel like its p big in those circles already?

haven't seen a great deal of love for it - certainly not on ilx, where i think 4 people posted in its thread

at the moment, i want everybody to hear & love the sun city girls funeral mariachi. which won't happen, but a man can dream.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/metal/various/mansgin_cover.jpg
http://www.myspace.com/mansgin

Folky/country album by one of the guys from Cobalt.

haven't seen a great deal of love for it - certainly not on ilx, where i think 4 people posted in its thread

yeah well not having a particularly stellar distribution is impeding my ability to totally gush about the album, since I've only heard selected songs online and I really want a physical copy

Eternal Summers - Silver

i just made a thread about this release last week. they're a duo in the same vein(maybe not) as beach house but with more of a power pop lean and less of a lo-fi aesthetic. definitely one of my fav releases this year.

Chimeys - The Young Sinclairs

more 12 string driven, pastoral, 60s byrds inspired psych/pop from these dudes. they've become a staple in my year end 'best of' list.

male bonding - nothing hurts

I'm gonna second that Abe Vigoda album, but only because that is exactly my type of shit

Radio Dept - Clinging to A Scheme
Wild Nothing - Gemini
Phosphorescent - Heres To Taking It Easy

Very good call on the Phosphorescent album. Hell, I just wish more people listened to him in general.

haven't really been keeping up with a lot of stuff this year, but the elisa randazzo record on drag city is very nice. not the sorta thing that gets a buncha hype, but i like it a lot...

Deep Snow EP by Microexpressions sure deserves wider recognition than that of few hundred Polish indienerds who only know it now. Lies somewhere between TVOTR and D-Plan and some AC inspired electronica, features superb songwriting and nice production. Either "Brief Exposure" or "Festival" will def enter my end-of-year list
Check out the album on their myspace or even dl it from their website cause, well, it's worth attention

Young Man - Boy

jeez i guess i have quite a few.

Rene Hell - Porcelain Opera
http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/rene-hell_porcelain-opera_450.jpg

Yeah that phosphorescent is fantastic...'tell me baby have you had enough' is one of my favorite songs of the year.

I have a feeling that a lot of the Neil Young worshippers on ILM would find quite a bit to love on his new one.

i'd love to say Sun Kil Moons "Admiral Fell Promises" but it was a let down for me.

Teddybears - Devil's Music

http://nibera.ru/uploads/posts/2010-04/1271533228_asuda6q54gfxj79.jpeg

I can't really figure out why this album fell through the cracks. It's just as good as the last one, and has cameos from Eve, Cee-Lo & The B-52's (on the same song), The Flaming Lips, and a few others, but no one anywhere really ever acknowledges it.

Out of the things on here that I've heard, I would second the love for We Love, Wild Nothing and also that Rene Hell. I really liked the Sun Kil Moon album too!

Others things I've liked a lot but haven't really seen a whole lot of other excitement for here are Richard Skelton, Actress, Altar Eagle, Glasser, Bvdub, Cindytalk and Hellvete.

Most of all though, for me 2010 has been all about the These New Puritans album, so that would be my one pick.

wild nothing album is really nice if not ~outstanding~ but i think its gotten a little lost in the morass of other similar-sounding albums released around the same time

did the we love release even get north american distribution???

I wish more ppl knew about Whitesand/Badlands. Their new album is called "Seeding the Clouds"

it's gorgeous...think "leaves turn you out" era unwound but prettier and more shoegaze, with some nice touches of fender rhodes piano and trumpet in parts...

anyway i think ppl would love it, but they are mostly just a local band here in mpls.

you can order the double vinyl (great packaging/great sound) or do the whole "pay what you want" MP3 thing:

http://whitesandbadlands.com/

think "leaves turn you out" era unwound but prettier and more shoegaze, with some nice touches of fender rhodes piano

Well that certainly piques my interest!

also: it was recorded at the sacred heart recording studio in duluth, a converted church where low has done stuff....

k. michelle - what's the 901? (free mixtape, get it girl)

....my favourite r&b discovery of the year - you can KEEP your janelle monáe try-hards! - big on rough edges and real talk. "what i ain't gon do is call my pops / what i ain't gon do is call no cops / i'm no jazmine sullivan, bustin all your windows out / i'm from memphis, tennekee: imma bust you in your mouth"

See whenever you write about it lex I think "maybe if I put this on again I will absolutely adore it." And then I put it on and it's kinda ticking all these boxes and yet i'm oddly kinda underwhelmed... Not in an active "this is disappointing" sense, but in a kind of absence of surge of positive feeling sense, and after about 5 songs I'm kinda exhausted and (without judgment, just a kind of fazing out) switch over to something else. The lyrics provoke more of a "yeah!" when I read them than when I hear them.

It's like, an acquaintance who when you think about them you think "yeah they're really charismatic and interesting" but then in actual conversation with them you've really got to try hard to keep the conversation flowing, and you're not sure if it's an issue with you or them.

In this case I'm guessing the problem is me: k. michelle has honed R&B down to a thumpy attack sound (musically but even more vocally) which while I approve of in principle maybe doesn't have the regulation level of prettiness that I didn't realise I required from R&B. My fault not k. michelle's fault, because if someone described her "strategy" to me (which basically reading you talk about her six months ago was the equiv. of) I would have totally given a preliminary endorsement.

Electric Six - Zodiac

haha tim you have a tremendous gift for saying "it's not you, it's me" while implying strongly "it's you". but yeah if you require prettiness, k michelle is not for you; even in her softer moments she's basically making a screwface at you ("where they do that at"). i do think her reworking of "nothing on you" is pretty though, and she flips the inane prettiness of the original into a big-sisterly riposte. i like that she's a hard-ass, though, and i think that kind of persona is kind of fundamental to modern r&b - i mean you could call her a gullier MJB, or a grown tearra mari...

Amy Annelle - The Cimarron Banks

These are a few albums that have been released this year that I love and wish more people would talk about them:

Alessandro Bosetti - Zwölfzungen
Aboombong - Asynchronic
Monster Rally - Color Sky
Monster Rally - Palm Reader
Wild Nothing - Gemini
Nils Frahm and Anne Muller – 7fingers
Tony Conrad / C. Spencer Yeh / Michael F. Duch - Musculus Trapezius

From the list Monster Rally and Wild Nothing are probably the ones I imagine have the broader appeal.

Come to think about it I think Wild Nothing will be a token choice for many indie bloggers on their year end lists.

No implication meant lex! I always feel guilty when you say "ilx is ignoring k. michelle" because I think "really must listen to that again."

i like that she's a hard-ass, though, and i think that kind of persona is kind of fundamental to modern r&b

absolutely, the prettiness thing on my side, if true (and it's more of a guess about myself than a firm thing), is kinda perverse and not to be trusted.

what one 2010 album do you wish had a wider audience?

Alright, then my ONE 2010 album I wish had a wider audience:

Monster Rally - Color Sky

Voice of the Seven Thunders - Voice of the Seven Thunders.

there's plenty of records i love that i would like to see get more attention but the one that feels like it really *deserves* more love is the besnard lakes are the roaring night

i'm not sure whether to say chris weisman and greg davis' 'northern songs' or josephine foster's 'graphic as a star'.

steget 'forandrar allting'

virgo noir

Mathew Jonson - Agents of Time

Khaira Arby- Timbuktu Tarab

Powerful Malian female vocalist who was great live on her recent US tour

http://www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/182/Khaira+Arby,+2010

Not exactly "obscure" by any means, but I'd love to hear more talk about the Boston Spaceships album for this year, Our Cubehouse Still Rocks. One of the best things Pollard has done since GbV split and goes a long ways towards proving that he is far from losing the plot.

I also really like the Jonsi solo record.

but people hate Sigur Ros....so.

for me it would have to be :

http://blog.limewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Clandestine-Songs.jpg

but other than the bloke who runs the swedish record label that released this, i doubt anyone else cares about an old(er) nyc'r (along with a massive stellar supporting cast) still mining the fuzzed up 70s glam grooves of mott and bowie.

there was some talk of that on some thread i think? it's good? haven't heard it, but i was kid of a st. johnny fan back in the day.

i may come up with a better answer, but no one had told me the ex had released a record this year, so them, for now

^ cool--no idea! st. johnny! woot!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7hNwxLYbiCA/TFSYssm8QNI/AAAAAAAAAaU/2HjwB9fpbZY/s320/Etran.jpg

there was some talk of that on some thread i think? it's good? haven't heard it

that talk was probably me.

highlight = lower your heart

get it here (legal/free) : http://soundcloud.com/groover-recordings/sets/grand-mal-lower-yer-heart-ep

think this is late 2009 strictly speaking but didn't discover till his release on kompakt's fright label, more italians do it horror in the vein of gatekeeper
http://www.cosmicdisco.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/shadow-of-the-bloodstained-kiss-album-cover.jpg

i may come up with a better answer, but no one had told me the ex had released a record this year, so them, for now

first without g.w. sok!

blaze foley the dawg years
http://s3.amazonaws.com/fatpossum_production/public/system/release_products/images/4840/crop_290.jpg
intimate living room demos recorded in the late 70s by an austin, texas singer-songwriter who was close with most of the outlaw country movement. if you're into folk or blues or country or "alt country" or whatever, you need to put away that jamey johnson/ryan bingham record long enough to give this a spin. you will love it.

or the teengirl fantasy rec which is p.nice

Aboombong - Asynchronic

yeah this is worth hearing

William Brittelle, Television Landscape

Should've talked more about this.

Brittelle is a classically trained dude, and this is his bombastic avant-pop album. Lots of '70s-'80s soft-rock touches, big proggy guitar solos, gorgeously rich orchestration, even the occasional AutoTuned vocal. Even though everything is supposedly notated, he aims for pop accessibility, and damned if the songs don't get stuck in my craw. I think anyone who's into the most recent Owen Pallett or Ariel Pink albums might find something here to like.

Philly chamber popsters Buried Beds put out an album a few months ago which I think is fantastic. I could see them blowing up.

Also more people should listen to the EP I made this year.

against my better judgment, i wanna hear the teddybears album that johnny fever mentioned. didn't even know they had a new one out. nice cover, too!

balmorhea - constellations

"Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2" - Nachtmystium

Obvious answer, for me: BOTTOMLESS PIT - Blood Under The Bridge. When all is said and done, tied with Le Noise for my favorite (or at least most listened to) album of the year, narrowly beating out The Body, Swans, Wolfgang Voigt, Lindstrom and Christabelle, Salem, Deer Tick, Jamey Johnson and Endless Boogie. Damn, 2010 was pretty awesome.

Runners up:
Donovan Quinn & The 13th Month - Your Wicked Man (an underappreciated artist if ever there was one)
Thou - Summit (don't even see dudes on the metal threads talking about this one much)
Scout Niblett - The Calcination of... (light years beyond her earlier work - totally unique, oddly compelling record)

Also, Harlem's Hippies seconded, though I didn't like it as much as their previous album.

Will be checking out the Blaze Foley and Man's Gin albums based on cover art / recommendations here.

Thou - Summit (don't even see dudes on the metal threads talking about this one much)
"Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2" - Nachtmystium

Will vouch for the complete and utter spectacularness of both of these. Sure to figure high on any year-end list I put together.

Also--and this is going to sound stupid--but Joanna Newsom's Have One On Me.

listing one of the most hyped records of the year in this thread IS a little odd, yes

In retrospect, I take that back--not the choice to list Newsom, but the part about it sounding stupid. It doesn't. The prompt's sole stipulation was to list an album that I wish had a wider audience, and I DO wish Have One On Me had more listeners, regardless of how many it already has. I think the album deserves more. Whether or not Newsom enjoys a fairly strong fanbase or her record was critically well-received (or otherwise "hyped") is irrelevant to my reply or the logic behind it.

It seems as though, since most members of this board inevitably know who an artist like Newsom is, the impulse is to assume that most people outside of ILM are familiar with her, too. That's obviously not the case, and that's why I take issue with your reply. I grant that this thread has something to do with considerations of obscurity and so on and so forth, but that doesn't disqualify even the most visible artists from the discussion. Of course, Newsom isn't such an artist, anyway. She's still, relatively speaking, quite unheard of. My point is that she shouldn't be, and I don't think that position is unreasonable or even just "odd."

asia omega

wish more people would check out the crime in stereo and caetano veloso albums...

My fave album of the year obv:
http://www.covershut.com/covers/Crowded-House-Intriguer-Front-Cover-41803.jpg

Dustdevil & Crow: While Speaking Softly You Can Hear The Insects Sing

http://bendle.bandcamp.com/album/while-speaking-softly-you-can-hear-the-insects-sing

Pigeons - Si Faustine

Really, Geir? I'm a Crowded House fan, and have several non-ILM Crowded House fans who are friends and none of us really like that album at all. Most all of us would listen to Neil Finn fart in a microphone for 45 minutes and still prefer it to Intriguer.

Veil Veil Vanish - Change in the Neon Light. their name is gonna be the death of them but it is a great new wave/goth/pop album.

so I guess the reason there aren't ecstatic reviews & huge sales for the new Alastair Galbraith album is that it's vinyl-only. It's so good, wish more people could hear it.

Had no idea there was a new album by The Ex either!

Caetano Veloso album is indeed v v good, certainly in my top 20 for the year.

so I guess the reason there aren't ecstatic reviews & huge sales for the new Alastair Galbraith album is that it's vinyl-only. It's so good, wish more people could hear it.

I'm ecstatic.

Galbraith fans should check out bendle's work:
http://bendle.bandcamp.com/

Different, but somehow they remind me of each other.

http://insomniaradio.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/gl-300.jpg

Really, Geir? I'm a Crowded House fan, and have several non-ILM Crowded House fans who are friends and none of us really like that album at all.

I find it is the best thing he's done since "Together Alone" actually. Really strong songs, and marvellous production.

Charming Hostess - The Bowls Project

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0OE4z2ZeDEU/TI5MQqPKDII/AAAAAAAAA9c/zGgGuCoQHaE/s1600/Power+Triangle.jpg

Caetano Veloso album is indeed v v good, certainly in my top 20 for the year.

Holy hell, I did not even know about this.

kinda glad i haven't seen Mena get mentioned. would be cool if she can remain untainted, and elusive of hype. But she is no doubt pretty damn brilliant

deej what is that